I have made a proposal for the logo design work here:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/LogoProposal
If we (VisCom) can vote on this tomorrow, then assuming it passes we can
give it over the board for their meeting on the 29th.
-mpg
Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
I have made a proposal for the logo design work here:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/LogoProposalIf we (VisCom) can vote on this tomorrow, then assuming it passes we can
give it over the board for their meeting on the 29th.-mpg
Hi,
go for it. I am so very fed up with not having proper logos that anything but what we not have now is better. I have also requested for proposals, one ranged at €10T one at €8T with comparable content. In our high price regions this seems to be the price tag.
Sorry for the lengthy rest of this post.
There are still some other things that I would like to discuss regarding Logo use (http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Logo_Use)- which has by now mutated into Trademark Guidelines (http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines) which sort of offends me a bit. My bit, a little. Whatever.
There has been some talk on whether we need to enforce usage of OSGeo with (tm) or (r). I have asked several times why this would seem a requirement and brought up some reasons on why I think it is not required but the issue was never resolved.
Ubuntu policy (http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/TrademarkPolicy) is less complicated and enforcing with regard to adding the (tm) or (r) than Mozilla thus I like it more. I suggest to remove the tm/r bit from: http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines.
Done. ((I am unhappy at deleting other people's thoughts, blabla and please do not feel offended - in the end it is just a Wiki...))
This article on Wikipedia differentiates trademark rights "use and registration":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Establishing_trademark_rights_.E2.80.94_use_and_registration
From Wikipedia:
''
The law considers a trademark to be a form of property. Proprietary rights in relation to a trademark may be established through actual use in the marketplace, or through registration of the mark with the trade marks office (or "trademarks registry") of a particular jurisdiction. In many jurisdictions, trademark rights can be established through either or both means. Certain jurisdictions generally do not recognise trademarks rights arising through use (e.g. China). If trademark owners do not hold registrations for their marks in such jurisdictions, the extent to which they will be able to enforce their rights through trademark infringement proceedings will therefore be limited.
''
Having the words "property" and "Proprietary rights" mentioned twice in the first dozen words shows in what realms we are moving. I don't believe that it will be necessary for OSGeo "to enforce their rights through trademark infringement proceedings". I simply cannot imagine that anybody would get anything at all out of misusing our Logo for any prolonged stretch of time. ((Having tm/r there or not does not make any difference with espect to the amount of back checking that we need to do)) It will only ruin the potential offender's reputation for quite a while. OSGeo only exists as it does because there is a large user base and OSGeo is NOT for profit. The situation is therefore very different to that of a commercial company trying to fight on the marketplace against another competitor with comparable products and services. OSGeo very explicitly says that it will *not* work (compete) against other existing initiatives but try to connect and collaborate. From this perspective the idea of somebody "stealing" the logo to make profit on the expense of OSGeo becomes rather negligible. Same is true for the communities we are delivering our goods. We do not compete with Microsoft for billions of browser users and predominance of the world.
This does not mean that we can just forget about defining in which context the logo and term OSGeo / OSGeo.org etc. are to be used. We need to have a very clear (make it simple) guideline that people understand without having to ask a lawyer. But I do not support the idea of relying on the beast that we are fighting with the Free and Open Source idea. This simply does not make sense.
== Services Related to OSGeo Software ==
This aspect of logo use is highly interesting to service providers and closely related to the bold company listing that is being discussed elsewhere and starts to grow on the Drupal portal.
I believe that this is going to be one of the natural and powerful branding multipliers for OSGeo visibility. Once people identify the OSGeo logo with some kind of 'certified' (insert other wording) services it will be a 'fast-selling item'. Just look at the CCGIS homepage and what do you see? The OGC logo 
...but not OSGeo because we cannot do it as there is no guideline yet. We (as a company) need more guidance on this and I am not going to get involved in designing the process / policy to avoid conflicting interests.
== Logos and Merchandise ==
I don't think that merchandise actually is "that's how we make some of the money that keeps us around." We are very different in dimension compared to Mozilla. They might make some income but we don't and likely never will. Our user base is just too small. Additionally I would suggest to remove the unique selling point CafePress. Its good that we have it but there are other remote places where people might want to use OSGeo shirts and can get them a lot cheaper than having to ship them around the world. ((I am just imagining CafePress shirts being produced in China with fibers from Brazil, colors from Germany, someone sticking it into a package in the US shipping it back to China. We are not that mad, are we?))
Last but not least I will try to add the [[Category:Trademark Policy]] to all pages referring to logo, branding, linking, etc. We need to clean that out and come up with a stable version that can be approved by the board and moved to the Drupal Portal.
Best regards, Arnulf.
Arnulf-
Sorry you weren't there this morning, as this is clearly something that we need to come to consensus on at the Foundation level -- as opposed to just talking within VisCom, or just taking a majority vote.
Have fun at tomorrow's board meeting 
-mpg
-----Original Message-----
From: Arnulf Christl [mailto:arnulf.christl@ccgis.de]
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:22 AM
To: dev@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [VisCom] Logo/branding effortMichael P. Gerlek wrote:
> I have made a proposal for the logo design work here:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/LogoProposal
>
> If we (VisCom) can vote on this tomorrow, then assuming it
passes we can
> give it over the board for their meeting on the 29th.
>
> -mpgHi,
go for it. I am so very fed up with not having proper logos
that anything but what we not have now is better. I have also
requested for proposals, one ranged at €10T one at €8T with
comparable content. In our high price regions this seems to
be the price tag.Sorry for the lengthy rest of this post.
There are still some other things that I would like to
discuss regarding Logo use
(http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Logo_Use)- which has by now
mutated into Trademark Guidelines
(http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines) which
sort of offends me a bit. My bit, a little. Whatever.There has been some talk on whether we need to enforce usage
of OSGeo with (tm) or (r). I have asked several times why
this would seem a requirement and brought up some reasons on
why I think it is not required but the issue was never resolved.Ubuntu policy (http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/TrademarkPolicy)
is less complicated and enforcing with regard to adding the
(tm) or (r) than Mozilla thus I like it more. I suggest to
remove the tm/r bit from:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines.
Done. ((I am unhappy at deleting other people's thoughts,
blabla and please do not feel offended - in the end it is
just a Wiki...))This article on Wikipedia differentiates trademark rights
"use and registration":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Establishing_trademark_
rights_.E2.80.94_use_and_registrationFrom Wikipedia:
''
The law considers a trademark to be a form of property.
Proprietary rights in relation to a trademark may be
established through actual use in the marketplace, or through
registration of the mark with the trade marks office (or
"trademarks registry") of a particular jurisdiction. In many
jurisdictions, trademark rights can be established through
either or both means. Certain jurisdictions generally do not
recognise trademarks rights arising through use (e.g. China).
If trademark owners do not hold registrations for their marks
in such jurisdictions, the extent to which they will be able
to enforce their rights through trademark infringement
proceedings will therefore be limited.
''Having the words "property" and "Proprietary rights"
mentioned twice in the first dozen words shows in what realms
we are moving. I don't believe that it will be necessary for
OSGeo "to enforce their rights through trademark infringement
proceedings". I simply cannot imagine that anybody would get
anything at all out of misusing our Logo for any prolonged
stretch of time. ((Having tm/r there or not does not make any
difference with espect to the amount of back checking that we
need to do)) It will only ruin the potential offender's
reputation for quite a while. OSGeo only exists as it does
because there is a large user base and OSGeo is NOT for
profit. The situation is therefore very different to that of
a commercial company trying to fight on the marketplace
against another competitor with comparable products and
services. OSGeo very explicitly says that it will *not* work
(compete) against other existing initiatives but try to
connect and collaborate. From this perspective
the idea of somebody "stealing" the logo to make profit on
the expense of OSGeo becomes rather negligible. Same is true
for the communities we are delivering our goods. We do not
compete with Microsoft for billions of browser users and
predominance of the world.This does not mean that we can just forget about defining in
which context the logo and term OSGeo / OSGeo.org etc. are to
be used. We need to have a very clear (make it simple)
guideline that people understand without having to ask a
lawyer. But I do not support the idea of relying on the beast
that we are fighting with the Free and Open Source idea. This
simply does not make sense.== Services Related to OSGeo Software ==
This aspect of logo use is highly interesting to service
providers and closely related to the bold company listing
that is being discussed elsewhere and starts to grow on the
Drupal portal.I believe that this is going to be one of the natural and
powerful branding multipliers for OSGeo visibility. Once
people identify the OSGeo logo with some kind of 'certified'
(insert other wording) services it will be a 'fast-selling
item'. Just look at the CCGIS homepage and what do you see?
The OGC logo
there is no guideline yet. We (as a company) need more
guidance on this and I am not going to get involved in
designing the process / policy to avoid conflicting interests.== Logos and Merchandise ==
I don't think that merchandise actually is "that's how we
make some of the money that keeps us around." We are very
different in dimension compared to Mozilla. They might make
some income but we don't and likely never will. Our user base
is just too small. Additionally I would suggest to remove the
unique selling point CafePress. Its good that we have it but
there are other remote places where people might want to use
OSGeo shirts and can get them a lot cheaper than having to
ship them around the world. ((I am just imagining CafePress
shirts being produced in China with fibers from Brazil,
colors from Germany, someone sticking it into a package in
the US shipping it back to China. We are not that mad, are we?))Last but not least I will try to add the [[Category:Trademark
Policy]] to all pages referring to logo, branding, linking,
etc. We need to clean that out and come up with a stable
version that can be approved by the board and moved to the
Drupal Portal.Best regards,
Arnulf.---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
For additional commands, e-mail:
dev-help@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
I was not a strong +1 on this to begin with (maybe +0.5 or so), but after thinking about this issue all day now, I’m even more undecided.
For example, unwittingly inspired by Arnulf, I can go to one extreme and wonder if we should ever allow ourselves to be forced to play the legal game that “The Man” wants to impose upon us – hey, let’s just draw up our logo and move on and whatever happens happen!.. But then I reply to myself – hey, even the FSF uses some very formal, legal means (the GPL) to protect itself and its goals from The Man, and who am I to argue with the FSF?
Researching on Wikipedia about various trademark definitions and issues just made my head hurt.
I started looking around some more to see who is using trademarks in the open source world. FSF doesn’t say anything anywhere about trademarks of it’s distinctive hand-drawn Gnu symbol or the FSF name. Creative Commons does not use a ™ on their logo – but they do have a page carefully describing use of their trademarks. OSI uses a ™ on their logo; Apache does not; the Python Foundation does… Aargh!
If anything, I feel comforted knowing that its not just me: the rest of the world is seriously confused by this issue too.
Looking forward to having the Board tell me how to think,
-mpg™
From: Michael P. Gerlek
Sent: Thu 9/28/2006 10:36 AM
To: ‘dev@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org’
Subject: RE: [VisCom] Logo/branding effort
Arnulf-
Sorry you weren’t there this morning, as this is clearly something that we need to come to consensus on at the Foundation level – as opposed to just talking within VisCom, or just taking a majority vote.
Have fun at tomorrow’s board meeting
-mpg
-----Original Message-----
From: Arnulf Christl [mailto:arnulf.christl@ccgis.de]
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:22 AM
To: dev@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [VisCom] Logo/branding effortMichael P. Gerlek wrote:
I have made a proposal for the logo design work here:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/LogoProposalIf we (VisCom) can vote on this tomorrow, then assuming it
passes we can
give it over the board for their meeting on the 29th.-mpg
Hi,
go for it. I am so very fed up with not having proper logos
that anything but what we not have now is better. I have also
requested for proposals, one ranged at €10T one at €8T with
comparable content. In our high price regions this seems to
be the price tag.Sorry for the lengthy rest of this post.
There are still some other things that I would like to
discuss regarding Logo use
(http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Logo_Use)--) which has by now
mutated into Trademark Guidelines
(http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines) which
sort of offends me a bit. My bit, a little. Whatever.There has been some talk on whether we need to enforce usage
of OSGeo with ™ or (r). I have asked several times why
this would seem a requirement and brought up some reasons on
why I think it is not required but the issue was never resolved.Ubuntu policy (http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/TrademarkPolicy)
is less complicated and enforcing with regard to adding the
™ or (r) than Mozilla thus I like it more. I suggest to
remove the tm/r bit from:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines.
Done. ((I am unhappy at deleting other people’s thoughts,
blabla and please do not feel offended - in the end it is
just a Wiki…))This article on Wikipedia differentiates trademark rights
“use and registration”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Establishing_trademark_
rights_.E2.80.94_use_and_registrationFrom Wikipedia:
‘’
The law considers a trademark to be a form of property.
Proprietary rights in relation to a trademark may be
established through actual use in the marketplace, or through
registration of the mark with the trade marks office (or
“trademarks registry”) of a particular jurisdiction. In many
jurisdictions, trademark rights can be established through
either or both means. Certain jurisdictions generally do not
recognise trademarks rights arising through use (e.g. China).
If trademark owners do not hold registrations for their marks
in such jurisdictions, the extent to which they will be able
to enforce their rights through trademark infringement
proceedings will therefore be limited.
‘’Having the words “property” and “Proprietary rights”
mentioned twice in the first dozen words shows in what realms
we are moving. I don’t believe that it will be necessary for
OSGeo “to enforce their rights through trademark infringement
proceedings”. I simply cannot imagine that anybody would get
anything at all out of misusing our Logo for any prolonged
stretch of time. ((Having tm/r there or not does not make any
difference with espect to the amount of back checking that we
need to do)) It will only ruin the potential offender’s
reputation for quite a while. OSGeo only exists as it does
because there is a large user base and OSGeo is NOT for
profit. The situation is therefore very different to that of
a commercial company trying to fight on the marketplace
against another competitor with comparable products and
services. OSGeo very explicitly says that it will not work
(compete) against other existing initiatives but try to
connect and collaborate. From this perspective
the idea of somebody “stealing” the logo to make profit on
the expense of OSGeo becomes rather negligible. Same is true
for the communities we are delivering our goods. We do not
compete with Microsoft for billions of browser users and
predominance of the world.This does not mean that we can just forget about defining in
which context the logo and term OSGeo / OSGeo.org etc. are to
be used. We need to have a very clear (make it simple)
guideline that people understand without having to ask a
lawyer. But I do not support the idea of relying on the beast
that we are fighting with the Free and Open Source idea. This
simply does not make sense.== Services Related to OSGeo Software ==
This aspect of logo use is highly interesting to service
providers and closely related to the bold company listing
that is being discussed elsewhere and starts to grow on the
Drupal portal.I believe that this is going to be one of the natural and
powerful branding multipliers for OSGeo visibility. Once
people identify the OSGeo logo with some kind of ‘certified’
(insert other wording) services it will be a ‘fast-selling
item’. Just look at the CCGIS homepage and what do you see?
The OGC logo
there is no guideline yet. We (as a company) need more
guidance on this and I am not going to get involved in
designing the process / policy to avoid conflicting interests.== Logos and Merchandise ==
I don’t think that merchandise actually is “that’s how we
make some of the money that keeps us around.” We are very
different in dimension compared to Mozilla. They might make
some income but we don’t and likely never will. Our user base
is just too small. Additionally I would suggest to remove the
unique selling point CafePress. Its good that we have it but
there are other remote places where people might want to use
OSGeo shirts and can get them a lot cheaper than having to
ship them around the world. ((I am just imagining CafePress
shirts being produced in China with fibers from Brazil,
colors from Germany, someone sticking it into a package in
the US shipping it back to China. We are not that mad, are we?))Last but not least I will try to add the [[Category:Trademark
Policy]] to all pages referring to logo, branding, linking,
etc. We need to clean that out and come up with a stable
version that can be approved by the board and moved to the
Drupal Portal.Best regards,
Arnulf.
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
For additional commands, e-mail:
dev-help@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
On 9/29/06, Michael P. Gerlek <mpg@lizardtech.com> wrote:
I started looking around some more to see who is using trademarks in the open source world. FSF doesn’t say anything anywhere about trademarks of it’s distinctive hand-drawn Gnu symbol or the FSF name. Creative Commons does not use a ™ on their logo – but they do have a page carefully describing use of their trademarks. OSI uses a ™ on their logo; Apache does not; the Python Foundation does… Aargh!
If anything, I feel comforted knowing that its not just me: the rest of the world is seriously confused by this issue too.
Looking forward to having the Board tell me how to think,
In situations like this, I feel that it would be best to
rely on “The Wisdom of Crowds” (ISBN 0-349-11707-1).
Regards
Venka
-mpg™
From: Michael P. Gerlek
Sent: Thu 9/28/2006 10:36 AM
To: ’ dev@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org’
Subject: RE: [VisCom] Logo/branding effortArnulf-
Sorry you weren’t there this morning, as this is clearly something that we need to come to consensus on at the Foundation level – as opposed to just talking within VisCom, or just taking a majority vote.
Have fun at tomorrow’s board meeting
-mpg
-----Original Message-----
From: Arnulf Christl [ mailto:arnulf.christl@ccgis.de]
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 10:22 AM
To: dev@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [VisCom] Logo/branding effortMichael P. Gerlek wrote:
I have made a proposal for the logo design work here:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/LogoProposalIf we (VisCom) can vote on this tomorrow, then assuming it
passes we can
give it over the board for their meeting on the 29th.-mpg
Hi,
go for it. I am so very fed up with not having proper logos
that anything but what we not have now is better. I have also
requested for proposals, one ranged at €10T one at €8T with
comparable content. In our high price regions this seems to
be the price tag.Sorry for the lengthy rest of this post.
There are still some other things that I would like to
discuss regarding Logo use
(http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Logo_Use)- which has by now
mutated into Trademark Guidelines
(http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines ) which
sort of offends me a bit. My bit, a little. Whatever.There has been some talk on whether we need to enforce usage
of OSGeo with ™ or (r). I have asked several times why
this would seem a requirement and brought up some reasons on
why I think it is not required but the issue was never resolved.Ubuntu policy ( http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/TrademarkPolicy)
is less complicated and enforcing with regard to adding the
™ or (r) than Mozilla thus I like it more. I suggest to
remove the tm/r bit from:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/TrademarkGuidelines.
Done. ((I am unhappy at deleting other people’s thoughts,
blabla and please do not feel offended - in the end it is
just a Wiki…))This article on Wikipedia differentiates trademark rights
“use and registration”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Establishing_trademark_
rights_.E2.80.94_use_and_registrationFrom Wikipedia:
‘’
The law considers a trademark to be a form of property.
Proprietary rights in relation to a trademark may be
established through actual use in the marketplace, or through
registration of the mark with the trade marks office (or
“trademarks registry”) of a particular jurisdiction. In many
jurisdictions, trademark rights can be established through
either or both means. Certain jurisdictions generally do not
recognise trademarks rights arising through use (e.g. China).
If trademark owners do not hold registrations for their marks
in such jurisdictions, the extent to which they will be able
to enforce their rights through trademark infringement
proceedings will therefore be limited.
‘’Having the words “property” and “Proprietary rights”
mentioned twice in the first dozen words shows in what realms
we are moving. I don’t believe that it will be necessary for
OSGeo “to enforce their rights through trademark infringement
proceedings”. I simply cannot imagine that anybody would get
anything at all out of misusing our Logo for any prolonged
stretch of time. ((Having tm/r there or not does not make any
difference with espect to the amount of back checking that we
need to do)) It will only ruin the potential offender’s
reputation for quite a while. OSGeo only exists as it does
because there is a large user base and OSGeo is NOT for
profit. The situation is therefore very different to that of
a commercial company trying to fight on the marketplace
against another competitor with comparable products and
services. OSGeo very explicitly says that it will not work
(compete) against other existing initiatives but try to
connect and collaborate. From this perspective
the idea of somebody “stealing” the logo to make profit on
the expense of OSGeo becomes rather negligible. Same is true
for the communities we are delivering our goods. We do not
compete with Microsoft for billions of browser users and
predominance of the world.This does not mean that we can just forget about defining in
which context the logo and term OSGeo / OSGeo.org etc. are to
be used. We need to have a very clear (make it simple)
guideline that people understand without having to ask a
lawyer. But I do not support the idea of relying on the beast
that we are fighting with the Free and Open Source idea. This
simply does not make sense.== Services Related to OSGeo Software ==
This aspect of logo use is highly interesting to service
providers and closely related to the bold company listing
that is being discussed elsewhere and starts to grow on the
Drupal portal.I believe that this is going to be one of the natural and
powerful branding multipliers for OSGeo visibility. Once
people identify the OSGeo logo with some kind of ‘certified’
(insert other wording) services it will be a ‘fast-selling
item’. Just look at the CCGIS homepage and what do you see?
The OGC logo
there is no guideline yet. We (as a company) need more
guidance on this and I am not going to get involved in
designing the process / policy to avoid conflicting interests.== Logos and Merchandise ==
I don’t think that merchandise actually is “that’s how we
make some of the money that keeps us around.” We are very
different in dimension compared to Mozilla. They might make
some income but we don’t and likely never will. Our user base
is just too small. Additionally I would suggest to remove the
unique selling point CafePress. Its good that we have it but
there are other remote places where people might want to use
OSGeo shirts and can get them a lot cheaper than having to
ship them around the world. ((I am just imagining CafePress
shirts being produced in China with fibers from Brazil,
colors from Germany, someone sticking it into a package in
the US shipping it back to China. We are not that mad, are we?))Last but not least I will try to add the [[Category:Trademark
Policy]] to all pages referring to logo, branding, linking,
etc. We need to clean that out and come up with a stable
version that can be approved by the board and moved to the
Drupal Portal.Best regards,
Arnulf.
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
For additional commands, e-mail:
dev-help@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org
On 9/29/06, Venkatesh Raghavan <venka.osgeo@gmail.com> wrote:
...
In situations like this, I feel that it would be best to
rely on "The Wisdom of Crowds" (ISBN 0-349-11707-1).
For quick meta-access, this may help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds
Markus
On 9/29/06, Venkatesh Raghavan <venka.osgeo@gmail.com> wrote:
On 9/29/06, Michael P. Gerlek <mpg@lizardtech.com> wrote:
>
> I started looking around some more to see who is using trademarks in the
> open source world. FSF doesn't say anything anywhere about trademarks of
> it's distinctive hand-drawn Gnu symbol or the FSF name. Creative Commons
> does not use a (tm) on their logo -- but they do have a page carefully
> describing use of their trademarks. OSI uses a (tm) on their logo; Apache
> does not; the Python Foundation does... Aargh!
>
> If anything, I feel comforted knowing that its not just me: the rest of
> the world is seriously confused by this issue too.
>
> Looking forward to having the Board tell me how to think,In situations like this, I feel that it would be best to
rely on "The Wisdom of Crowds" (ISBN 0-349-11707-1).Regards
Venka
I am certainly not the best informed person on logo usage, but
I just throw in the 20+ years experience with the GRASS GIS
logo (http://grass.itc.it/download/logograms.php).
As far as I know, the public domain CERL version is still somewhere
around; our current version is probably GPL'ed (who knows, is it
part of the software or the Web site or ...?). Most files on the page
above were generated from the old logo which I digitized in XFig
sone years ago (so, my copyright?).
In short: I am not aware of any relevant logo abuse in the past.
Why? Probably because the name/product is so well established
that abuse doesn't make sense at all.
Personally, I even like the creative approach of people to use
it in related environments:
* GRASS user conference 2002 (there also on T-Shirts etc):
http://www.ing.unitn.it/~grass/conferences/GRASS2002/proceedings/proceedings/logo_d.gif
* A translator of my "GRASS in a nutshell" text for MUM3 made this:
http://www.gdf-hannover.de/lit_html/nutshell_v10_fr/img1.png
* And, hey, people even animated the logo:
http://grass.itc.it/images/grass_logo_animated.gif
This sort of community approach is quite nice.
Starting to sue people for that is at least out of my personal scope and also
out of the scope of the GRASS Development Team (another nice non-legal
entity
cheers
Markus (<- you may call me naive now)