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
--
--------------------------------
Patrick Fitzgerald All Support queries to: isupport@i-layer.com mailto:isupport@i-layer.com
-----Original message-----
From: ddemaio openSUSE
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
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. -- 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
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
Best regards,
Thorsten
--
Thorsten Bro
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
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
On 2023-12-12 09:17, Lil Frogg wrote:
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.
If openSUSE was to practically abandon it's trademarked logo, then it could potentially be reused by others, claiming (understandably so) that it's been clearly abandoned by openSUSE. Given the very term "openSUSE" contains the term "SUSE", which is another trademark owned by SUSE, this gets very messy very quickly. Common sense dictates that SUSE need to make sure that their trademark(s) are always clearly maintained, legally defensible, and never at risk. So no, I think the main brand/logo of openSUSE will likely have to remain as registered trademarks as long as the project has the word "SUSE" in it's name. -- 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
participants (4)
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Thorsten Bro | openSUSE Member