[triangle-zpug] Alan Runyan at Trizpug

[cbc at unc.edu]

Quoting "Dimauro, Frank" <FDimauro at unch.unc.edu>:
> He also happened to mention that the Plone logo is copyrighted and that we
> should not be using it w/o permission. Even enfold cannot use it w/o
> permission.
>
> ( I wonder if PBC was in violation? )

1) The Plone logo and name are *trademarked* in something like 136 
countries. Very few trademarks of any kind except maybe Coke(tm) and 
Marlboro(tm) have such internationally protected trademarks.

2) It was one of the most complicated IP cases ever handled according 
to the Free Software Foundation, who advised on the case, and who use a 
Plone site. I know it cost huge boatloads of money in legal fees.

3) The Plone Foundation is the legal guardian of the trademark. In 
fact, conservation of rights is about all the Plone Foundation is set 
up to do. The creators of the logo and name were required to assign 
their copyrights to the Plone Foundation for that purpose. They have 
signed releases to that effect. Such releases are required of everyone 
who contributes even one line of code to Plone, *each and every time* 
they make a contribution. This is one the advice of one of the IP 
lawyers involved in setting up the Plone Foundation. I don't know of 
any other FOSS software project where that is required *each and every 
time*. But it was the policy for Plone announced at the 2004 (2nd) 
International Plone Conference. When your product consists of over 29 
separately developed subproducts under four licenses with over 50 
individually named copyright holders, apparently that's what you have 
to do.

4) The Plone Foundation has a trademark policy:

http://plone.org/foundation/committees/trademark/policy

5) The Plone Foundation's logo policy grants the rights to use the 
trademarks to certain user groups, of which TriZPUG qualifies.

6) Even with the express exemption in this policy for user groups such 
as TriZPUG, on behalf of TriZPUG I contacted and was granted permission 
to use the logo by the board of the Plone Foundation as described in 
the policy.

7) The chair of the board taught the PBC. :)

8) Enfold has to ask to use the trademark because Enfold is a 
commercial business, according to the trademark policy.

9) I'm sure it was just an honest mistake on Alan's part to think we 
couldn't use the trademark. I guess the more restrictive aspects of the 
policy would be pretty fresh in your mind if you had to ask permission 
to use the trademark you yourself had created. :)

10) When TriZPUG uses the Plone trademark, we are careful not to alter 
its aspect ratio or colors as requested in the Plone Foundation 
trademark policy. Thanks to Rob Lineberger for catching that clause in 
the policy. We were thinking of a TriZPUG green logo until Rob's 
diligence saved us.

11) It's kind of ambiguous what not altering the aspect ratio or colors 
even means, as there are several different versions of the trademark 
posted on plone.org:

http://plone.org/events/sprints/snow-sprint3/snowsprint.png
http://plone.org/documentation/whatsnew/2.1/images/plone-plaid.jpg
http://plone.org/about/mediakit/bitmaps/plone-plonestation.png
http://plone.org/about/mediakit/bitmaps/plone-coolnordic.png
http://plone.org/events/conferences/3/vienna2005-frontpage.png

Also see the dozen different colors of the trademark in Plone 1.x and 
the "Classic Plone" skins product for Plone 2.x.

But we should respect the policy and the spirit of the policy nonetheless.

12) According to the Plone Foundation meeting minutes of March 3, 2005, 
the language about not altering the trademark aspect ratio or colors 
was placed into the online published policy post-ratification and 
unilaterally by the foundation's ad hoc trademark committee without 
vote by the membership or board. So it's kind of ambiguous as to 
whether that is even official policy. But we should respect the policy 
and the spirit of the policy nonetheless.

13) TriZPUG should respect the policy and do anything we are told about 
it by the vote of the board or membership of the Plone Foundation. 
Right now, I don't see a problem, though.

14) I'm glad y'all had a good time with Alan and Cameron. I wish I had 
been there. Thanks for setting it up, Frank.

15) I'll be back in the area next week. Email and cell phone spotty at 
best until then.

16) This email was brought to you by the letters T and M.

Cheers, Chris