To my mind, this is all about the difference between "asking for permission vs asking for forgiveness".

Linux has thrived, in part, because people have acted first and asked for forgiveness later.

Personally I think the current logos are fine, but if the community feels that they want to change them, let them come up with alternatives that be submitted to Suse as suggestions. Suse have every right to refuse the submissions, but who knows, someone out there might come out with the perfect logo. 

On the other hand, I think that money is better spent on events and infrastructure than trademark lawyers... but having enough for both would be even better ;)

/p

-- 

-----Original message-----
From: ddemaio openSUSE <ddemaio@opensuse.org>
Sent: Monday 11th December 2023 8:58
To: Richard Brown <rbrown@suse.de>
Cc: project@lists.opensuse.org; Gerald Pfeifer <gp@suse.com>
Subject: Re: Board Member vs Community Member

On 2023-12-09 09:52, Richard Brown wrote:
> On 2023-12-08 10:18, Douglas DeMaio wrote:
> 
> Have a look at every single reddit, telegram, twitter, or matrix
> discussion on the topic and you will find words from others than
> myself also either echoing similar concerns or just outright disliking
> the idea of changing the logo. I find this latest email from you to be
> obscenely patronising and unbecoming of an openSUSE Board member who
> is meant to represent the wishes of the Project as a whole, and
> especially it's voting membership.

Please explain to me the difference between acting as a board member vs 
acting as a community member? I certainly don't speak on behalf of the 
board with this.

If the suggestion is that my position within the project infringes too 
much or carries too much influence on this decision, let the marketing 
team from Telegram drive it. I'll certainly take a backseat to the 
process and discussion going forward.

> 
>> And with the trademark aspects, that statement is there for a reason.
>> The phrase "If you don't know, you better ask somebody" isn't just
>> military jargon. Silence on the trademark for the month between the
>> submissions and time to vote isn't being railroaded in my opinion;
>> there was certainly a sufficient amount of time.
> 
> It took several years from initiating discussions on trademarking
> Kubic before it progressed.
> As I have repeatedly pointed out on several other venues, every single
> change, alteration, or addition to the openSUSE trademark has also
> been a process lasting several years.
> If you think a month is a good time for a topic of this complexity,
> then frankly, I think you're unfit to be driving this matter, and I
> respectfully request that Gerald take the lead, giving his
> professional responsibility as Chairperson.

Point taken. I don't shy away from criticism and this conversation goes 
as far back as 2019? What do others think?

v/r
Doug