On Fri, 19 May 2006, Lukasz Garczewski wrote:
If this doesn't seem to convince you think about this for a moment: Why don't we just release the logos under a free license? When you come to
Why don't we? I don't know the reason. It is possible to have a freely-licensed logo whose use is regulated via trademark; Debian has managed this with their logo.
Beyond this, there is a need for free licenses that deal effectively with copyrightable elements of identity. Debian and GNOME and other projects are trying to deal with this.
It is one thing to say "This logo/design cannot be used to create a site or content that pretends to be Wikipedia content, or confuses [consumers]". It is another to say that there is no permissible use which does not require a license (which is the same kind of unscalable arrangement that traditional copyright makes for other content).
For a related discussion, see: http://wiki.mako.cc/TrademarkFreedom
Sj