We had a couple of discussions in the past about how to improve the openSUSE
trademark guidelines (see e.g.
http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Trademark_guidelines or
https://features.opensuse.org/311039). One of the main issues with the current
guidelines is that it's very strict about derivatives, and doesn't easily
allow people using openSUSE as a base for their own systems, to keep a visible
association with openSUSE.
So attached is a proposal how to adapt the trademark guidelines and provide a
better solution to this issue. It also contains a few smaller clarifications.
It's based on the input I was able to gather from the Wiki, openFATE, mailing
lists and some personal feedback. It's a draft, so feedback is welcome.
The central change is to allow people to create variants of openSUSE and use a
"Based on openSUSE" branding under more liberal conditions than now. We would
provide a specific branding for that, which keeps the relation to openSUSE,
but is done in a way to not be confused with the branding of the official
openSUSE distribution. Technically this would be a set of branding packages,
which can be used instead of the default branding of the official
distribution.
Please let me know, if there is additional feedback on the proposed changes,
so we can incorporate that, and then move forward with getting the needed
approvals to officially adopt the improved guidelines. In parallel to that we
can look into doing the proposed branding packages.
Attached is the proposed text for the revised guidelines, and the diff to the
current official version.
--
Cornelius Schumacher