Fedora's image is infinity/8 with "f" shaded, all within a quote-type structure.

DataPortability is infinity/8 with "d" shaded, all within a briefcase.

If a person were to trace the "8"...
... they could trace the Fedora "8" forever without stopping
... for DP, they would have to make their pencil jump/swerve given the horizontal portion is a tad askew

The Fedora "8" involves two perfect circles, whereas the DP "8" are imperfect circle-like shapes.

Said another way, there are strong linear elements to the two bits of the DP "8", while Fedora is completely circular.

The slope of the Fedora and DP infinity/8 is the same slope as Fujitsu's environmentality emblem:
http://www.fujitsu.com/img/ECO/top/emblem.gif

On that note, clearly there are an infinity number of slopes/rotations, but this 45 degree positioning is the most obvious positioning of infinity (other than the pure horizontal).

They aren't identical though, but the suitcase and fedora do look very similar.

btw: why does deselecting 'remember personal info' clear the above input fields?

Get off you fucking high horse. You'd have better luck suing McDonalds for burning yourself with hot coffee.

I have no idea what the legal threshold would be, but to Joe Blow on the street, show him those logos for a few seconds, it's not a stretch to think they're affiliated.

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/23415.html

Hehe.

Interestingly, if I go to http://fedoraproject.org/ some of the colors are lost for me (at least on my monitor) and it doesn't look as close. The FAVICON that shows on the browser tab seems to have more variant shades.

The logos are also interesting to look at from the perspective of a color blind user. Try running this page thorugh: http://colorfilter.wickline.org/

The two logos absolutely look similar, and since Fedora's use is very novel/unique and was first, I think this is a real issue.

You can't really blame Red Hat for protecting their copyright. If they don't, they can easily lose it. Don't blame Red Hat, it's the law.

Your point is true, but RH could have started with a slightly less aggressive and confrontational opening move. A quick email or a polite phone-call to some of the DP movers & shakers and a "hey guys, we think your logo looks a bit too much like ours, any chance you'd be willing to change it?" would almost certainly have gone over better than this. Even more so if they'd offered to have one of their graphics people spend a few hours helping tweak the DP logo into something both groups could be happy with.

As somebody pointed out above, DataPortability.org are not competitors for Red Hat. If anything, this is the sort of initiative you might expect Red Hat to get involved in, especially consider all the posters plastered around their offices talking about "Democratizing Content" etc.

If Red Hat want to be "torch bearers for Open Source" and not "just another company trying to make a buck" they should probably think a little harder about this kind of stuff. Especially when you consider that, ultimately, Red Hat don't sell bits, they sell relationships.

But, bad opening move or not, I do hope (maybe even "expect") that this will be settled amicably. I'm sure both organizations have better things they could be doing.

When I saw the information about the C&D on the Data Portability group, it was a eureka moment; I'd been wondering why the DP logo looked so familiar and chalked it up to deja vu.

The C&D is standard legal protocol for trademark enforcement. They don't hate the DP folks, but they do have to protect their trademark or risk losing it. For folks who don't understand WHY that is important, there is a handy Wikipedia entry on lost trademarks which include aspirin and some others. If Kimerly Clarke could send out a C&D letter to every person who points at a box of Puffs Plus with Lotion and asks, "Can you hand me a Kleenex?" they would. There's a reason why trademarks have to be defended, and a behind-the-scenes nudge wouldn't hold up in a court of law if they were ignored.

Is it really that much of a big for them to change the logo? And, was it really necessary to make a huge story about it to hit Techmeme? I actually think that a logo is the least important thing the Data Portability group needs to have.

However, I believe the real point to be discussed here is whether Red Hat really has to worry about this to the point of sending a cease & desist letter do DataPortability. That sounded like a pretty bold move in my opinion, and one that the tech community will not appreciate - a more "friendly" approach would probably be much more effective and admirable.

As Cyndy pointed out, a C&D is standard protocal for trademark infringement, but IMO this was a good opportunity to skip the protocol and play a gentleman's game :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity

Why don't you concentrate on making your customers the happiest in the world by aligning your self with the initiative whos entire goal, is to put the customer first. What kind of company sends a C&D to people who have been working like this?

Sometimes I wish we could find out what was happening behind the scenes, it doesn't seem to be in your favor to make such claims or to attack the most user centric act on the internet.

Dataproducts has been around for a LOT longer than any of these companies... I think _they_ would have a claim against Redhat, actually.

Pwned.

This is a good move for DataPortability, and instantly gets the issue of the logo being similar or not off the plate. I felt that the logo needed to be redone anyways.

Like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronin691/2285428799/in/pool-592496@N21

I am finding a lot of irony in Data Portability using a custom ( proprietary ) logo when a perfectly good open standard already exists. AIGA is giving this symbol away, why not use it? I just added the bleached green color from the Microformats logo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradybd/2305282463/