Re: Brand Guidelines Update

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Brian Cameron wrote:
> Allan:
>
> We typically have our lawyers review official documents that relate to
> legal issues such as trademark before we make changes to them.  Is this
> because the Wiki version of our Guidelines is not yet official?  Most
> official GNOME legal documents should probably be in
> http://foundation.gnome.org/licensing.  The Wiki makes more sense for
> draft documents.  I am not trying to pick on you Allan since I know
> The GNOME Foundation has not been so good about keeping our fgo website
> up-to-date. (e.g. bugzilla bugs #629334, #644932 for two examples of
> issues with just the licensing page).

I wasn't aware that the brand guidelines are official or legal
documents. They are guidelines. Maybe the foundation should bless them
with officialdom... I'm not sure what that would achieve though.

> At any rate, can you also ask the legal-list gnome org mailing list to
> encourage our legal experts to also review these changes?

I'll certainly check with our legal advisors. That said, I don't think
I've made any changes that will have gone against our trademarks. I
haven't touched the sections on the logo, for instance.

> My personal thoughts are that I think it is good for the Brand
> Guidelines to highlight GNOME 3, to discuss any particular guidelines
> that relate to using the GNOME brand with GNOME 3, differences in how
> the brand should be used with GNOME 3 versus earlier versions of GNOME,
> etc.
>
> However, I think statements like "The principle product that is
> produced by the GNOME Project is GNOME 3" and "GNOME is a word in and
> of itself. It primarily refers to the GNOME Project, designating the
> organization which produces GNOME 3, GNOME Applications and GNOME
> Developer Technologies." may need some rewording (e.g. "principle"
> or "primarily" only associated with version 3 of GNOME).

I could add 'GNOME 2' as a term, but wouldn't that be rather backwards
looking? I'm not sure how much sense it makes to build a brand around
what we've done in the past. It's what we're doing and where we're going
that count.

> Why do we want to use language that may even give the appearance of
> limiting how the GNOME community can reasonably use its own brand?

The consistent use of terminology and visual imagery is a vital part of
building a brand. The guidelines are intended to encourage people to
promote the GNOME brand in the same way as the HIG is supposed to help
people design usable interfaces.

Allan
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