From: "Benjamin J. Tilly" <ben_tilly@...>
Date: 2001-04-25T06:00:58+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:14176] Re: Ruby mascot proposal

Dave Thomas <Dave@PragmaticProgrammer.com> wrote:
>as646@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (John Robson) writes:
>
>> We have to come up with a mascot SOON before O'Reilly picks one for us.
>> Just a thought.  Personally, I prefer an animal.
>
>Just an observation.
>
>     "The use of the camel image in association with the Perl language
>     is a trademark of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc."
>
>They will not be picking a logo for _us_. Whatever they put on the
>cover of Matz's book, history suggests that we won't be able to freely
>use that image on our own web sites.

History actually indicates that O'Reilly will try to be as
reasonable about it as they can be within trademark law and
their own interests:

http://perl.oreilly.com/usage/

So use on most of our websites would be fine.  But you
would be unable to (for instance) include the image on any
books that came from a different publisher.

>So the community gets to pick a logo or mascot pretty much independent
>of what a cover-designer at a publisher decides.

History also indicates that this is only true so long as
the community makes the effort to do that before a book
has created such a strong image that the connection is
cemented in people's brains.

In other words if Ruby doesn't want to wind up like Perl,
with a well-known mascot that is trademarked to a
publisher (OK, a generous publisher), then now is the time
to do it.  Given the Perl experience, it might make sense
for someone to talk to a lawyer and see about making the
mascot chosen into a certification mark, a symbol that gets
to go only on books that we think are high quality.  (Else
if Ruby gets popular you will see a stream of really bad
books, and will have no way of pointing out the good ones
other than by word of mouth.)

Cheers,
Ben