Re: trademark policy draft
Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi> writes:
> I'll leave the discussion with this counter suggestion: change the
> trademark policy to say:
> We call ourselves the Debian project. You can use our name as long
> as it doesn't make reasonable people confuse you or your stuff with
> us or our stuff, or imply that we're affiliated with or endorse you.
> You can use our logos under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 (US) or later license.
So, again, the reason why it doesn't read like this is because we got
actual legal advice and the lawyers said that we can't make it read like
that.
We can choose to abandon our trademark and make it indefensible, but we
should do that intentionally and not under an illusion that we're just
creating a better usage policy. If we are going to maintain a defensible
trademark, it's kind of important to listen to the lawyers who are telling
us what kind of policy is required to keep our trademark defensible.
The law is what it is, and if we want to use the law, we have to stay
within the requirements of it, even when those requirements say things we
don't want to say. The alternative is, effectively, to not have a
trademark.
All of this is well in line with the legal advice I've heard in other
contexts about trademarks.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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