Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
Hi everyone :) On Sun, Nov 24, 2013 at 07:51:18PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote: By that standard, Fedora isn't 'GNOME' either (would any distro be shipping GNOME at that point?) Firefox and LibreOffice are installed defaults in Fedora: There is no Fedora GNOME, right? Then I think the situation there is different. I don't think that not shipping (some parts of) GNOME, or patched versions thereof is problematic. From my understanding, calling it GNOME is, from a trademark perspective. Especially if the name GNOME is combined with another product's name. The problem is, IIUC, twofold: Is it (legally) possible to have the GNOME brand diluted now while still being able to defend it later? And do we, as a community, actually want our brand to be diluted? I am very happy to have the second question discussed here. My stance is that I am happy for them (or anyone) to include GNOME in their product. They have permission (IIRC) to name it something GNOME. So it's a different product, i.e. not GNOME. I am happy if they use our logo. I'd be more happy if they also silghtly modify the logo as they slightly modified the name. I assume it's relatively low effort and helps us to defend improper usage in the future and them to differentiate their product. If it's not low effor to slightly modify the logo, then I might come to a different conclusion. It really sounds like, to me, GNOME should talk to a trademark lawyer and/or someone experienced with brand management. I've heard we have someone competent on staff ;-) Cheers, Tobi ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
Hi, On 11/25/2013 10:35 AM, Tobias Mueller wrote: There is no Fedora GNOME, right? Then I think the situation there is different. Only because you declare it so. It is the same issue (what is GNOME? When do we desire/require differentiation?). I don't think that not shipping (some parts of) GNOME, or patched versions thereof is problematic. Phew. Thank god for that. For a while there I was worried GNOME might not be free software any more. /joke From my understanding, calling it GNOME is, from a trademark perspective. Especially if the name GNOME is combined with another product's name. The problem is, IIUC, twofold: Is it (legally) possible to have the GNOME brand diluted now while still being able to defend it later? And do we, as a community, actually want our brand to be diluted? In your question is a premise (a) that GNOME has a brand (whatever that is), (b) that this brand is valuable in some sense, and (c) that it is concentrated - ie. that we can clearly define what GNOME is, and point to something else as diluting the brand. I don't accept the premise. GNOME, for some people, represents a specific set of projects integrated together. For others, it represents an entire soup to nuts user experience stack, including themes, fonts, system components, etc. For others, it's basically a GTK+ based desktop environment. So I would dispute whether the GNOME brand is as concentrated or valuable as it was (say) 5 years ago. Next: Do Ubuntu GNOME or Fedora's GNOME represent dilutions of the GNOME brand? Only in the sense that people using our software results in dilutions of the brand. We called Maemo and Sugar GNOME-based a few years ago. Ubuntu was GNOME based until Unity. The hard line our way or the highway view of GNOME is a recent phenomenon. I suggest that this position has not resulted in the growth of the GNOME brand. I think maybe GNOME is now at a point where let a thousand flowers bloom, and welcome anyone who is happy to use the GNOME label who has any relationship with GNOME, would be a better strategy. Reaching out to Cinnamon, MATE, even XFCE, and welcoming them (if they want to come, and it's unclear that they would) under the GNOME banner may be the best way to make the GNOME brand relevant in future. My stance is that I am happy for them (or anyone) to include GNOME in their product. They have permission (IIRC) to name it something GNOME. So it's a different product, i.e. not GNOME. I am happy if they use our logo. I'd be more happy if they also silghtly modify the logo as they slightly modified the name. I assume it's relatively low effort and helps us to defend improper usage in the future and them to differentiate their product. If it's not low effor to slightly modify the logo, then I might come to a different conclusion. I totally agree Toby. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary, Lyon, France Email: dne...@gnome.org Jabber: nea...@gmail.com ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: My stance is that I am happy for them (or anyone) to include GNOME in their product. They have permission (IIRC) to name it something GNOME. So it's a different product, i.e. not GNOME. I am happy if they use our logo. I'd be more happy if they also silghtly modify the logo as they slightly modified the name. I assume it's relatively low effort and helps us to defend improper usage in the future and them to differentiate their product. If it's not low effor to slightly modify the logo, then I might come to a different conclusion. I totally agree Toby. This is pretty much my position, although I'd probably weight my preference for modifying the logo a bit more strongly. (There's clearly been some miscommunication here.) Of course Ubuntu GNOME should be able to use the logo - I was just arguing that they shouldn't *just* use the GNOME logo [1]. Allan [1] It's a useful thought exercise to think about what would happen if openSUSE (to pick an example) wanted to launch openSUSE GNOME, btw. In this case they'd differentiate themselves from Ubuntu GNOME, etc... ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider [ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, [ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. If they are replacing upstream pieces with distribution ones, we may not want that new set to be seen as GNOME because users might be led into believing some issues they encounter come from our software when that might not be the case. That's a coherent consideration, but the question is, how important is it? What do we want to avoid? Is it that they might blame us for bugs? Is it that they might blame us for a UI they don't like? Is it that they might not realize we have a spreadsheet other than the one in OpenOffice or LibreOffice? -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 7:20 AM, Allan Day allanp...@gmail.com wrote: Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: My stance is that I am happy for them (or anyone) to include GNOME in their product. They have permission (IIRC) to name it something GNOME. So it's a different product, i.e. not GNOME. I am happy if they use our logo. I'd be more happy if they also silghtly modify the logo as they slightly modified the name. I assume it's relatively low effort and helps us to defend improper usage in the future and them to differentiate their product. If it's not low effor to slightly modify the logo, then I might come to a different conclusion. I totally agree Toby. This is pretty much my position, although I'd probably weight my preference for modifying the logo a bit more strongly. (There's clearly been some miscommunication here.) Of course Ubuntu GNOME should be able to use the logo - I was just arguing that they shouldn't *just* use the GNOME logo [1]. And, once again, I have to ask, how much different does it have/need to be? It is slightly different already, in Ubuntu's normal scheme for spinoffs - if you look at Xubuntu's logo its a solid circle with the XFCE mouse inside in relief, Kubuntu's is a solid circle with KDE's logo inside. This is the standard Ubuntu flavor logo. Why does Ubuntu GNOME's need to be different? Allan [1] It's a useful thought exercise to think about what would happen if openSUSE (to pick an example) wanted to launch openSUSE GNOME, btw. In this case they'd differentiate themselves from Ubuntu GNOME, etc... ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list -- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
Hi. On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 09:03:34AM -0500, Emily Gonyer wrote: And, once again, I have to ask, how much different does it have/need to be? I don't think any designer would want my advice as to how to make a logo. But I am very confident that minor modifications such as using the Ubuntu circle instead of a plain filled circle would make all of us happy. It is slightly different already, in Ubuntu's normal scheme for spinoffs - if you look at Xubuntu's logo its a solid circle with the XFCE mouse inside in relief I claim false facts. The XFCE logo seems to be this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Xfce_logo.png A full bodied, potentially running mouse in front of an X. The Xubuntu logo seems to be that one: http://xubuntu.org/wp-content/themes/xubuntu-theme/xubuntu-wp/images/xubuntu-logo.png It's a (probably the XFCE) mouse's head in a filled circle. So the logos differ. Kubuntu's is a solid circle with KDE's logo inside. The KDE logo http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Guidelines/CIG/KDE_Logo is a K gear. The Kubuntu logo http://www.kubuntu.org/themes/kubuntu10.04/logo.png has a split gear-wheel only. The K is missing. Thus, the logos differ. Cheers, Tobi ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 9:30 AM, Tobias Mueller mue...@cryptobitch.de wrote: Hi. On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 09:03:34AM -0500, Emily Gonyer wrote: And, once again, I have to ask, how much different does it have/need to be? I don't think any designer would want my advice as to how to make a logo. But I am very confident that minor modifications such as using the Ubuntu circle instead of a plain filled circle would make all of us happy. It is slightly different already, in Ubuntu's normal scheme for spinoffs - if you look at Xubuntu's logo its a solid circle with the XFCE mouse inside in relief I claim false facts. The XFCE logo seems to be this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Xfce_logo.png A full bodied, potentially running mouse in front of an X. The Xubuntu logo seems to be that one: http://xubuntu.org/wp-content/themes/xubuntu-theme/xubuntu-wp/images/xubuntu-logo.png It's a (probably the XFCE) mouse's head in a filled circle. So the logos differ. Kubuntu's is a solid circle with KDE's logo inside. The KDE logo http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Guidelines/CIG/KDE_Logo is a K gear. The Kubuntu logo http://www.kubuntu.org/themes/kubuntu10.04/logo.png has a split gear-wheel only. The K is missing. Thus, the logos differ. Alright. So how about this. We chop the toes off of the foot, so its not quite the same. Will that work for you? Of course not. That'd be 'bad design'. This nit picking is what makes people hate GNOME. What makes people (good people!) throw up their arms and say screw it! Cause' trying to work with GNOME isn't worth it - its far more hassle than its worth, and far easier/better/simpler to just fork and move on. As Cinnamon and Elementary have done. Or avoid (whenever possible) acknowledging that they're using portions of GNOME as XFCE is. As Dave pointed out, back a few yrs ago, people who were using only portions of GNOME were happily included in the GNOME family. But now GNOME insists on drawing utterly arbitrary and constantly shifting lines in the sand as to what constitutes 'GNOME'. Its ridiculous. Its spiteful, and above all its counter productive. Cheers, Tobi -- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
Harsh, but true. Thanks for summing up :D On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 4:48 PM, Emily Gonyer emilyyr...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 9:30 AM, Tobias Mueller mue...@cryptobitch.de wrote: Hi. On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 09:03:34AM -0500, Emily Gonyer wrote: And, once again, I have to ask, how much different does it have/need to be? I don't think any designer would want my advice as to how to make a logo. But I am very confident that minor modifications such as using the Ubuntu circle instead of a plain filled circle would make all of us happy. It is slightly different already, in Ubuntu's normal scheme for spinoffs - if you look at Xubuntu's logo its a solid circle with the XFCE mouse inside in relief I claim false facts. The XFCE logo seems to be this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Xfce_logo.png A full bodied, potentially running mouse in front of an X. The Xubuntu logo seems to be that one: http://xubuntu.org/wp-content/themes/xubuntu-theme/xubuntu-wp/images/xubuntu-logo.png It's a (probably the XFCE) mouse's head in a filled circle. So the logos differ. Kubuntu's is a solid circle with KDE's logo inside. The KDE logo http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Guidelines/CIG/KDE_Logo is a K gear. The Kubuntu logo http://www.kubuntu.org/themes/kubuntu10.04/logo.png has a split gear-wheel only. The K is missing. Thus, the logos differ. Alright. So how about this. We chop the toes off of the foot, so its not quite the same. Will that work for you? Of course not. That'd be 'bad design'. This nit picking is what makes people hate GNOME. What makes people (good people!) throw up their arms and say screw it! Cause' trying to work with GNOME isn't worth it - its far more hassle than its worth, and far easier/better/simpler to just fork and move on. As Cinnamon and Elementary have done. Or avoid (whenever possible) acknowledging that they're using portions of GNOME as XFCE is. As Dave pointed out, back a few yrs ago, people who were using only portions of GNOME were happily included in the GNOME family. But now GNOME insists on drawing utterly arbitrary and constantly shifting lines in the sand as to what constitutes 'GNOME'. Its ridiculous. Its spiteful, and above all its counter productive. Cheers, Tobi -- Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. - Goethe Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr.Seuss Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
On Mon, 2013-11-25 at 10:48 -0500, Emily Gonyer wrote: On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 9:30 AM, Tobias Mueller mue...@cryptobitch.de wrote: Hi. On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 09:03:34AM -0500, Emily Gonyer wrote: And, once again, I have to ask, how much different does it have/need to be? I don't think any designer would want my advice as to how to make a logo. But I am very confident that minor modifications such as using the Ubuntu circle instead of a plain filled circle would make all of us happy. It is slightly different already, in Ubuntu's normal scheme for spinoffs - if you look at Xubuntu's logo its a solid circle with the XFCE mouse inside in relief I claim false facts. The XFCE logo seems to be this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Xfce_logo.png A full bodied, potentially running mouse in front of an X. The Xubuntu logo seems to be that one: http://xubuntu.org/wp-content/themes/xubuntu-theme/xubuntu-wp/images/xubuntu-logo.png It's a (probably the XFCE) mouse's head in a filled circle. So the logos differ. Kubuntu's is a solid circle with KDE's logo inside. The KDE logo http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Guidelines/CIG/KDE_Logo is a K gear. The Kubuntu logo http://www.kubuntu.org/themes/kubuntu10.04/logo.png has a split gear-wheel only. The K is missing. Thus, the logos differ. Alright. So how about this. We chop the toes off of the foot, so its not quite the same. Will that work for you? Don't use the unmodified GNOME logo as the logo for your GNOME based product That's hard? No, it's not. That'd work for me. I don't think it would look too good, but it would avoid using the unmodified GNOME logo. snip As Dave pointed out, back a few yrs ago, people who were using only portions of GNOME were happily included in the GNOME family. But now GNOME insists on drawing utterly arbitrary and constantly shifting lines in the sand as to what constitutes 'GNOME'. Its ridiculous. Its spiteful, and above all its counter productive. Arbitrary and constantly shifting lines in the sand ? You probably didn't understand the original problem. I don't think the position changed one bit in the number of years we've held the trademark. The Ubuntu GNOME logo is the GNOME logo with a circle around it! Not the GNOME logo with the Ubuntu circle, not the GNOME logo with an 18th century golden frame around, not the GNOME logo with its toes chopped off, just the GNOME logo in a way that only the GNOME project can and should use. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
hi all; On 25 November 2013 15:48, Emily Gonyer emilyyr...@gmail.com wrote: As Dave pointed out, back a few yrs ago, people who were using only portions of GNOME were happily included in the GNOME family. But now GNOME insists on drawing utterly arbitrary and constantly shifting lines in the sand as to what constitutes 'GNOME'. Its ridiculous. Its spiteful, and above all its counter productive. okay, let's take a moment, and stop this thread now, before somebody gets hurt, or before somebody accidentally says what they really are thinking in a manner that escalates this to flame war. Karen is on holiday at the moment. Karen is also the right person to give a proper frame of reference to this discussion. let's wait until she comes back, and we can resume this discussion, hopefully with *cooler* heads and with the proper amount of decorum we expect from the GNOME foundation's mailing list. ciao, Emmanuele. -- W: http://www.emmanuelebassi.name B: http://blogs.gnome.org/ebassi/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
Emily, Emily Gonyer emilyyr...@gmail.com wrote: Alright. So how about this. We chop the toes off of the foot, so its not quite the same. Will that work for you? Of course not. That'd be 'bad design'. This nit picking is what makes people hate GNOME. What makes people (good people!) throw up their arms and say screw it! Cause' trying to work with GNOME isn't worth it - its far more hassle than its worth, and far easier/better/simpler to just fork and move on. As Cinnamon and Elementary have done. Or avoid (whenever possible) acknowledging that they're using portions of GNOME as XFCE is. As Dave pointed out, back a few yrs ago, people who were using only portions of GNOME were happily included in the GNOME family. But now GNOME insists on drawing utterly arbitrary and constantly shifting lines in the sand as to what constitutes 'GNOME'. Its ridiculous. Its spiteful, and above all its counter productive. This sounds a bit like you are saying that my views are spiteful, nit picking, ridiculous, and that they are why people have forked GNOME on multiple occasions. I'm taking this personally, because you are clearly addressing what I have said, though you have not used my name. I find these comments to be pretty hurtful, especially since they are coming from someone who I have worked with as a part of the Engagement Team in the past. Considering that all I was suggesting was that we have a friendly chat with the Ubuntu GNOME crew (who I think I've generally had a good relationship with in the past) about the logo, I find your response to be excessive. I've tried to explain my position, and maybe I haven't done a great job at that, but I'm pretty sure that it isn't utterly arbitrary. Allan ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013
Apologies, I'm just going to jump in and respond here as there really was a lot of discussion I missed and I can't respond to everything. I'm also on the road even though I'm back from vacation (speaking at a conference in Ecuador), so I haven't been able to read everything. Firstly, I think it's really awesome that so many people care about GNOME's trademarks and are invested in us getting this right. I definitely think this is more of an opportunity to include people in our community rather than alienate them. As a lawyer I want to point out that the main thing about our trademark is to make sure that users (under the law: consumers) aren't confused about what comes from GNOME and what doesn't. This is extremely helpful when you have real jerks who try to distribute software that isn't GNOME or free software but use our name and logo to fool people into downloading it.I have seen some really bizarre uses of our logo and to my knowledge we have only enforced when we think the use is confusing. As was also pointed out by someone else, we've had many friendly discussions that have resulted in better uses of the marks for all. On Mon, November 25, 2013 5:41 am, Dave Neary wrote: I think maybe GNOME is now at a point where let a thousand flowers bloom, and welcome anyone who is happy to use the GNOME label who has any relationship with GNOME, would be a better strategy. Reaching out to Cinnamon, MATE, even XFCE, and welcoming them (if they want to come, and it's unclear that they would) under the GNOME banner may be the best way to make the GNOME brand relevant in future. For the record I (and others) have been reaching out and I agree with you in principal. I even invited some of those developers to meet at GUADEC :) However, we do need to make sure that we have a clear policy on our trademark use without permission (so that we can still stop those real jerks when they surface, in addition to making sure that we're clear about what GNOME is distributing). We can grant permission for usage outside of the policy and that is what we were discussing in the Ubuntu situation (some of the examples listed in earlier emails were of uses that were explicitly permitted). I think having a very friendly discussion about what the right solution is and then making sure that it is implemented makes sense. I think it's perfectly reasonable to work with people who are using our logo to encourage a less confusing, nicer looking solution. I think everyone wants to encourage this use of GNOME! I also think that Allan is right that we can improve our trademark guidelines (and think it's great he's started to do it). Perhaps we should set up a working group for this? I've been somewhat afraid to touch this, as I understood the policies we had were a product of a lot of work and discussion but on the other hand it's always been confusing, even to me. karen ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
