Tell HN: Arch Linux logo copied, issue resolved

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652092

by johnnybgoode • 17 years ago

2 3 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

This is a follow-up to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=648603.

From an update to their newsletter:

After this very article and the publicity it gained, the Arch Linux developer team received an unexpected e-mail from the operator of the company using our old logo. He has made a formal apology and has removed the logo from his website. The Arch Linux developer team considers the issue thereby resolved.

Apparently he received several threatening e-mails from members of our community. Honestly it was not our intention to motivate such actions. We know people tend to get out of hand sometimes when it comes to defending what they love, but for the future, please, that kind of behavior is not encouraged by any of us. Thanks for your support once more Arch Linux community.

justlearning• 17 years ago

i write this at the risk of being downmodded (and i don't have enough karma!)

Why is this such a big issue? The only tangent I can draw to this is the story about the cop tazing the grandma("you didn't need to" , "oh i was following procedures")

It's not like another distribution stole this logo and used it to get traction based on Arch Linux? It's a small business owner who used it as a 'casual' download-and-use-it manner..and He used the logo for his Ace Driving school - which was clearly displayed on the car. It was not the case that He was a pirated software distributor taking advantage of the Arch Linux logo. He was a layman - oblivious to online copyrights. He saw it on the web,liked it and used it. simple from his point of view. I am sure he knew about copyrights and other issues - but related to 'paper' business.

There are bigger stories of people deliberately stealing photos/digital art. There was this one story about this big designer who downloaded a creative-design from an artist's flickr account for a new designer shirt. This artist only came to know of it when he visited this showroom to buy one. Then there are always stories of magazines/newspapers flicking photos from flickr without proper attribution. (i don't recall the links, nor am i going to spend time searching for them - atleast now)

I am not contending the fact that he didn't steal the logo or he didn't lie. He did both.

I also think, acts like 'threatening' is not what the hacker/foss community should resort to. It only alienates community from the layman.

johnnybgoode• 17 years ago

i write this at the risk of being downmodded (and i don't have enough karma!)

I actually think one of the drawbacks of the voting system used here is that it discourages the posting of controversial or unpopular opinions. (See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=613071)

Jem• 17 years ago

> Apparently he received several threatening e-mails from members of our community. Honestly it was not our intention to motivate such actions.

Seriously, what did they expect? It's pretty well known that if you bring an issue like that to the public eye there are always going to be idiots who take it further than is really necessary.

Tell HN: Arch Linux logo copied, issue resolved

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