[VisCom] Logo/branding effort

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Arnulf-

Sorry you weren't there this morning, as this is clearly something that we need to come to consensus on at the Foundation level -- as opposed to just talking within VisCom, or just taking a majority vote.

Have fun at tomorrow's board meeting :-)

-mpg
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Arnulf Christl [mailto:arnulf.christl at ccgis.de] 
> Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:22 AM
> To: dev at visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [VisCom] Logo/branding effort
> 
> Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
> > I have made a proposal for the logo design work here:
> >   http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/LogoProposal
> > 
> > If we (VisCom) can vote on this tomorrow, then assuming it 
> passes we can
> > give it over the board for their meeting on the 29th.
> > 
> > -mpg
> 
> Hi,
> go for it. I am so very fed up with not having proper logos 
> that anything but what we not have now is better. I have also 
> requested for proposals, one ranged at €10T one at €8T with 
> comparable content. In our high price regions this seems to 
> be the price tag. 
> 
> Sorry for the lengthy rest of this post. 
> 
> There are still some other things that I would like to 
> discuss regarding Logo use 
> (http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Logo_Use)- which has by now 
> mutated into Trademark Guidelines 
> (http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines) which 
> sort of offends me a bit. My bit, a little. Whatever.
> 
> There has been some talk on whether we need to enforce usage 
> of OSGeo with (tm) or (r). I have asked several times why 
> this would seem a requirement and brought up some reasons on 
> why I think it is not required but the issue was never resolved. 
> 
> Ubuntu policy (http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/TrademarkPolicy) 
> is less complicated and enforcing with regard to adding the 
> (tm) or (r) than Mozilla thus I like it more. I suggest to 
> remove the tm/r bit from: 
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines.
> Done. ((I am unhappy at deleting other people's thoughts, 
> blabla and please do not feel offended - in the end it is 
> just a Wiki...))
> 
> This article on Wikipedia differentiates trademark rights 
> "use and registration":
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Establishing_trademark_
> rights_.E2.80.94_use_and_registration
> 
> From Wikipedia:
> ''
> The law considers a trademark to be a form of property. 
> Proprietary rights in relation to a trademark may be 
> established through actual use in the marketplace, or through 
> registration of the mark with the trade marks office (or 
> "trademarks registry") of a particular jurisdiction. In many 
> jurisdictions, trademark rights can be established through 
> either or both means. Certain jurisdictions generally do not 
> recognise trademarks rights arising through use (e.g. China). 
> If trademark owners do not hold registrations for their marks 
> in such jurisdictions, the extent to which they will be able 
> to enforce their rights through trademark infringement 
> proceedings will therefore be limited.
> ''
> 
> Having the words "property" and "Proprietary rights" 
> mentioned twice in the first dozen words shows in what realms 
> we are moving. I don't believe that it will be necessary for 
> OSGeo "to enforce their rights through trademark infringement 
> proceedings". I simply cannot imagine that anybody would get 
> anything at all out of misusing our Logo for any prolonged 
> stretch of time. ((Having tm/r there or not does not make any 
> difference with espect to the amount of back checking that we 
> need to do)) It will only ruin the potential offender's 
> reputation for quite a while. OSGeo only exists as it does 
> because there is a large user base and OSGeo is NOT for 
> profit. The situation is therefore very different to that of 
> a commercial company trying to fight on the marketplace 
> against another competitor with comparable products and 
> services. OSGeo very explicitly says that it will *not* work 
> (compete) against other existing initiatives but try to 
> connect and collaborate. From this perspective 
> the idea of somebody "stealing" the logo to make profit on 
> the expense of OSGeo becomes rather negligible. Same is true 
> for the communities we are delivering our goods. We do not 
> compete with Microsoft for billions of browser users and 
> predominance of the world.
> 
> This does not mean that we can just forget about defining in 
> which context the logo and term OSGeo / OSGeo.org etc. are to 
> be used. We need to have a very clear (make it simple) 
> guideline that people understand without having to ask a 
> lawyer. But I do not support the idea of relying on the beast 
> that we are fighting with the Free and Open Source idea. This 
> simply does not make sense. 
> 
> == Services Related to OSGeo Software ==
> This aspect of logo use is highly interesting to service 
> providers and closely related to the bold company listing 
> that is being discussed elsewhere and starts to grow on the 
> Drupal portal. 
> 
> I believe that this is going to be one of the natural and 
> powerful branding multipliers for OSGeo visibility. Once 
> people identify the OSGeo logo with some kind of 'certified' 
> (insert other wording) services it will be a 'fast-selling 
> item'. Just look at the CCGIS homepage and what do you see? 
> The OGC logo :-( ...but not OSGeo because we cannot do it as 
> there is no guideline yet. We (as a company) need more 
> guidance on this and I am not going to get involved in 
> designing the process / policy to avoid conflicting interests. 
> 
> == Logos and Merchandise ==
> I don't think that merchandise actually is "that's how we 
> make some of the money that keeps us around." We are very 
> different in dimension compared to Mozilla. They might make 
> some income but we don't and likely never will. Our user base 
> is just too small. Additionally I would suggest to remove the 
> unique selling point CafePress. Its good that we have it but 
> there are other remote places where people might want to use 
> OSGeo shirts and can get them a lot cheaper than having to 
> ship them around the world. ((I am just imagining CafePress 
> shirts being produced in China with fibers from Brazil, 
> colors from Germany, someone sticking it into a package in 
> the US shipping it back to China. We are not that mad, are we?))
> 
> Last but not least I will try to add the [[Category:Trademark 
> Policy]] to all pages referring to logo, branding, linking, 
> etc. We need to clean that out and come up with a stable 
> version that can be approved by the board and moved to the 
> Drupal Portal.
> 
> Best regards, 
> Arnulf. 
> 
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