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

[Dan Scott]

On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 10:04:19AM -0400, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> 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?

Hi Bradley:

Thanks for your comments and for Tony's comments and time on this
matter. I think we want to:

1) Avoid putting the Software Freedom Conservancy and the Evergreen
project in a position of possibly infringing copyright or license terms,
with respect to the original PDF trademark that Adobe put forth. Given
that my Fedora 16 GNOME 3 install uses a very generic icon of a document
(with text flowing around an image) for PDF, rather than anything
approaching the red scripted "A", I suspect Fedora or GNOME or
both wanted to avoid the possibility of a derived work from the original
Adobe trademark for PDF.

2) Our primary goal for the icon is simply to unambiguously identify a
PDF version of the documentation. So, I'll suggest using something like
a simple red "PDF" written on a white background for that purpose -- and
have attached the GIMP source and a 256x256 PNG icon as a starter for
that. (And of course I'll license it under the CC-BY-SA to make it a
straightforward match for our docs!)

Can I ask the DIG if we can go ahead with this icon as a placeholder,
and if anyone with more design skills wants to step up with an
alternative (that still avoids the whole derived red scripted "A"
problem), we can always replace it?

Dan
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