Samuel Klein wrote:
I can't see any reason why project logos cannot be PD, and personally love the idea of massively collaborative projects having PD logos -- that makes sense to me.
My understanding is that the Foundation doesn't (or didn't, at least) want anyone to be able to use its projects' logos for purposes other than identification of said projects.
As I noted, the image in question can be legally used by anyone for any purpose without any conditions. If Conservapedia wants to use it as their logo (provided that they make no claims of affiliation with Wikimedia), they can. If a company wants to use it as a logo for their bottled water, laundry detergent, or insecticide (random examples), they can. If a brothel wants to hang it over its door, it can. If the KKK wants to use it to promote hate speech, it can.
I also did not recall that the wikiversity logo was replaced simply because it was available under a free license -- do you have a link to that discussion? I thought other issues dominated.
I'm going from memory, but I recall that while the change was under discussion for other reasons, it was fast-tracked because of the urgency to replace the free image. In fact, the new logo was introduced before we were even certain that we could retain the blue color. (At the time, Elian from the public relations department had said that they were reluctant to allow the adoption of any more predominantly blue project logos.)