[aur-general] Legal question - Arch Linux trademark on goodies - Transparency

Wed Jan 9 15:06:37 UTC 2019

On 01/09/19 at 03:16pm, William Gathoye wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> First of all, following a discussion on Twitter, I wanted to know
> whether this company is authorized to sell goodies (hoodies) with the
> Arch Linux trademark on it? I know it is being listed on the
> archlinux.org frontpage, but I wonder what's percentage is given to the
> project as compensation [1].

As written on the website: "From your purchase we support free software,
usually $3-5 from each product sold".

> With FOSDEM behind the corner, there have been quite a few discussions
> on social media and IRC recently regarding stands/community involvement
> etc. A few questions have been raised wrt. trademark/acting on behalf of
> the project, etc. and I wasn't able to find an answer on the Wiki. Who
> can speak on behalf of the community, etc? Even if Arch Linux is a
> meritocratic organization, do we have such a person inside our
> community? Maybe it's the right time to fill the gap in the wiki?

I think anyone can speak for the community, being a member of the
community. There is however a clear disctinction between being a team
member and being a community member. One adds more weight then the
other.

> To understand better the situation, let's imagine a few use cases.
> 
> 1. Someone who wants to craft Arch Linux merchandising for him/herself
> and others given free of charge.
> 
>     e.g. I attend FOSDEM and I want to show others I'm an Arch Linux
> user. If another Arch Linux user passes by and ask me if I have goodies,
> give them free of charge.

I believe this falls under "Advocacy" of the Trademark policy.

> 2. Someone wants to craft Arch Linux merchandising for others. No gain
> other than the one to cover the fees of the company we are ordering from
> e.g. Zazzle.
> 
>     e.g. An Arch Linux stand is organized at FOSDEM and I want to
> organize it.

I believe this is ok, not 100% sure.

> 3. A magazine is asking the stand organizer to make an interview on
> behalf of the community with a question like why do you have dropped
> i686 compatibility? What is the project direction for the next few
> years, etc.

Anyone can be interviewed, but I wouldn't say you can claim to be a
representative of the project if you aren't on the team.

> 4. Someone wants to give money to the project. Can he receive a document
> for taxing purpose?

See http://www.spi-inc.org/donations/

> What is the legal process for these aforementioned use cases? According
> to the trademark rules, we have to ask the the Arch Linux Project Lead
> for "merchandising purposes".[2] Does asking money to the end user to
> cover charge can be considered as a commercial activity even if we are
> not making profits? Are we allowed to answer questions that could
> involve the whole community?
> 
> When someone is donating money to the project, who is receiving it? How
> can we have transparency about the IN/OUT of the treasury (server cost?
> etc.). What is the legal structure behind Arch Linux? Are we a
> foundation like The Document Foundation?

See, what Morten said. Basically all your donations pay for server
hosting and SPI costs :-)

> When a stand is organized for a particular event, does the Arch Linux
> organization participate in the funding? I haven't been able to find
> such an information on the Wiki.

Anyone can organize a stand and promote Arch. Don't know if we ever paid
for one.

> Because asking for the end user to pay
> for his/her on goodies is not something that can have much success,
> especially when the Fedora/Mageia/RedHat/Debian community is giving
> everything for free in such an event.

Not entirely sure about that point.

> For the record, even if I have been participating to FOSDEM since 2012
> and have adopted Arch Linux as my daily OS since that date, I haven't
> been able to see an Arch Linux stand yet. The only things I heard of:
> 
>   * a small lightning talk about pacman and the way packages are being built
>   * some goodies informally given by the ex. Trusted User Andrea Scarpino.
> 
> Do we maintain a list of events whose topic was Arch Linux (other than
> having to dig into the arch-event mailing list)?

Only arch-events as long as I have been around, other then that some
meetups over the past years with fellow members from the team.

> Wrt. identity, do we have strict guidelines to follow (e.g. distances,
> fonts to be used along side the logo, etc.) other than the short notice
> from our Logo Usage Guidelines of our trademark policy page? [3]
> 
> I know these questions come as a burst, but I thank you already for the
> answers you could give to me.
> 
> [1] https://www.hellotux.com/arch
> 
> [2]
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:TrademarkPolicy#Restricted_use_that_requires_a_trademark_license
> 
> [3]
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:TrademarkPolicy#Logo_Usage_Guidelines
> 
> -- 
> William Gathoye
> <william at gathoye.be>
> 

-- 
Jelle van der Waa
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