[Clipart] Firefox trademarks

Bryce Harrington bryce at bryceharrington.com
Fri Jul 16 22:06:21 PDT 2004


Remember --- think wikipedia.

They have a very similar problem:  How to ensure proprietary materials
(such as trademarked images) don't get uploaded to the encyclopedia.
They solve it in a scalable way by putting the tools for censoring them
into the hands of the editors, and then call every user an editor.  

So, what we must do is establish the rule, clearly and firmly, and then
just enable any user with the power to review and yea/nay.  

(Of course, the devil's in the details, but that approach should be what
we shoot for.)

Bryce

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004, Jon Phillips wrote:
> OK, I've added this to the guidelines, but don't know how we can check
> this but visually by a human once someone has uploaded a graphic. But,
> maybe we should note in the pool that all images uploaded are pending. I
> don't think it is a good idea to hide submissions until someone can
> review, but just make it obvious that they are pending. Do you all
> agreew with this?
> 
> Jon
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 23:01, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> > Yes, I do think we should be explicit about it.  Folks would want to
> > know why their submission was rejected if there were rules about it.
> > 
> > Perhaps we could say, "No trademarked images" with the upload tool, and
> > then define it in more detail in the guidelines.
> > 
> > Bryce
> > 
> > On Tue, 13 Jul 2004, Jon Phillips wrote:
> > 
> > > I agree...nothing that is not placed in the public domain explicitly.
> > > Companies will sue for identity.
> > > 
> > > Should I add this to the File and Style Guidelines? What do you all
> > > think? I think we should be explicit about this. Also, should this be
> > > placed on the main page, or just the guidelines? Thoughts?
> > > 
> > > Jon
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 19:59, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 13 Jul 2004, Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:
> > > > > Bryce Harrington <bryce at bryceharrington.com> writes:
> > > > > 
> > > > > > Yeah, logos and other trademarked items tend to have a lot of
> > > > > > conditions attached to them, and I wonder if it wouldn't be safer to
> > > > > > simply exclude all trademarked images.  I'd assume they're not
> > > > > > placed in the public domain anyway.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I agree that it would be safest to exclude images with significant
> > > > > trademark issues from the collection.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I have no idea whether Wilbur is a trademark.  He's a logo and a
> > > > > mascot, but I never investigated his legal status.  I've never been
> > > > > very clear on the FSF's stand on trademarks, though I think I have a
> > > > > fair idea what their stance on patents is.  I poked around on gimp.org
> > > > > and didn't find anything about this.  Unless someone knows, maybe we
> > > > > should ask.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Any image related in any way to Mozilla.org is almost surely
> > > > > trademarked, for historical reasons having to do with Netscape.
> > > > 
> > > > Regarding whether or not open source app logos are trademarked, I think
> > > > the BEST thing we can do for the community is to treat them as if they
> > > > were.  I think if we were to pick some app's logo and declare it Public
> > > > Domain, regardless of whether it was trademarked, could cause harm to
> > > > that project.  
> > > > 
> > > > Plus, the situation with non-trademarked logos is murky.  Unlike the
> > > > GPL, where the copyright is _explicity_ and unchangeable, with a
> > > > non-trademarked logo, we don't know for certain what the status is, nor
> > > > can we be absolutely certain that the trademark is "in progress" and
> > > > might show up later.
> > > > 
> > > > Thus for all these reasons together, I think a blanket "no logos and no
> > > > trademarked items" policy would be safest for everyone.
> > > > 
> > > > Bryce
> > > > 
> > > > _______________________________________________
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> > > > clipart at freedesktop.org
> > > > http://freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/clipart
> > > 
> 



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