[Foundation-l] Swedish Wikipedians removes Wikimedia logos

[Dan Rosenthal]

> Why should we
> reuse our own unfree logo and not others unfree logos. We aim to creat
> a free encyclopedia that can be freely reused. 

What is rational about taking a scenario to the extreme?

We want to use a bare minimum of unfree content, wherever possible. That is not the same as NO unfree content. It does not follow that because we cannot have ZERO unfree content, than we should be able to use everyone elses unfree stuff. That is not a logical conclusion, nor is it rational.

The fact is, regardless of any other circumstance, the Wikimedia logos are one, small, limited exception. Comparing them to Coca-Cola, or Volvo, or anything else is ridiculous, because those companies do not operate Wikipedia. 

Nor does it make sense to complain about the logo hindering free reuse. We allow nearly all of our content to be reused, as Mike said, subject to the GFDL or CC-BY-SA licenses.  This is not free reuse. It is reuse subject to some restrictions.  The fact that we have trademark protection for the WMF logos has essentially no relationship to downstream use of content. Don't confuse the source identifier with the content itself. These are different things.

So again, I see nothing rational nor logical with what Sv.Wp is doing. They are taking these examples to hyperbolic extremes over an insignificant issue, in order to prove a point. A point, I should note, that does NOT further the success of WMF's mission; in fact it directly hinders it, as Mike pointed out with regard to the licenses. (this is ignoring, of course, all the misconstruals of copyright as trademark, and vice versa which add further unnecessary fuel to the fire).

-Dan