Talk:FAQ

re: What about logos? Why do all open source free content-supportive organisations currently have copyrighted logos?

To my mind, the "main" or "proper" use of a trademark is to enable to "customer" to know who he is dealing with. Allowing a free for all use of trademarks and logos would negate these benefits to the customers" (I will try and word this better later.

I have pondered recently the possibility of dual trademarks, one freely usable and one protected. Text versus graphic or logo based. So if you forked project foo, you could still call yours foo, but you would need to develop a new logo or graphical trademark.

Does anyone see any merit to this idea at all? --Zotz 01:23, 10 May 2006 (CEST)

I have added a few paragraphs in the FAQ itself. I hope nobody minds. Also, I apologize for the likely English mistakes in those additions! --Antoine 04:23, 10 May 2006 (CEST)

How Will People Make Money?

There are two logical errors in the argument that Freedom prevents people making their fortunes like they all do under proprietary culture. :-)

The first is that very few people make any money under proprietary culture. Even relatively well-known artists and musicians will not make a living off reproduction rights or sales of their work.

The second is that Freedom is more important than maximising profit for middlemen.

It is good to tackle the question of making money, but it is not good to concede the grounds of the debate to the middlemen whose usurous control of "content" is challenged by Freedom.

--Rob Myers 19:55, 14 June 2006 (CEST)

Some ways to make money: via knowledge services such as being paid to do translations, localisations, remixes, and other derived works, distribution (e.g. on alternative media to people without Internet access), packaging and selling collections of free resources and offering professional services (e.g. training and support) - all the resources and enhancements remain free/libre. [Kim Tucker 30 Oct 2006].

What about logos? Why do all open source free content-supportive organisations currently have copyrighted logos?

For the same reason the FSF think it's acceptible to have invariant sections in documentation: they think it serves their agenda, which is freedom within a particular domain. Software, not trademarks.

And they may have a point. Identity and reputation may be important, and may trump certain other freedoms. Trademarks should be covered by extensive Fair Use, which may require legal reform rather than licenses. There should also be a Free trademark license, just one copyleft one or perhaps a BSD-style one as well. But no NonCommercial or NoDerivs ones.

--Rob Myers 20:04, 14 June 2006 (CEST)

I too have commented on this above: trademark, used properly, should be for the protection of the "buyer" in the market. So that a person can know who they are dealing with. Please comment on the two trademark idea, one free which rides with the project, on not-free which rides with the developer group.

--Zotz 15:29, 05 Mar 2007 (CEST)

What about other kinds of commons, like grains, electromagnetic spectrum, genetic information ? They need a "freedom" definition, too.

See the Science Commons and the Open Knowledge Definition. But spectrum is different from grains (seed rights, which could do with a license) and genetics (which is basically data) as it is a limited resource.

Moral rights

The issue of moral rights has come up several times on Wikimedia Commons. Can somebody please add an FAQ entry to discuss whether and how much moral rights restrict freedom and what the effect on the ‘free’/‘not free’ status of a work is? —xyzzy_n from Commons 09:04, 19 April 2007 (CEST)