Yet another website? (Re: [Ambassadors] belux ambassadors meeting log 15th April 2009)

[Matt Domsch]

On Sat, May 09, 2009 at 04:05:05AM +0200, Christoph Wickert wrote:
> OK, let's take the question from my previous mail: Why are
> rules for community members stricter than for Red Hat or the Fedora
> Project? Or, to be more specific: How can community websites violate the
> trademark agreement by only mirroring fedoraproject.org?
> 
> According to the trademark agreement community websites must label
> "Fedora" as trademarks, at least their first appearance on each page.
> Also each page needs a link to the fpo start page named "Fedora
> Project," "Official Fedora Project web site," or "Visit the official
> Fedora Project web site. We are not doing this at fpo ether, so it's
> impossible to mirror fpo to something outside of Fedora infrastructure.

As I understand it (IANAL), The Fedora Project itself is not a
licensee under the Fedora trademark license.  That would be similar to
saying "Coca Cola must have a license from Coca Cola to produce Coca
Cola products".

Instead, The Fedora Project is legally an entity of Red Hat, whom also
owns the trademark.  Red Hat, and the Project directly, does not need
a license to use the trademark.  The Project works very hard to avoid
bringing detriment to the trademark through its actions, but is not
bound by the trademark license.

[1] does note:
  As the trademark owner, Red Hat strives to use the Fedora Trademarks
  under the same guidelines as the rest of the community.

Guidelines - not license.

Now, I'll admit, the license clause about having specific words and
specific links in specific places on licensee web pages could be
annoying.  There may even be room to adjust these requirements.  But
it's not more significant than "annoying".


Instead of turning this into an "us vs. them" discussion, I'd much
rather work to incorporate the efforts individuals bring, into the
Project, rather than this mix of "I want to benefit the Project, and
benefit from the Project, but I am not part of the Project" dichotomy
that this line of argument fosters.


> To fix this we need to fix the trademark agreement (unlikely) or fpo
> websites first (unlikely too). This is not only a technical requirement
> but also a moral commitment: We cannot expect the community to follow
> rules that the project does not honor itself.

I don't believe that this specific scenario requires a "fix".  There
is no significant need to mirror fpo's web site to something outside
of Fedora Infrastructure, for the purpose of public publication, and
to do so might only add to confusion ("what is the official site,
fedoraproject.org or fedora.de?  They both look the same.").  There
was almost a need several years ago, particularly on distribution
release days, when there was concern that FI couldn't keep fpo
functional due to the traffic load.  That has been more than
adequately addressed, thanks to the re-architecting of several key
pieces by the FI team, and the donations of additional server and
network capacity to FI by sponsors.

> I'm afraid we need translations. Not sure if we need all of them, but if
> someone requests one, he needs to be able to get it (in time).
> 
> And why do we need to cut that from our (=Fedoras) spending? Red Hat is
> the trademark owner, it's in their interest, so IMHO they should pay.

I don't see that it is in Red Hat (or the Project)'s interest to try
to let just anyone be a trademark licensee for any purpose, and to
bear that expense.  If that were the case, there would be no reason
for a trademark, and nothing could really be done to protect such a
trademark.  I value you and Robert's contributions, and do want to see
your continued participation.  But there are lots of ways to
participate besides running your own domain.


> > I think if there are concrete questions about the intent or meaning of
> > anything in the agreement, we can freely discuss it here.  Most of the
> > language is fairly standard and, as I've explained to everyone who has
> > requested or received it, is not designed to trick or damage anyone.
> > The agreement represents a fair way of both:
> 
> Sorry to interrupt you here, but I think we all agree that setting the
> pattern for the community more strict than for the project itself is not
> fair.

I agree it's not fair.  Which is why, instead of trying to be "fair",
we should be looking for ways in which contributors are brought under
the umbrella of the Project, so as to reduce or eliminate the need for
such a license.  XX.fedoracommunity.org is a step in this direction.


[2] notes:
  Not every local community requires a local domain. Many local
  communities can function perfectly well in the existing Fedora
  Project domain(s). Fedora already offers the ability for communities
  to provide complete translations for our main web site and other
  pages. We are also working on the capability to have a translated
  MediaWiki that will not require as much manual work on the part of
  translators.

  In addition, splitting off a domain has the tendency to keep local
  community members from getting up to date information that flows on
  the official Fedora channels. It multiplies the number of areas a
  community member needs to monitor and thus takes away from the time
  they could otherwise spend on contribution directly to Fedora.

I'm sure we could all come up with even more reasons why having tons
of separate Fedora-trademarked domains is a bad idea.

But as noted, there are some good reasons to have such too.  As I
understand it, XX.fedoracommunity.org exists exactly so that groups
within the Project can host content and capabilities that FI cannot
presently provide, and that the content hosted there must comply with
the trademark and logo usage guidelines.  I don't believe the
trademark license agreement, which is about domains using the
trademark in their name, applies then.



[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/TrademarkGuidelines
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Local_community_domains
[3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Trademark_license_agreement


This is all my understanding.  IANAL, I'm not speaking for anyone
else, yada yada.

Thanks,
Matt