If the button logo already isn't trademarked and I'd say it by this point may have already widely superseded the original logo in terms of frequency of use and recognition, then I'm not sure I understand what all the fuss is about.
What then would prevent the community from using the new voted on logo in the same way as the button is used now, even without a trademark change? What would the downsides of that be? Because from what I can tell they didn't really come up when the button was used.
On December 11, 2023 12:47:06 PM GMT+01:00, Richard Brown
On 2023-12-11 12:39, Thorsten Bro | openSUSE Member wrote:
Hi all,
Am 2023-12-11 11:58, schrieb Richard Brown:
On 2023-12-11 11:32, Patrick Fitzgerald wrote:
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 ;)
I think something as important to the project as its legal identity is too risky to be playing fast and loose with. Permission absolutely should be found rather than seeking forgiveness over a topic of this magnitude.
And we have 8000+ votes now for something SUSE will totally have the right to ignore..that would be a waste of a lot of peoples efforts, which I think is more valuable than any amount of money...but that's the path we've found ourselves on with things being pushed first and only considered later.
Sorry to say, but here is the reality check - Community 1 - Trademark lawyers 0 - some of them even created by SUSE employees *shocking news*.
- https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Testing_Core_team - https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Weekly_news_team - https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Medical_team - https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Release_team - https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:SoCalSUSE - https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:ALP/ArchitectureTeam - https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Education_team - https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Heroes - https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Video (yup, that was me, and I even got agreement by the board for it)
=) community projects must be hard for lawyers
Reality check
the vast majority of those logos are utilising the 'Button' brand, which was intentionally NOT trademarked to allow a much more liberal use, reuse, and modification of it, without needing to request anything from the Board (The trademark guidelines applies to the Trademarks..obviously..)
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Artwork_brand#Buttons
"The round button can be freely colored and combined with other graphical elements to form spinners or project logos. It is also allowed to give it custom color treatment."
But the core point at hand here is that a vote has been triggered under the premise of changing the Project's main logo
The project's main logo is not based on the "Buttons" logo, but is a formally, legally, registered trademark, owned by SUSE.
And so, I think SUSE's formal, public, consent should be clearly given to the Project before we go replacing their logo, with clear parameters of what sort of new logo would be acceptable and what not.
It's their brand, not ours, we just get to use it.
-- Richard Brown Distributions Architect SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH, Frankenstraße 146, D-90461 Nuremberg, Germany (HRB 36809, AG Nürnberg) Managing Directors/Geschäftsführer: Ivo Totev, Andrew McDonald, Werner Knoblich