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collabmark / collabmark.org

Discussing trademarks for free culture
http://collabmark.org
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Is requiring the use of a trademark non-free? #1

Open davelab6 opened 9 years ago

davelab6 commented 9 years ago

This site doesn't mention that requiring the use of trademarks is non-free, but this idea was recently presented by @pchestek at FOSDEM 2015 and I wonder if you agree, and if so, suggest stating this on the site.

slaporte commented 9 years ago

I agree that requiring a trademark is non-free, depending on the exact requirement. Freedom Defined explains that a copyright license is not free if it requires advertisement or attribution that impedes normal use of a work. We discuss the history of the advertisement clause in the pre-1997 BSD license in our paper, but we don't go into detail on the site.

I think this is a good topic to include in a FAQ. I'll add it to our TODO list. Thanks!