Robert Rohde wrote:
On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Florence Devouard anthe...@yahoo.com wrote:
Michael Snow wrote:
This is the statement on trademarks mentioned earlier. It both states
the approach we want the Wikimedia Foundation to take and directs the
staff to carry it out. It basically sums up what our understanding has
been for a long time, but hadn't really been formally stated anywhere.
The board also voted unanimously to approve this. The statement follows:
The Wikimedia Foundation is committed to enabling our mission through a
wide network of chapters, community members, and organizational partners
who are all able to better achieve their goals by identifying themselves
with the Wikimedia community. Because of these efforts, there is a large
amount of value and goodwill associated with the name and marks.
Trademark law in the United States and internationally requires that the
holder of a mark take affirmative steps to protect the integrity of the
mark. However, because of our commitment to openness and community
empowerment, we wish to do this in a way that allows chapters and
community members to be able to continue to identify themselves with
Wikimedia marks without being unnecessarily restrictive.
Because of this, we ask the Wikimedia staff to take appropriate steps to
register and protect the Wikimedia marks, develop a set of policies and
practices, and develop a strategy to allow uses by the chapters and
community for activities in line with the Wikimedia mission.
--Michael Snow
Thank you Board.
Ant
I'd also like to express my thanks. Not having any usage guidelines
for most Wikimedia marks has been a pet peeve of mine for, oh, 3-4
years now.
-Robert Rohde
Hold on Robert.
Michael provided us with the wish of the board.
That does not mean that this is done.
That does not warranty either that the implementation proposed by the
staff actually follow the guidelines offered by the board.
We are still a LONG way before actually seeing usage guidelines that
would enable community and chapters to further our common mission.
But at least, the board statement is a start.
Since community elections are next corner, I guess this topic will have
to come back on the plate very soon.
Ant
PS: see also
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission
The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people
around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free
license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and
globally.
In collaboration with a network of chapters, the Foundation provides the
essential infrastructure and an organizational framework for the support
and development of multilingual wiki projects and other endeavors which
serve this mission. The Foundation will make and keep useful information
from its projects available on the Internet free of charge, in perpetuity.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Values
Freedom
An essential part of the Wikimedia Foundation's mission is encouraging
the development of free-content educational resources that may be
created, used, and reused by the entire human community. We believe that
this mission requires thriving open formats and open standards on the
web to allow the creation of content not subject to restrictions on
creation, use, and reuse.
At the creation level, we want to provide the editing community with
freely-licensed tools for participation and collaboration. Our community
should also have the freedom to fork thanks to freely available dumps.
The community will in turn create a body of knowledge which can be
distributed freely throughout the world, viewable or playable by free
software tools.
Accessibility and quality
All the legal freedom to modify or distribute educational content is
useless if users cannot get access to it.
We try our best to give online access to high quality Wikimedia project
content 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, as well as provide access to
regularly updated, user-friendly, and free dumps of Wikimedia project
content.
We try, through partnerships if necessary, to ensure the widest
distribution, through DVD's, books, PDF's, or other non-internet based
means.
To ensure world-wide, unrestricted, dissemination of knowledge, we do
not enter into exclusive partnerships, with regards to access to our
content or use of our trademarks.
Independence
As a non-profit, we mostly depend on gifts to operate (donations,
grants, sponsorship, etc.). It is very important to us to ensure our
organization stays free of influence in the way it operates. For this
reason, we strictly follow a donation policy, reserve the right to
refuse donations which could generate constraints, and try to multiply
the diversity of revenue sources.
Commitment to openness and diversity
Though US-based, the organization is international in its nature. Our
board of trustees, staff members, and volunteers are involved without
