Trademark Guidance. Russian Fedora initiative.

[Paul W. Frields]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 06:23:06AM +0200, Alexey.Vasyukov at vdel.com wrote:
> 
> Dear All,
> 
> Let me introduce myself. My name is Alexey Vasyukov, I work for VDEL (Red Hat
> Master Distributor for Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe). And it happened so,
> that I was a part of the "Russian Fedora" initiative team from the very
> beginning, since it was first time presented by Red Hat on Russian Open Source
> Summit in October, 2008.
> 
> Since the initiative was announced when Fedora Trademark Guidance had not been
> set finally, there is a number of issues that were solved that moment on "Ok by
> Red Hat" basis. Now the Trademark Guidance is complete and we would really like
> to discuss all the necessary approvals and license agreements.
> 
> So, let me describe the questions to solve:

Hi Alexey, thanks for writing in.  I'll try and give appropriate
information below, so we can continue the discussion.  You and I
exchanged email earlier about some of these, and I appreciate you
following up with this email. :-)

> 1. The name of the initiative itself ("Russian Fedora").
> 
> The initiative was presented by Red Hat to the Russian Ministry of
> Telecommunication under this name. The main goal of that discussion was to tell
> the Ministry why it is a bad idea to create own "Russian Linux" and why global
> collaboration is much more effective for solving their strategic tasks.
> (Official press-release from the Ministry - http://minkomsvjaz.ru/news/xPages/
> entry.7938.html , details in English, for example, -http://
> opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/02/fedora-as-basis-of-russias-operating.html ).
> 
> The initiative is, of course, an informal entity. It has no own legal status.
> It is a community project sponsored by VDEL, VNIINS, AjTi and some other
> companies. We internally consider it as some kind of "Russian club of Fedora
> supporters". This "club" acts, first, as an "umbrella" for local Russian Linux
> User Groups and, second, as a "bridge" between the Community and the Ministry.
> 
> As far as we understand the current Trademark Guidance, we need some kind of
> license agreement for using name "Fedora" as part of the name of local
> initiative. Is it true? What is required from our side as next step?
> 
> If necessary, we can include in the license agreement any reasonable explicit
> restrictions like "the name Russian Fedora can be used only to identify the
> community initiative and related community projects that are not recognized
> legal entities" or whatever you consider necessary. We are completely flexible
> here. We really need the name only for community non-profit initiatives
> sponsored by a number of different organizations to show both the Community and
> the Ministry that these initiatives are related to Fedora.

As long as it is understood you are an informal group, there is no
need for a trademark license for your group name.  I could form a
group in my hometown called "Virginia is for Fedora Lovers" and as
long as I didn't make that group a legal entity, there would be no
need for such a license.  So I think this issue you can consider
solved. :-)

> 2. The name of the website (russianfedora.ru)
> 
> We know current policy regarding community domains. And, we guess, our case
> falls into the category https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Local_community_domains#
> Self-purchased_domain
> 
> Just to make it clear - we have nothing against using "ru.fedoracommunity.org"
> domain but we really can not switch to it just now. The problem is the
> initiative was already presented by Red Hat to Russian Ministry of
> Telecommunications as "Russian Fedora" (see above). So, we can not just drop
> current website domain name - it has pretty strong visibility.
> 
> We would offer to use "ru.fedoracommunity.org" now as synonym for
> "russianfedora.ru" and we will try to promote "ru.fedoracommunity.org" as the
> main domain name in the future.
> 
> As we understand, in this case we need a license agreement for the domain name
> "russianfedora.ru". What is required from our side as next step?

We can easily point the "ru.fedoracommunity.org" domain at the
existing site, but the Board should also consider this a request for a
trademark license for that site.

Is there any content at russianfedora.ru now?  I can't seem to view
any web page at the site, either with "www." or without.  I bring this
up for two points:

1. The Board will want to know what will be present at this site
before granting a license.

2. If that site content doesn't exist already, then are you just as
well off using ru.fedoracommunity.org?  Where and how is the
"russianfedora.ru" site currently being actively promoted?

> 3. The logo for the initiative.
> 
> For the moment local initiative has no approved logo and it is really bad -
> people can be confused where is world-wide Fedora and where is local "Russian
> Fedora" initiative.
> 
> So, we used experience from http://www.projetofedora.org/ as an inspiration and
> created two proposed logos. Drafts are in attachment. If possible, we would
> like to use the first one as the logo of local "Russian Fedora" initiative
> because it was used on the meeting of Red Hat with Russian Ministry of
> Telecommunication. Is it acceptable? Do we need specific license agreement for
> the logo?

I think the first logo might need a small bit of tweaking to satisfy
the following usage guideline:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/UsageGuidelines#Logo_Clear_Space

But other than that, I think it's acceptable.  You don't need a
special agreement for the logo as long as you otherwise follow the
logo usage guidelines, and the trademark guidelines on this page that
apply in the situations in which you use it:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines

> 4. Non-software goods.
> 
> For the promotion of the local initiative and global Fedora we would like to
> produce different non-software goods (pens, t-shirts, pins, stickers, etc.)
> 
> We do not have a detailed plan just now. The goods are intended to be produced
> on demand. Estimated number of good of all kinds - about 200 items per year. Of
> course, we are ready to submit design for your approval before producing if
> necessary.
> 
> The main question from our side now - which logo is it better to use for the
> goods we produce locally? We can use global Fedora logo, it will make the goods
> somehow "associated" with world-wide Fedora Project. Or we can use local logo,
> it will make the goods somehow "associated" with local Russian Fedora
> initiative. Do you have any policy or recommendation? And what is the procedure
> to get license for this usage of Trademark?

There are two ways to go:

1.  If the Russian Fedora logo includes the official Fedora logo, as
you requested above, you will still need a trademark license agreement
specifically for production of non-software goods.

2.  If you decide to instead brand only with your website, such as
"russianfedora.ru," this may not be necessary.

> One "special case" - we would like to produce DVDs for free shipping to regions
> with bad Internet access. DVDs will contain local-specific Remixes (for
> example, Fedora Remix adapted for Russian schools). Do we need specific license
> for it?

You do not need a special license for shipping Fedora Remixes, but you
should be aware of several things:

1.  A Fedora Remix cannot be called "Fedora," without the word
"Remix."  You could call it "Russian Fedora Remix," or "Fedora Remix -
Russian," or "Horoshah Linux," but not "Russian Fedora."

2.  A Fedora Remix cannot use the official Fedora logo, but may use
the special Fedora Remix logo we created for this purpose:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Secondary_trademark_usage_guidelines

3.  You should also read and follow:
    https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines#Distributing_combinations_of_Fedora_software_with_non-Fedora_or_modified_Fedora_software


Looking forward to hearing back from you -- please feel free to reply
here on the list.  Thanks again for this email.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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