[Koha-devel] Comments & important question (was "New Koha Logo")

[Paul POULAIN]

Rachel Hamilton-Williams a écrit :
> OK Here is what I've "got" out if it, and what my logo plans are, so 
> please shout if your situation isn't covered,....
> 1/. I'll do a series of logos on colours.....
> - black on white
> - white on black
> - black on grey/neutral

Do you mean black on "empty" ?

> - black on green
> - black on teal - so that can just put onto Pauls current page etc
> I could do a range of primaries too - blue, yellow, red if you think 
> that would be helpful - because while I can do them with transparent 
> background they do still get a bit of dithering on a coloured background 
> I think
> 4/. I would like to do a version which is "free library system" in 
> french, if you send me the correct wording/spelling for that - we think 
> that would be pretty cute :-)

In french, I think we should write :
"SIGB libre" SIGB meaning "Système Intégré de Gestion de Bibliothèque" 
(=ILS)
I don't see a short word used in france for "library system" and SIGB is 
  perfectly understood. French is usually longer than english :-(

> 5/. You can put your own words under "koha" to suit your situation that 
> is fine
> 6/. I've done an example page of how I think the logo stuff could be 
> used with the new features etc....
> http://katipo.co.nz/gallery/album103/opac_home_concept_teal
> http://katipo.co.nz/gallery/album103/opac_concept_home_review

wow ! if I could have only 10% of your designing skills...

> I'm not interested in protecting the logo for *katipo* but I really 
> would like to protect it for *koha* - does that seem possible?

Good question. That I extent to share a question I have now :
Some french companies seems to be more and more interested by Koha the 
ILS. Some of them being involved in Free Software for a long time, some 
not at all.
So, i'm looking for a solution to "protect" Koha & libraries in France.
2 kinds of protections :
* protecting Koha to prevent having a large company selling services on 
the product, but with specific extension not shared with the Koha 
project. The GPL say that a developper must give CUSTOMERS the same 
rights than the one he got. So we could imagine a large company saying 
to customers "ok, it's GPL", but giving the code only to customers. But 
I know french libraries : they will never take/have possibility to give 
the code to "the project" back. And they will be caught in the same 
problems as with closed software.
* protecting libraries : I think we need in France a "label" to say "ok, 
this company is involved in Koha, know the product & can help you". To 
avoid anti-geeks that could be a counter-testimony of the quality of the 
product.

My idea (not done) is to register Koha & the koha logo as a trademark in 
France.
Then create what we call in france a "GIE" (Economical Interested Group) 
and saying :
* the trademark Koha is free for any non commercial purposes
* the software is a GPL software
* anyone wanting to sell commercial services on Koha must be a member of 
the GIE
* anyone entering the GIE must :
- give some resources to the community
- sign that he will give to the koha project all it's code and be 
sincerely involved in "free software goals".

It's just an idea for instance, pls give me your opinion(s) if you have one.
-- 
Paul POULAIN
Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres
responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)