Ben Finney <ben+debian <at> benfinney.id.au> writes: > Uoti Urpala <uoti.urpala <at> pp1.inet.fi> writes: > > A trademark owner may trust the processes used by the Debian project > > to produce results that meet their quality criteria, and may be able > > to monitor the versions actually released by Debian and withdraw the > > right to use the trademark should Debian change in a direction that > > harms users. > > That statement implies a contradiction: that the trademark holder trusts > the Debian project's processes, and does not trust the Debian project's > processes.
No, rather the trademark holder trusts Debian processes as they currently work, but does not trust them to keep working the same way indefinitely into the future. > This highlights that a trademark is not about trust, I think. > > > There's no way a trademark owner would trust random people or > > organizations they don't even know about, nor is it possible to > > maintain quality control over those. Thus, I think it would make sense > > to have arrangements allowing Debian specifically to modify the > > software in ways deemed necessary by the project without asking > > permission for each individual change. Downstreams would have to > > either distribute the code unchanged, seek a similar arrangement with > > the trademark owner, or rebrand. > > If so, then the Debian project would accept a critical freedom in the > work that is not transferred to Debian recipients. That's unacceptable, > by my understanding of the social contract. What part of it? If you're referring to DFSG #8, i don't see how that'd apply (extracting the program from Debian would not change anything). > > IMO attempts to apply the DFSG requirements to trademarks are > > fundamentally flawed. > A restriction is still a restriction whether implemented by copyright, > trademark, contract, threats of violence, or back-room deals. Attempts > to accept restrictions solely because of how they are implemented are > fundamentally flawed, IMO. You seem to think this would result in restrictions beyond those allowed by the DFSG. But DFSG #4 already allows rebranding requirements. So this is NOT a question of whether the result would directly violate the DFSG. Any form of trademark license for modified code is beyond the minimum required by DFSG. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/loom.20120221t001942-...@post.gmane.org
