License for application name and logos (Was: Creative Commons license for pictures)

[Christian Jodar]

Hello,

First discussion was about having part of a package under another license than
GPL (used for source code). Even if some points are clearer now, I think
another discussion should begin about license for an application logo.

It seems to me that a lot of applications use a logo that is not under a free
license but is a trademark (the same for application name).

The most obvious example is this one:

http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/faq.html

Please read last chapter.

There are other ones. Gnome has a TM mark on their logo:

http://www.gnome.org/about/ (in the upper left corner).

Even the Fedora name is a trademark:

http://fedora.redhat.com/about/trademarks/guidelines/page2.html

So it seems that what belongs to application identity (name and logo) is not
concerned by all these licenses stuff.

And to sum up (a little ironically), with theses observations we can tell that
having pictures in a software that nobody else can use (copyrighted or with a
trade mark) is better than having them under a free license.

So if in my application I don't use reference to a Creative Commons or Free
Art license but only says : *Name and logo copyrighted* it should be OK. Isn't
it?

(I am talking about *my* application because I am project manager and packager
for the application that triggers this discussion).

Last point I'd like to mention is that the U.S. law tells that a work is
automatically copyrighted when it is made. In France we have something
equivalent with *le code de la propriété intellectuelle*. So I am not sure
that for all the applications already in Fedora pictures are covered by the
software license (e.g. GPL).

Christian.