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“Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

anonscm.debian.org

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Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#61

Post by NateDad »

sp332 wrote: post #25
Flimm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter, trademark law requires you to pro-actively prosecute violators if you want to keep your trademark. Although I still wish Canonical was more transparent about who gets to use its trademarks and who doesn't: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-community/+bug/394328 sp332: You're right, although it's not clear to me that this definitely is not a violation. I hope it isn't for the sake of free speech.

It doesn't require you to threaten people who don't violate your trademark, but they did anyway.

Show me where in their message there were any threats.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#62

Post by tedunangst »

NateDad wrote: post #61
sp332 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't require you to threaten people who don't violate your trademark, but they did anyway.

Show me where in their message there were any threats.

How fun. It doesn't require you to send requests to people who don't violate your trademark, but they did anyway.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#63

Post by moocowduckquack »

comice wrote: post #14

I'm no Canonical apologist, but they do have a "intellectual property" document and are quite clear about what they deem acceptable and what they don't. They very specifically say you need permission in domains: "You will require Canonical’s permission to use ... any Trademark in a domain name or URL or for merchandising purposes." http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy

any Trademark in a domain name or URL

Is obviously bollocks though as by that reading you couldn't have an article about Ubuntu with Ubuntu in the headline without permission if you used article headlines in your sites URLs like every online magazine ever does.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#64

Post by sp332 »

NateDad wrote: post #61
sp332 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't require you to threaten people who don't violate your trademark, but they did anyway.

Show me where in their message there were any threats.

It was very polite, and props to them for that. But that doesn't mean there were no threats.

to use the Ubuntu trademarks and Ubuntu word in a domain name would require approval from Canonical... Unfortunately, in this instance we cannot give you permission to use Ubuntu trademarks...

This has a big "OR ELSE" implicit in it. Requiring means enforcing.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#65

Post by smellf »

comice wrote: post #44
chrismonsanto wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gives a crap about what they deem acceptable. That's definitely non-enforceable in cases like "ubuntusucks.com"

I am talking about this instance where Joey Hess is suggesting Debian cannot use the trademark without risking trouble. I don't happen to agree with Canonical's behaviour in this respect, or believe it's enforceable.

He isn't suggesting Debian can't use Canonical's trademark, he's future-proofing/drawing attention to Canonical's newest fall from grace.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#66

Post by davidp »

Flimm wrote: post #49
davidp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Debian has its own restrictions on one of its own logos. See the terms on their restricted use logo on their Logos page[1]; they reserve the right to assert copyright privilege in the same way. [1]: http://www.debian.org/logos/

I clicked on your link, and it turns out that Debian have two logos: an open use one, and a restricted one. The one you probably know and love is actually the open use one, I've never seen the restricted one before. (BTW, copyright and trademarks are very different things, be careful with your terminology.)

Yes, I said 'restricted use logo' above; I wasn't talking about the open use one. My point is that Debian, like Canonical, may assert their intellectual property rights for whatever purposes they see fit. Some folks (not necessarily you) are confusing "can they" with "should they" w.r.t. Canonical.

You're right that copyright and trademark law are two different things. That said, the word "trademark" occurs on that page only in the footer, applied to the name Debian. Nowhere (on that page at least) are the images asserted as trademarks, whereas there's a prominent copyright notice near each logo. I suppose the copyright could be read to apply to the license text and not to the logo, although that would be odd, and inconsistent with the explicit copyright wording of the open use logo.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#67

Post by Zikes »

abus wrote: post #34
joeyh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, Debian didn't do this, I did. And only, so far in one package, which can be used to mirror Debian or various of its derivatives.

Isn't 'Canonical' a trademark? Couldn't you just refer to it as DerivativeOS4 and then have a central reference table?

That reference table would have to contain Canonical or Ubuntu, though.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#68

Post by ryanthejuggler »

joeyh wrote: post #60
zx2c4 wrote: post #56

From the commit: + } elsif ($origin=~/^[U][b][u][n][t][u]$/ or $origin eq "Canonical") { That made me laugh.

clearly should have been just elsif ($origin=~ /^[UC][ba][nu][no][tn][ui]c?a?l?$/)

Ahh, good ol' Canntica, my favorite OS.

Re: “Remove occurrences of the short name of the Debian derivative from Canonical”

#70

Post by frankohn »

joeyh wrote: post #60
zx2c4 wrote: post #56

From the commit: + } elsif ($origin=~/^[U][b][u][n][t][u]$/ or $origin eq "Canonical") { That made me laugh.

clearly should have been just elsif ($origin=~ /^[UC][ba][nu][no][tn][ui]c?a?l?$/)

That's just wrong, they don't want to match "Cauntica" or something like that... :-)
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