Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Le jeudi 21 novembre 2013, à 11:27 +0000, Allan Day a écrit :
> Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org> wrote:
> > > Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org> wrote:
> > > > I for one am not happy with this situation. I remember that, years ago,
> > > > Luis wanted to find an alternative way which wouldn't imply these strict
> > > > guidelines. But to be honest, if there's no other way, then I think I'd
> > > > like to question the need to trademark the logo.
> > >
> > > Can you clarify a bit? You think that anyone should be able to use the
> > > logo in any way?
> >
> > I think that if our trademark guidelines restrict too much our extended
> > community (by extended, I mean groups like downstreams, LUGs, etc.),
> > then things are broken.
>
> I guess that depends on what you mean by "too much". We certainly
> don't want to be draconian about it (an aside: any trademark usage
> issues I have been involved in have been dealt with in a friendly
> manner). At the same time, I think it is desirable to have guidelines
> which help people to use the logo and name effectively.

Oh sure, all cases I'm aware of have been dealt with in a friendly
manner but ... (see below)

> > This could be because the guidelines are unnecessarily too strict or
> > because the trademark requires too strict guidelines, in which case the
> > trademark is actually hurting us, probably more than it protects us.
>
> Do we have examples of the guidelines "hurting us"?

I can think of groups simply choosing to not use the GNOME logo anymore
because they're afraid of not respecting the guidelines. If I was
completely new to the community, and I'd read the guidelines, I'd simply
think that it's simpler to not use the logo at all. I'd not even ask...

This hurts because I can imagine local groups not doing stickers,
flyers, etc. because they'd be afraid of the guidelines. Back in the
days when we started GNOME-FR, there were no guidelines so we went crazy
and did many different things; we wouldn't have done all that with the
current guidelines.

> In the Ubuntu GNOME case, I think it's fair to ask about the logo,
> irrespective of the trademark guidelines. Their logo [1] is
> essentially the same as the GNOME logo itself; some differentiation
> seems beneficial for both them and us. We don't have to be unfriendly
> about it, but then a dialogue about how they can help to support the
> GNOME brand doesn't seem like a bad thing.

Of course it's fair, but to be honest, I'm fine with them using our
logo. Fedora and openSUSE both use our logo too:
  http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options#desktops
  http://software.opensuse.org/131/en

Sure, the context is slightly different, because you see all the flavors
on the same page for Fedora and openSUSE, while it's not the case for
Ubuntu GNOME. But it feels the same.

Note that I've not discussed to the Ubuntu GNOME people, and they might
be perfectly happy changing the logo (because it'd help them build their
identity, for instance). But if they like the current logo, then I see
that as beneficial to GNOME.

Cheers,

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.