[OPEN-ILS-DOCUMENTATION] PDF icon: licensing concern & fix

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

Tony, thanks for your comments on this:

I'd written:
>> We could, however, come to some sort of fair use analysis of this
>> situation and determine that the icon can be used -- at least in the
>> USA -- without such strict compliance with the LGPL.  Tony, do you
>> have any thoughts on that, given the facts Dan presented above?

Tony Sebro wrote at 17:28 (EDT) on Wednesday:
> I don't think this would qualify as fair use, because the value of
> this icon file is derived from its use of Adobe's trademark.  The
> original copyright holder, Adobe, has articulated its desire for this
> icon file (and the logo) to be associated with PDFs specifically
> created by Adobe software.  Using it to link to PDFs created by other
> sources could devalue the logo, which would by extension reduce the
> value of the icon file to Adobe.

I hadn't even realized that KDE's icon might actually be either (a) a
copyright derivative work of an Adobe icon and/or (b) in need of a
trademark license from Adobe.  I had assumed that KDE's licensing of
their similar icon under LGPL indicated there were no issues with (a),
but maybe we cannot assume that.  With regard to (b), we'll have to rely
on Tony's analysis, I think, and he's telling us clearly that we can't
be assured of a trademark license if Evergreen is using non-Adobe
software (which Evergreen is, I believe) to generate PDFs.

Moving forward, we'll have to figure out what to do.  Dan's original
post at
http://list.georgialibraries.org/pipermail/open-ils-documentation/2012-April/001192.html
suggests using GNOME's icon, which appears to be less problematic with
regard to Adobe's policy, but we should do the same analysis there.
Tony, can you take a look at it and think about it?  Conservancy has
good contacts and a good relationship with the GNOME Foundation, so we
can talk to them about whatever analysis they did too.

We could have the same conversation with KDE eV, but I can't really
imagine their analysis would be different than Tony's.  Plus, they're in
Germany and perhaps the legal situation is different enough that their
analysis wouldn't help us.  I assume they believe they have the right to
license their icon under LGPL and have complied with the trademark
license for their use of it in KDE, but it doesn't mean Evergreen is
automatically in compliance with the trademark license, even *if*
Evergreen stays in compliance with the LGPL.

I think, though, to start, we need to understand: what does the
Evergreen Community *want* with regard to its PDF icon in its
documentation?  Is the GNOME one adequate?  Do you want us to figure out
how to safely use the KDE one, notwithstanding its similarity to the
Adobe one?  Can you all indicate Conservancy the outcome you'd like to
have, so we can try to achieve it for you?
-- 
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy