Re: adding and forking someone else's GPL software - what should i do?

On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 19:50, Martin D Kealey <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Nov 2011, Robin Paulson wrote:
>>
>> > I think that the GPLv3 allows that additional restriction, though, which
>> > is strange; they call out that additional terms including "prohibiting
>> > misrepresentation of the origin of the software" are permitted.
>>
>> in the specific case i brought up, there are further conflicts which i had
>> not thought about before. the name of the project, zotero, is trademarked,
>> but all parts of the project are released under free licences. the
>> conflict is that some of the code uses the word zotero, and thus i suppose
>> can't be redistributed without changes. similarly file and folder names,
>> and the trademark owned by the various sponsors (a university and other
>> similar academic groups) will be similar as it is embedded in various
>> places such as the 'about' dialogue. apparently re-distributors are
>> forbidden from bringing the name of sponsors into disrepute. also, there
>> are icons and other images which contain the name of the project. so, it
>> conforms to free software, but due to the trademark, we can't exercise all
>> the rights given to us under that license.
>>
>> an odd anomaly, one strand of IP affecting another. i wonder what the
>> complete, technical, legal stance is?

Copyright, Trademark, and Patent law all cover fairly distinct areas
of protection around ... things.  This is an example of how one sort
of freedom (eg: copyright enforced freedom to modify software) may not
be sufficient freedom to meet some standards (eg: to use the name of
the original product in some way).

I understand that part of the effort in the GPLv3 was to modify the
license to account for these other, previously unnoticed, places where
the FSF feel that the freedoms are important.  Personally, I am ...
diffident.  I don't think they are the most urgent thing compared to
patents, and that trademark law is much saner overall.  (For example,
it restricts reuse of the name in the same field, where confusion
might arise, but not across it.  So, you can totally have Apple
computers and Apple music, until one strays into the domain of the
other, to pick a contentious example. :)

> I believe that all versions of the GPL have has specific wording around
> "aggregation" not being sufficient a "derivative work" to require all the
> components to be GPL licensed.
>
> It could be argued that the branded elements (images etc) are NOT GPL'ed,
> they're just aggregated with GPL code.

You would, I expect, lose in court on that argument.  The issue at
hand is different, though: it is really that the GPL is a *copyright*
legal document, and the protections come from trademarks.

Even if the image was absolutely GPL, or you otherwise could not
copyright the content, the trademark is still valid, and defensible.
This applies to things that you literally cannot copyright, such as
the particular shade of purple that Cadbury use in their advertising,
can still be defended as trademarks.

Daniel
-- 
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