Amos Blanton <[email protected]> writes: > I'm working on getting the rest of the Scratch Team to sign off on > releasing Scratch 1.4 under the GPL v3.
Thank you for this work. > One roadblock that remains is that we feel it's important to prevent > others from re-releasing modified versions of Scratch with our > trademarks. Why so broad? That's exactly the position that led to Debian having no option but to re-brand Firefox as Iceweasel. The trouble is that “modification” covers any change at all, including exactly the actions you go on to endorse: > We *do not* want to prevent maintainers or helpful contributors from > fixing bugs or addressing security issues in the official Scratch > package. If these are actions you want to permit, then you *do* want to permit others to release modified versions of Scratch with the Scratch trademarks. That's commendable, but it's incompatible with your initially-expressed desire to prevent modified works carrying the Scratch trademarks. One of those desires needs to give some ground. > And we're happy to see Scratch remixed as long as the remix isn't > called Scratch, and doesn't use our logo or the Scratch Cat This restriction is less problematic, since it gets to the core of the socially-beneficial aspect of trademarks. It's not obviously free, and needs careful wording, but it's not obviously non-free either. > Are there good legal strategies for providing these protections that > you'd recommend we look into? We'd very much like Scratch to be > included in Debian's repositories, as well as other distros. It's a topic fraught with problems, because of the closely-conflicting forces: software freedom versus the recipients's need to know what they're getting. Here is one debian-legal's considered input on the matter <URL:http://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/[email protected]>, containing a model trademark license which IMO does not unduly restrict the freedom of the work. Thank you again for working to keep Scratch free software while maintaining its integrity. -- \ “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, | `\ neat, and wrong.” —Henry L. Mencken | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
