Re: [Fwd: Question about the trademark policy and usage of the GNOME logo]

[Bryen M Yunashko <a11yrocks bryen com>]

On Mon, 2012-04-16 at 23:43 -0400, Karen Sandler wrote:
> I'm catching up on my queue from all of the travel I've had, and one of
> the items that was on my to do list was to follow up on this trademark
> request.
>
> I (and the board) think in this instance the trademark request is
> something that the marketing team should weigh in on. Check out the
> attached image for the proposed sticker. While I like the sticker a lot
> and think it's well designed, it maybe touches on some bigger questions
> about the GNOME brand and how we want to market ourselves.
>
> This says "Powered by GNOME" and I know that some folks wanted us to shy
> away from using terms like that or "GNOME Technologies", though I think
> it's also necessary to provide ways for folks to say that there are GNOME
> components involved in their products to help people understand how useful
> GNOME is.
>
> Allan Day and I had a long discussion about some issues connected to this
> at FOSDEM (with Dave Neary and Emily Gonyer too) but it was impossible to
> come to any quick conclusions there.
>
> This is a narrower request, so maybe we don't need to tackle the huge
> questions now, but what do you think about this?
>
> I think it's kind of a neat way of handling our problem (though I'd of
> course ask them to include the "TM", etc to comply with our policy - so
> don't worry about that part).
>
> thanks!
> karen

At openSUSE, we have a similar system label that we distribute at FOSS
events.  They're quite popular as people love to put them over the
Windows system label that comes with most PCs.  I don't see a problem
with GNOME having a similar label.  I also have a system label with Tux
Penguin on it.  I'm personally looking forward to getting my hands on a
GNOME system label once its available.

I say go for it and I hope at some point GNOME Foundation also includes
these labels in the GNOME booth kit.  It's relatively inexpensive to
print these rolls in bulk and easy to transport to events.

Bryen



> ---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
> Subject: Question about the trademark policy and usage of the GNOME logo
> From:    "info nixstickers com" <info nixstickers com>
> Date:    Mon, March 26, 2012 8:14 am
> To:      licensing gnome org
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi,
>
> Concerning the GNOME trademark policy:
> https://live.gnome.org/Foundation/LicensingGuidelines
>
> I'm Teemu Otala from NixStickers.com (site still under construction).
> NixStickers.com will be a webshop where one can purchase reasonable priced
> OpenSource related stickers; *nix like distros, software (Apache, Tomcat,
> etc) and programming languages (Python, Perl, etc). The selection will
> depend on the responses/approvals from the trademark/logo owners.
> Estimated price for a sticker is around 0.70-1 euros at the moment.
> The idea is to raise the awareness of OpenSource software with fashionable
> stickers that developers and users can use to decorate their hardware.
> The site is not non-profit, but it is not really about making money either
> as this site is more of a hobby for me.
>
> I would like to request your permission to use GNOME logo and perhaps text
> GNOME (with R) on a sticker - see attached file for early draft version.
> Could you please respond if this request can be approved even partially,
> and if so what should be changed in the sticker design.
>
> The original idea is to get these ready for LinuxTag2012 in Berlin, I
> would like to visit GNOME stand to give out some free GNOME stickers.
>
> Best Regards,
>
>   Teemu Otala
>   +358-40-841 6966