[Foundation-l] Trademarks

[Jimmy Wales]

George Herbert wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 8:11 PM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> No what is wrong with wikipedia brand dog food (provided that we receive a cut?)?
> 
> See standard discussion of whether we want to accept advertising
> onsite.  Same general logic.

Of course, Wikipedia brand dog food is a pretty far-fetched idea, and as 
such might not provide the most interesting thought experiment for us to 
feel our way forward to an understanding of the values that we want to 
uphold.  No one is likely to want to do Wikipedia brand dog food in the 
first place, and the puzzlement that consumers would feel over what it 
is about ("the dog food that anyone can edit"? "Imagine a world in which 
every single dog on the planet..." :-)) would be substantial.

Tougher calls and more interesting thought experiments might involve 
products that people might actually be interested in making and selling 
(perhaps even successfully!).

(I am just randomly brainstorming to pose a few interesting challenges.)

1.  Wikipedia books - these have been done in Germany with some success, 
but imagine this being done on a massive scale, hiring some people in 
the community, but also being done in part by people we never met.

2.  Wikipedia television quiz program - with some sort of wiki flair and 
with educational segments about our projects and goals in the developing 
world... but what if the program *itself* isn't freely licensed? 
(That's part of the thought experiment.)

3.  Wikipedia series of documentaries - like National Geographic 
programs - these are to be produced in the old fashioned way, with large 
budgets, and will be run on television (perhaps on a pay channel like 
HBO) and then subsequently revenues are expected from DVD sales.  There 
is no community collaborative production.  But the end product will be 
proprietary for 5 years and then released under a free license.



--Jimbo