That is
the website UI, which is not content. They could say that the
UI should also be completely "free" of copyrighted works. IMO that
would be going overboard.
If that is the case, while I understand and actually respect the
decision not to use Wikimedia logos _to illustrate articles_ (although
I don't agree with it), I find it extremely inconsequent and illogical
to take away the logos that are in navigation templates and pointing
to other material in other Wikimedia projects.
As far as I'm concerned, these are part of the UI as much as the
Wikipedia logo in the top left corner, and, more important, I find
this decision actually harms our mission of "distributing" free
content. If Wikimedia projects don't help themselves, I wonder who
will.
Anything that is rendered as page content will appear in the export
dumps and needs to be considered by reusers, which includes those
navigational templates. The logo at the upper left is different in
that regard since it isn't part of the dumps.
-Robert Rohde