[Foundation-l] New Meta-Wiki logo - Approved?

[Samuel Klein]

David,

On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 9:12 PM, David Levy <lifeisunfair at gmail.com> wrote:
> Florence Devouard wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> The Foundation is aware that the community logo was PD. It was
>> done on purpose so that the community could use a logo without
>> having to request authorization.
>>
>> As for the decision to switch meta from the Foundation logo to the
>> community logo, I think I remember that the vote was announced on
>> this list, so that the Foundation had the opportunity to jump in.
>
> Thanks for the prompt reply!  I understand why the community logo is
> PD, but I'm concerned about its suitability as an official project
> logo.  The vote was announced on this list [
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-August/045572.html
> ], but no mention of the fact that a PD image was under consideration
> was made, so this easily could have been overlooked.  It certainly is
> possible that policy has changed, but this definitely has been
> disallowed in the past.  For example, the original Wikiversity logo
> had to be replaced because the image was available under a free
> license.

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.  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.

More than simply copyright issues, for trademark reasons it makes
sense to ensure that others who do not support the proejct don't have
any trademark claim against a widely used logo, but again, one very
sensible trademark scheme for the logos of a massively collaborative
site is to allow people to do anything they want with said logos,
aside from fraud; which is usually against social and legal norms
without the help of trademark law.

SJ