Bug#757621: Octocat Ball is non-free (trademark)

[Markus Koschany]

On Sun, 10. Aug 16:41 Calinou <calinou at openmailbox.org> wrote:
> But, isn't it non-free anyway? Since you can't modify and distribute
> it like you would distribute something under public domain or GPL,
> as the permission is exclusive.

Apparently you are confusing trademark with copyright. A
trademark is "a recognizable sign, design or expression which
identifies products or services of a particular source from those of
others." Debian is a registered trademark too and has also a trademark policy that
restricts the usage of Debian's logos, signs or name to certain
conditions.

https://www.debian.org/trademark

That doesn't make Debian non-free. There are also many other open-source
projects that have a similar trademark policy and they are not
considered non-free by the Debian community.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trademarked_open-source_software

You can use Neverball in full compliance with the GPL and since Github
has given permission to use its trademark in-game there is
absolutely no reason to remove the octocat ball from the game.

> It may also be seen as encouraging usage of GitHub.

This may be your opinion but it is irrelevant for the issue at hand.

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