wiki:Obsolete/HaikuTrademarkPolicy

Version 9 (modified by mmadia, 15 years ago) ( diff )

haikuware.ru changed their website logo. Thanks!

WORK IN PROGRESS

The ​current & official Trademark Policy is available on the main project website.

By no means, should this document be considered official

Rather, it is a work in progress. It is expected that devising a sound Trademark Policy will take some time. This page serves as a mechanism to foster it's development. Discussions may occur on ​Haiku's General Mailing List or ​Haiku, Inc.'s Mailing list

Introduction

Haiku, Inc.(the "NPO") is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the Haiku Project (the "Project") and the development of HAIKU (the "Software"). At a minimum, the Project is comprised of those with commit access to the Software's source code repositories. Additional definitions of what roles and persons are to be considered part of the Project is outside of the NPO's duties. The Software is an open-source operating system for x86 compatible of i586 and greater (including Pentium® and Athlon™). It is inspired by BeOS, which was developed by Be Inc. and currently is intellectual property of ACCESS Co. Additional platforms (arm, ppc, m68k, mips, x86_64) are in various stages of development. The HAIKU logo and name are the trademarks (the "Marks") owned by the NPO.

Throughout this document, phrases akin to "within good taste and obvious restrictions" appear. "good taste", is easiest defined by examining something that is not in good taste, such as the Marks being used in a manner that disrespects others, be it persons, other projects, etc. "obvious restrictions" includes, but is not limited to usage in any unlawful, defamatory, threatening, obscene, pornographic or any other way which would degrade Haiku's reputation or bring civil liability upon the NPO or Project.

Statement of Purpose

Our interests in the Trademark policy is to protect the name, image, and brand that is HAIKU through regulation. While the wording in this policy may appear strict, it should be clearly expressed that Haiku, Inc. has a policy of granting permission with a minimum of effort where it is visibly good for the Project and makes sense. The policy put forth here is needed to prevent use that is damaging to the NPO and the Project.

  • Permission to be granted on a case-by-case basis, with the goal of a quick decision with minimal fuss.
  • Policy compliance does not by itself constitute permission.
  • Permission of one usage case does not grant nor imply permission for other usage cases.
  • Haiku, Inc. can deny/revoke permission at its discretion.
  • Haiku, Inc. can grant permission at its own discretion, even in violation of its own policy.

To be clear, only the owners of the trademark have the capacity to grant permission. However, the community at large is welcomed to provide feedback to shape the decision.

How to contact the NPO?

For any questions, concerns, comments:

Send an email to the haiku-inc freelists mailing list or contact us privately at info@xxxxxxxxxxxx (eventually to become an @haiku-inc.org address). You are encouraged to engage us publicly, as it provides the community at large an opportunity to participate and suggest points that may otherwise be overlooked.

If a discussion is occurring on another public mailing list and one of the BOD members have not responded, send an email to the haiku-inc freelists mailing list, as it is possible for the on-going discussion to have gone unnoticed. eg, due to a higher volume or simply being a list to which none of us are subscribed to.

(i'm not sure how/where this part should fit in)

As long as the use of the Marks is in good taste; complies with the obvious restrictions; and accept bearing full legal responsibly, indemnifying the NPO; then it should be perfectly OK for you to freely give away or provide :

  • Physical items -- shirts, cds, stickers, etc.
  • Internet downloads -- mirrors of official HAIKU releases, graphics of and relating to trademarks (eg for personal use or creating new promotional material for use by the Project). A note on distributions

In fact, if you let the NPO know, we will see how we can help you, eg by providing funds or other assets.

Now, as soon as money becomes any part of that exchange -- eg collecting donations, directly selling, or charging any type of fees, the NPO must be notified and grant you authorization *prior* to doing so.

Promotional material

Within the bounds of good taste and obvious restrictions, Haiku, Inc. has little concern in the matters of artistic design or reason to deny a work based on differences of opinion regarding the design.

Any designs that are to become assets paid by the NPO require prior approval before purchase. It is likely to expect the NPO to also require at least the final-for-print graphics under a license that minimally allows free-reproduction at the public's discretion.

Websites

At large Haiku, Inc. is not interested in defining the structure or requirements off Haiku User Group sites nor which sites are to be recognized as official portals for conveying the message of the Project. In this matter, the current members of Haiku, Inc. who happen to be Contributing Project members have an equal voice as as every other Contributing Project member.

Unfortunately, the NPO is sharing space with the main Project website. This can be viewed as the NPO directly influencing the Project. It is planned to migrate the NPO's pages to a separate website (www.haiku-inc.org), as this will help to define the NPO's limited ability to influence the Project. It will also help clarify what news, articles, information is coming from the NPO.

There are three parts that Haiku, Inc. concerns itself, with respect to the Haiku User Groups and general Haiku-related sites. 

  note: insert a blurb about "Haiku™ and the Haiku logo are trademarks of [http://www.haiku-inc.org Haiku, Inc.]"

Legal indemnification

To clearly inform website visitors and users who create content that they as individuals bear full responsibility for the content they create and frees Haiku, Inc and the Haiku Project free from any liability.

Financial income

As with any site relating to Haiku and making use of one or more trademarks (including the name "haiku"), the NPO has a requirement that the website visitors be informed that any donations or money directed to the site does not go to Haiku, Inc. nor towards the Haiku Project at large. It is encouraged and appreciated for those sites to briefly list how the money raised is to be used. Eg, in the case of "Give us money to support the website" or "Support your local Haiku User Group". It is also appreciated to provide a link to Haiku's official donation pages.

Advertisements

As long as advertisements are not of questionable material (eg, adult imagery or malware) and the advertisement is visually distinct from the Trademarks, the NPO is not concerned.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

Distros

(not sure where/how to better express the distaste for "distro's") Compiled images containing modifications to Haiku's source code, additional software, or non-standard settings are not permitted to use the Trademarks. We encourage you to contact us if the modifications are necessary for a business endeavor or to meet the needs of your projected user base. In the former case, we may grant authorization to use the trademarks. In the latter, it is hopeful that the Project will be willing and able to help you meet your requirements.

As mentioned on the [haiku] Haiku User Group thread, perhaps a Haiku User Group logo can become another trademark. The key point is to differentiate the HUG logo just enough so that it is not Haiku's logo, but the connection to the Project is understandable and the usage terms are significantly more liberal than the other Marks.

With some very basic provisions(eg, legal indemnification for the NPO), the Project would have full control over who and how the HUG logo is to be used. Eg, this logo could allow modifications, such as localizing "User Group" or adding the location/country/group name.

To be clear, the NPO would be giving control of that HUG logo to the Project; what rules the Project wishes to put forth are its choice -- eg, open to anyone, open only to sites chosen by the Project as official portals of the Projects message, whatever. Once the NPO is migrated to its own website, the website theme could go under the same usage terms (assuming that it isn't already).

Targeting people for donations

Another issue that goes beyond the HUG logo is that by targeting or soliciting donations in-the-flesh for Haiku, the Project, or the NPO, the NPO could be placed in a situation where local taxes need to be paid or other legal entanglements. This is another reason why I feel it is important to regulate who & how income is generated, be it through the use of the Marks or even a "donation" box at in-the-flesh events.

Ideas from Mozilla's TM Policy

Mozilla has some in-depth pages that explain the various restricts on using their logos, which usage cases do (not) require prior authorization, etc.

Ideas from the FreeBSD Foundation

Here's some tidbits from The FreeBSD Foundation's policy that I like, copied verbatim from ​http://freebsdfoundation.org/documents/Guidelines.shtml ...

  • Any individual, organization, or company may use the Marks to

show support for the Project or as part of a notice to users that your product incorporates the FreeBSD operating system. On websites, the Marks should always link to ​http://www.freebsdfoundation.org or ​http://www.freebsd.org.

  • The Foundation hereby reserves the right at any time and without

advance notice, to change, modify, add or remove any portion of these Terms and Conditions in whole or in part, at any time, and any such change will be effective when notice of such change is posted. Your continued use of the Marks after any changes to these Terms and Conditions are posted constitutes your acceptance of those changes.

... probably more ideas to harvest from the page. since their text is copyright, we can't replicate it 1:1.

The Marks

Here's some more info on the different logos/graphics that are being used. 'Wordmark' refers to the lettering used in the Haiku logo. All of these are from : ​http://svn.haiku-os.org/haiku/haiku/trunk/data/artwork/

Traditional logo; black & white wordmark.

  • HAIKU logo - black on transparent - big.png
  • HAIKU logo - white on transparent - big.png

Traditional logo with fading underline.

  • HAIKU logo - black on white - big.png
  • boot_splash/splash_logo

R1 Alpha 1 stamp logo, R1 Alpha 2 stamp logo.

  • HAIKU alpha logo - white on blue - big
  • HAIKU alpha 2 logo - white on blue - big
  • HAIKU logo - black on white - installer (black on white, 2 ladybugs)

Haiku User Guide logo (leaf outline background)

  • HAIKU logo - welcome

On top of this, the gradients of the green leaf change -- for black wordmarks, the shadow is on top. for white wordmarks, it's on the bottom.

Should the Haiku "leaf" be a trademark? eg, in Deskbar, the leaf outline, or in general?

Something

It may be worth providing a download for the Futura(?) font that is used in the HAIKU logo.

Some notes, assuming that we do not allow the modification of the logo, some websites will need to create new logos.

Another idea is to explicitly state that the layout of the Marks and other graphics or text must not portray a connection between the two..

Eg, ​http://haiku-files.org/ "<HAIKU logo>files" ... granted this is

one of our sites, but it conveys the point.

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