[Mageia-sysadm] Main tasks for the next days

[Michael Scherer]

Le mardi 16 novembre 2010 à 13:57 +0100, Olivier Blin a écrit :
> Michael Scherer <misc at zarb.org> writes:
> 
> > We all agree that some softwares will need to be cleaned from icons, but
> > IMHO, most of them don't.
> 
> How about the Mandriva brand/name ?

Well, it depend, where exactly should it be cleaned ?

Because I doubt that having the Mandriva word buried somewhere in a perl
file is "using the Mandriva brand", especially if the file is not
distributed in a tarball as a separate product. 

Definition from wikipedia ( us laws, but I think this part is harmonized
thanks to various treaties, and the french definition is similar ) :

" a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business
organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or
services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a
unique source, and to distinguish its products or services from those of
other entities."

If we don't use the name as a distinctive sign or indicator to identify
a product or a service, then it is not used as a brand or a trademark.

So if we do not use it as a brand or trademark, then the protection do
not apply.

For example, saying mandriva is not forbidden ( not yet :) ). On the
other hand, calling a association mandriva-duck would be using the name
as a brand/trademark and therefor would requires autorisation ( or be
risky ).

So, my own analysis :

If the name is displayed in a released product to identify it, yes, this
is problematic. In the rpm name, in the interface like "mandriva control
center" in title or "about page", in the documentation.

If the name is used in email, or for copyright notice, then we need to
keep it ( as doing otherwise would be seen as copyright violation ).

If the name is used in a comment, in a procedure or variable name, or in
a url for technical reason, I do not think it need to be removed
( except for technical reason, obviously ). 

Now, the tricky part : 
If we have a file in svn that would display the name in such a way that
would be used as brand, it this a problem ?

I think it is not, as long as we do not distribute this as a product
( ie, release a tarball ), nor encourage people to use the old version
( ie if we say "use the old svn version as the feature are much better
with all unfixed bug" ). We will be clearly doing the contrary, ie
distribute fixed software ( with fixed meaning without actively using
Mandriva name in such a way that we will use it as a brand, distribute
mean "putting a tarball on our server" ) and push usually the latest
version. 

Hearst lawyers didn't asked to remove the name from svn/cvs afaik.
Neither did mozilla asked Debian to do so for the mozilla/iceweasel
case. 


For example, let's take urpmi :
[misc at virgo ~] $ grep -i -s  mandriva $(rpm -ql urpmi) | grep -v
Copyright

I removed Copyright because that's legal mention that IMO we need to
keep.

And so it give :
/usr/share/doc/urpmi/NEWS is not using the mark ( 2 links and 2
explanation upon a new feature about mandriva kernel ), this is ot used
as a distinctive sign.

/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.10.0/urpm.pm
used in the description of the tool.

urpm - Mandriva perl tools to handle the urpmi database

this one is likely be something we will need to change if we distribute
the module. 


/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.10.0/urpm/cfg.pm
-> url to the mirror, can be kept in svn ( but need to be changed to
work again )


/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.10.0/urpm/media.pm

$distribconf->settree('mandriva');

name is used as a constant, this is not displayed anywhere. Therefore,
no problem in keeping it in the history.

/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.10.0/urpm/mirrors.pm

-> a procedure called    _mandriva_mirrorlist. Not a trademark
violation, as this is never displayed. It should be indeed changed to be
cleaner.
And some urls used by the procedure.


/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.10.0/urpm/msg.pm

a comment telling this come from svn.mandriva.com. Not a trademark
violation.

So basically, for urpmi ( a old version ), the only thing to change is
the documentation. And as long as we do not distribute it ( ie, in a
package or in a tarball ), I think it is not used as a distinctive
sign. 

I will also add that Mandriva is a trademark, but mdv and mdk are not.

Therefore, except the various mandriva-foo-config ( who are more
configuration than software ) and rpm-mandriva-setup, the software name
will likely not be a problem.


Now, if we decide that we also need to clean svn, we can use git and
tailor to do some trick to clean the source code ( ie, in the case of
urpmi, remove the name mandriva from the pod documentation ).
 
-- 
Michael Scherer