[Wikimedia-l] Why is not free?

[John Vandenberg]

If wmf has trademarks secured, now is the time to release the copyrights
and high res. versions.

Idealistic maybe. But when we talk to the public, we talk about ideals. Its
odd that community members cant put logos of community-run projects into
slides. Its unfortunate that wikipedia doesnt meet the debian definition of
'free'. Etc.
On Jul 9, 2012 7:25 AM, "Tim Starling" <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> On 09/07/12 06:17, Birgitte_sb at yahoo.com
> wrote:
> > The most basic answer (someone form WMF can correct me if I am
> > somehow misled here) is that the logos are not released under a
> > free license because they are trademarks.
>
> To be precise, the logos were not released under a free license
> because it was imagined that some day they would be trademarks.
> According to the trademark searches I did just now, the Wikipedia logo
> was only registered as a trademark in 2008, and the other projects as
> late as May 2012.
>
> The WMF felt that trademark licensing would be a useful way to raise
> money, as a complement to donations. For example, this website has a
> trademark license:
>
> http://wikipedia.wp.pl/
>
> Obviously to support that sort of licensing arrangement, you need at
> least one sort of protection (copyright or trademark). Also, there was
> concern that a free license like the GFDL might be argued to be an
> implicit trademark license. Lawyers tend to be conservative on that
> type of issue.
>
> Currently, WMF does not even publish the 3D source files for the
> Wikipedia logo, or a high-resolution rendered image. I think that's a
> bigger problem than the lack of a free license, since it prevents
> people from improving the current poor-quality 3D rendering and
> contributing the results back to the project.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
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