On 03/04/2009 05:43 AM, Martin Schlander wrote:
I'm a little unhappy with the "Publications" part. I think it's a bit too restrictive to have people ask permission for using the word "openSUSE" in the title of a publication. People should be encouraged to write as much about openSUSE as possible imo.
We're all about having people write about openSUSE, but it's fairly standard practice to require permission to use marks in publication titles. If someone puts out something like "The openSUSE Administration Guide" there's a fair chance of confusion over whether that's a product of the openSUSE Project, or if it's the product of a unaffiliated author.
I have been considering translating it to English, and possibly also getting in touch with a Danish publisher and maybe getting it published in pamphlet format - but now it seems I'd either have to not include "openSUSE" in title, or undergo "Novell censorship".
Let's not be dramatic. Throwing around words like "censorship" doesn't help anyone, and that's very far from what Novell or the openSUSE Project are trying to do. We have a fairly lightweight process, and we're trying to be as open possible while still protecting the mark so it isn't diluted or invalid. If you'd like to publish something with openSUSE in the title, please send a note to permission@novell.com and we'll deal with it as quickly as possible. Odds are, by the time you've gotten to the point of getting a publisher's interest, you'll have the answer - which is most likely going to be a "yes." Also, a lot of publishers are probably going to feel better about having official approval anyway. Finally, as I said when this was announced, this is a first release of the policy, not the final word. If there's something that should be changed, feel free to suggest it on the v2 wiki page here: http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE_Trademark_Guidelines_v2 We'll be revising the guidelines after we have a better picture of what people want to do and what works best. Best, Zonker -- Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier jzb@zonker.net http://www.dissociatedpress.net/ Twitter/Identi.ca: jzb -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org