On Sun, Oct 05, 2003 at 05:48:42PM -0400, Eric Sharkey wrote:
> > [ You e-mailed me privately, so I'll keep it that way. But I'll remove
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] to keep Manoj's INBOX smaller. ]
>
> You can quote/forward me anywhere if you like. devel-announce is supposed
> to be very low traffic, so I didn't want to include that list.
I'll post this to debian-project then. I presume that you will
read it there.
> > It is, I think, non-trivial to remove the logo from Debian right
> > now. It's in quite a few places, and does not always refer to the
> > Debian project. Sometimes, it is just ornamentation that looks nice.
>
> Can you give an example? I can't recall ever seeing the logo used
> in a Debian package in a way that doesn't (by some interpretation)
> refer to Debian. The only non-Debian usage that I recall was that
> brouhaha caused by a retailer (?) using a flipped and rotated blue
> version.
It's in GNOME, KDE, some wallpaper, and some icons. I think
it's in some graphical package management tools as well.
> When a program is written with the intent to run on Debian, and that
> program includes the logo ornamentally, it is still referring to Debian.
> It's like a little mini advertisement. You may not assume that the
> Debian is endorsing the program, but you can assume that the author of
> the program is endorsing Debian.
That's because all these people are using it acceptable. But
that doesn't mean that our logo is _free software_. For reference,
please read the debian-legal thread I linked to.
> > In any case, the logo violates DFSG 8, so that trumps the
> > affordance given by DFSG 4. If I extracted it from Debian and used it
> > to refer to something else, I would be disallowed from modifying it.
>
> Again, that's not how I interpret it. The logo license says the logo has
> to refer to Debian, not that it can't be distributed separately from
> Debian. I don't see the violation here. DFSG 8 says that everyone
> else has to play by the same rules that Debian does, and that seems ok
> here.
Well, that's a simplification. But Debian can modify the logo
to refer to something else, say goldfish, while other people cannot. So
the playing field isn't open, so it isn't DFSG-free.
Simon
