Re: [Gimp-user] [Gimp-developer] What next after sourceforge.net?

[Øyvind Kolås <pippin gimp org>]

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 9:43 AM, Kevin Brubeck Unhammer
<unhammer fsfe org> wrote:
> Is trademarking completely out of the question? I see not only Firefox,
> but ImageMagick, Inkscape, GNOME, GNU and Linux in
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trademarked_open-source_software –
> Inkscape being of similar "size" to GIMP, does anyone know how much work
> it cost them to register their trademark, and how much it costs them to
> keep it?
>
> Reading through
> https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/foss-primer.html#x1-60000k5
> it doesn't look too bad in terms of money. (The whole section on
> trademarks there is worth reading.)
>
> Also, it seems you may in fact call it GIMP™ already, since you have
> certain "unregistered rights" to the trademark just because GIMP has
> been used by this project as a trademark in practice. (But "®" requires
> registering.)
>
> If you have a trademark, but never object to anyone using it in
> commercial/confusing settings, it might get lost. But you can avoid
> having to explicitly say yes to every distro and similar "good usage" by
> having a simple license like GNOME does:
> https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/FoundationBoard/Resources/LicensingGuidelines
> See also https://www.gnome.org/logo-and-trademarks/

GIMP has existed for two decades in a decentralized ad-hoc manner
without needing to incorporate as a legal person/entity in either the
US or elsewhere. I hope it is possible for community based software
projects to exist and to defend against bullying or misrepresentation
without incorporating in various markets/territories.

/pippin