Stefano Zacchiroli <leader <at> debian.org> writes: > - Debian should neither seek nor accept trademark licenses that are > specific to the Debian Project. > > (Suggested by Steve Langasek. In addition to Steve's reasoning, I > think that doing otherwise would go against the underlying principle > of DFSG ยง8 "License Must Not Be Specific to Debian".)
I think this one is questionable. Ideally, a trademark is about trust - it tells the user that the product meets the quality requirements of the trademark owner. A trademark owner may trust the processes used by the Debian project to produce results that meet their quality criteria, and may be able to monitor the versions actually released by Debian and withdraw the right to use the trademark should Debian change in a direction that harms users. There's no way a trademark owner would trust random people or organizations they don't even know about, nor is it possible to maintain quality control over those. Thus, I think it would make sense to have arrangements allowing Debian specifically to modify the software in ways deemed necessary by the project without asking permission for each individual change. Downstreams would have to either distribute the code unchanged, seek a similar arrangement with the trademark owner, or rebrand. IMO attempts to apply the DFSG requirements to trademarks are fundamentally flawed. The DFSG require the freedom to modify the software in any manner, including changes that are harmful (in someone's opinion) to its users. Trademarks have the opposite purpose - indicating that a given version meets a certain party's idea of what is good for users, and does NOT have such harmful modifications. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/loom.20120219t201835-...@post.gmane.org