[Sugar-devel] [SLOB] xo-computer icon

[Walter Bender]

As probably most of you are aware, yesterday one of our community members
unilaterally changed the xo-computer icon in sugar-artwork. The ensuing
discussion about the change is in the github pull request, "Urgent fix
logos", [1]

The gist of his concern is that OLPC has a trademark on the XO artwork [2]
and there was concern that we were infringing and consequently downstream
users would also be infringing.

As Sean Daly points out, this is not the first time that the topic has come
up [3, 4]. "In the past, OLPC was amenable to the use of the xo logo in
Sugar, but asked we not use it in marketing materials without a formal
co-branding licensing agreement."

Personally, I think that OLPC was explicit in making the Sugar artwork
available under a GPL licence and that this is hence moot. But I am not
qualified to make that assessment. Consequently, I asked Adam Holt, our SFC
liaison, to raise the issue with the legal team. Tony asked us to consider
the following questions:

1) Why is the XO logo included in the sugar-artwork repo now -- and does
the SLOBs want to keep it there?
2) Assuming the SLOBs want to keep the XO logo in sugar-artwork:  what
outcome would the SLOBs *prefer* to see happen?  E.g.,
- Does Sugar want downstream users to be able to redistribute and modify
Sugar's codebase with or without the XO trademark file included in the
program?
- Does the SLOBs want downstream users to be able to modify and
redistribute the XO trademark image itself, or is that less important to
Sugar?

The answer to the first part of Tony's first question is that the XO logo
was part of Sugar from the very beginning -- before Sugar Labs was split
from OLPC. We've never changed it.

Regarding the second part: does the SLOBs want to keep it there?  is
something we  need to discuss. Personally, I think it serves its purpose
well -- a childcentric interface and it is "iconic" of Sugar. I see no
reason to change it.

Regarding Tony's second question, I would want downstream users to have as
much freedom as possible: to use or not use the XO icon as they choose.
However, I don't see the need to expand beyond the context of Sugar. If
someone downstream wants to use the artwork for some other purpose, that is
not our issue (although I that the GPL license would be the relevant
determinant.)

What do others think?

Note, I think we should defer the discussion of what we would use as
replacement artwork until we resolve the current issue.

regards.

-walter

[1]  https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar-artwork/pull/96
[2]  http://www.trademarkia.com/xo-78880051.html
[3]  http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2008-December/003059.html
[4] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2011-October/014245.html

-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
<http://www.sugarlabs.org>
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