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

[Christoph Wickert]

Am Sonntag, den 10.05.2009, 10:25 -0400 schrieb Paul W. Frields: 
> On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 11:40:09PM -0500, Matt Domsch wrote:
> > 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".

Not quite. The Coca Cola Company is both the trademark holder and the
producer of Coke itself. Fedora is not the trademark owner of the Fedora
trademark.

If the Fedora Project is nether a licensee and nor the trademark owner,
what is it? 

> Correct -- and in fact you see the same behavior on sites as varied as
> Disney, Nike, and BMW, just to name a few.  The reason for having
> requirements on licensed sites is to address the possible confusion
> that could arise between the official site and one set up by a
> licensee.  No such potential confusion exists on the official site;
> cocacola.com (or coke.com?) is owned by Coca Cola.

Please don't focus your view to only American websites but take a look
at other countries/languages instead. Here in Germany we have "Coca Cola
GmbH". Although it is a subsidiary, it must follow the trademark
guidelines from the Coca Cola Company. So they had to put up this page
for example: http://www.coca-cola-gmbh.de/meta/markenrechte/index.html
Guess what happens when Coca Cola GmbH decides to paint the logo green
in Germany... 

> > 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.
> 
> This is all a correct reading.  There's no intention to split hairs
> here -- in Fedora we always try to obey the rules for presenting the
> logo and other trademarks the same way others do.  

We try, but seems like we fail. If the same guidelines apply to both the
project itself and the community, the project is simply violating them.
Example: The guidelines (not the trademark license agreement) clearly
state that "Never using the ® mark for Fedora, nor a trademark statement
per the guidelines" is "unacceptable", but AFAICS we do this on most
wiki pages.

> > 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".

Currently it prevents people from mirroring content from fpo, which is
more than just annoying.

> And the guidelines remain open to discussion for such changes.  In
> fact, that language has already been changed at least once due to
> licensee critique and input, to be less confusing and annoying.

Two problems here IMO:
Someone owning a "fedora" domain has to sign the agreement. He has to
sign it now but not later, so for him there is no time left for further
discussions.
And discussions of course include communication, all affected and
interested people need to be informed about changes and so on. IMHO this
wasn't the case recently as this discussion shows.

Kind regards,
Christoph