On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:36:51 -0500 Simo Leone <simo@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Mon, Oct 22, 2007 at 10:13:04PM -0500, Aaron Griffin wrote:
On 10/22/07, Travis Willard <travis@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 01:02:38 -0500 Simo Leone <simo@archlinux.org> wrote:
On Sun, Oct 21, 2007 at 11:21:46PM -0400, Travis Willard wrote:
. Anyone can submit as many logo concepts as they wish . Entry is freeform, with no need to base it on current logo. Be creative! . All entries will become property of Arch Linux. Once the winning entry has been chosen, we will return rights of all other logos to their original authors, however the winning logo will remain property of Arch.
[...]
Arch will retain all the rights of the winning logo, and will properly credit the winning author in all appropriate ways. We will want to use the logo for additional media - CD labels or wallpapers, for example. The winning author, should they so desire, may create this additional media at this point for Arch's use. Should they decline to create this additional media, the developers will have it created by another willing volunteer.
Ok, well I'm not a lawyer but I don't think either of these conditions would hold a drop of water in court. Why? Because the entries are becoming property of 'arch linux', which is not an entity. In order to own property, or rights, or whatever, you have to be a legal entity, whether that's a person, a corporation, or whatever. So basically you're saying something that doesn't exist will become the owner of the rights :-/
Some quickie things that come to mind would be stipulating a license that would let us *use* the logo (although that's not desirable, we've already seen why we need to *OWN* it), or say that the rights become the property of some entity we trust *glances at Aaron*. But again, I'm not lawyer so I have no idea.
Paul, is there a chance you could give us some insight on how best to handle this?
Hm, yes, I agree with what you have to say here - there was a bit of a discussion on the forums about this passage too. To be totally honest, I was winging it, trying to come up with something that both suited the best interests of Arch but also credited the original author, however I'm generally clueless about licensing - I try reading up on them as well, but it just flies over my head, try as I might.
I think before we can do this contest we really need the input of someone who really KNOWS licensing - someone on the forum who apparently practices law in Belgium suggested Creative Commons as a suitable license for this - but again, I have no clue.
Help?
I think the quickest thing to do, for right now, is to pass on all rights to me - that is, assuming everyone trusts me. I'm looking into what it means to make Arch a fully legal entity when it comes to this stuff, but for now the best idea might be to pass rights on to me, in the same way that Judd used to own some of this stuff.
From there, when things are decided and I fully grasp the legal stuff here, I will give all rights to the new "ArchLinux" entity. But I can't predict how long that'd take.
Would anyone have a problem with this? I'm more trying to short-circuit this here, so we can get the context underway.
This was the "Easy Way Out" (tm) that I had in mind. We can figure out the details later, but for now this is the simplest (and the one i'm most sure of) way to do things.
-S
Thayer has this to say: ------ Hi Travis, I saw your comment on the ML and I just wanted to suggest that contest continue as planned while the final licensing policy is settled on. We artists can "show" our conceptual designs under copyright. After the contest (and assuming the license debate is settled) the chosen artist can decide whether to proceed with the open license you choose at that time. If not, the next runner up could be chosen, etc. IMO, this legal debate is one of those things that could continue for another week or even longer and at that point, the community enthusiasm for the contest itself may be significantly diminished. If we start the contest now, it gives the devs at least two weeks to agree on the license requirements for the chosen artwork.... but that's just my two cents :) Thayer ------- Thoughts? I agree with his sentiment to get this going quickly, however I want to make sure we've covered our butts properly. -- Travis