Open source giant Red Hat sent a Cease and Desist letter to the DataPortability.org group today, the group says, demanding the removal of the DP logo from the group's website.
Red Hat alleges that the infinity sign on the blue suitcase of DataPortability.org and the green and white infinity sign at the top of the site are "identical to the Fedora Infinity design logo owned by Red Hat."
Since when can anyone own the symbol for infinity? Below are the logos in question, judge for yourself. At a time when scores of other, more conservative companies are joining the Data Portability Group, and on a day when Microsoft is committing to new levels of openness (which Red Hat, incidentally, received with "a healthy dose of skepticism") - doesn't a threat from Red Hat to sue seem a little strange?
Believe it or not, the above are not the logo for Red Hat's Fedora product, the following is.
Ok, so if those look alike it's because they all use the symbol for infinity. Red Hat isn't going to claim to own the symbol for infinity, is it? A request for comment hasn't been responded to yet, we'll see if the company has anything more to say. Meanwhile, a discussion concerning how to respond has begun on the DataPortability.org mailing list.
Outlaw pretzel image above used by, apparently illegitimate, CC license from Flickr user Oskay.
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I'm not a lawyer, but I am a mathematician - and I see lots of differences.
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).
Posted by: Mike Reynolds | February 21, 2008 5:38 PMHumm, I believe the main issue is the conjunction of the blue+white fill and shape.
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?
Posted by: lmjabreu | February 21, 2008 6:19 PMI thought the logo was "dP", you know, for Data Portability. Shows you what I know. If I was an attorney, instead of a designer, I would have figured that out all by myself.
Posted by: Gary Burge | February 21, 2008 6:28 PMOk, yes it's kind of silly... but ask someone who isn't looking at this as a IP issue whether the 2 look similar. I think most people will view they as very similar. RH would have less of an argument if the infinity symbol were horizontal, but the rotation and superficially similar fills DO make the 2 fairly close. Whether that'd worth a C&D... well...
Posted by: rick gregory | February 21, 2008 6:40 PMAre these people crazy? The infinity symbol for red had is CLEARLY more round than the other! The DP logo CLEARLY has rounded corners! Not to mention that the fill of the Red Hat logo has the F characteristics, and the DP fill resembles nothing like the Red Hat logo.
Get off you fucking high horse. You'd have better luck suing McDonalds for burning yourself with hot coffee.
Posted by: Neight | February 21, 2008 6:42 PMThis is really nuts. This is especially surprising for RedHat who you'd think would have more substantial IP issues to monitor and who you'd think should be the last to pick a fight with an open, community-driven initiative like dataportability.org.
Posted by: Chuck Allen | February 21, 2008 6:45 PMI'm going to buck the trend, I know it's not politically correct to ever say anything bad about an open source / open standards group, but those logos look damn similar at first glance. They both use the infinity symbol oriented in exactly the same position. They both partially fill in the symbol to make letters.
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.
Posted by: ahockley.myopenid.comJust one comment - perhaps this will be useful to some legal department out there. It's not clear that RedHat has a good argument, but if you were to give them the benefit of the doubt that there is some foundation to their concern about identity usurpation, a C&D letter to a group like dataportability is not the way to handle this. If Redhat was terribly concerned, why not contribute by offering a few days of a designer's time to help. From what I understand, the DP logo was a contributed work:
Posted by: Chuck Allen | February 21, 2008 7:14 PMhttp://www.particls.com/blog/2007/11/contribute-logobadge-design-to.html
I bet Redhat has already spent a few grand on legal review of this issue and they are catching some none-to-flattering press. It might be one thing if an alleged trademark infringer were a competitor or commercial entity -- but this is definitely not the way to deal with a community initiative like dataportability.
No idea on this one-- Red Hat kind of has to defend their stuff or lose the right to later. The color use and orientation are the biggest similarities, but the shape itself is very different, two rounded squares instead of more circular shapes. I would think dP would win this one but who knows.
Posted by: Morgan | February 21, 2008 7:18 PMRedhat is sick. It is a shame people consider them to be the torch bearers of opensource.
Posted by: krishnan.subramanian.nameFunny that the outer pointed circle on the Red Hat logo is pretty identical to the infamous "new" Quark logo (which isn't the new one, anymore)
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/23415.html
Hehe.
Posted by: Kevin M. Keating | February 21, 2008 7:39 PMI think Chuck has a point that a C&D letter may not have best first strike. Yes, I can see some similarities between the two logos on first take. I still see more differences.
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/
Posted by: Anne H | February 21, 2008 7:41 PMAfter looking at the two logos, in my opinion, they do look very similar. The average person could easily mistake one for the other. It seems like a lot of people's judgments made here are clouded by the inherent good nature of the DataPortability project.
Posted by: garyking.myopenid.comOK, step back a sec folks. Fedora uses the infinity loop at a 45 degree angle. That's very distinctive, and not the standard use of the infinity symbol at all. See the examples at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity for instance.
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.
Posted by: fred | February 21, 2008 8:50 PM@Fred:
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.
Posted by: Phillip Rhodes | February 21, 2008 9:14 PMOy. Here we go again.
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.
Posted by: Cyndy Aleo-Carreira | February 21, 2008 10:11 PMI think the logos are, indeed, very similar; the shapes are not exactly the same, but I believe the CONCEPT of using the product's initials in an infinity symbol is identical and could lead to a trademark infringement discussion.
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 :)
Posted by: campezzi.myopenid.comUm, people have been using the 8 infinite loop for over 2300 years now, RedHat, the last thing you want to do is try to claim something that has been used for over 2300 years. We were the first to make our brand like something that's been around for 2300 years so no one else for the next 2300 years can do anything similar at all. Come on. Red Hat, your brand name is very important so you want to protect them, not destroy them.
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.
Posted by: Jason Bogovich | February 22, 2008 5:09 AMFirefox had the same problems... I think they had to change their name 3 times... including one case of a database that nobody has even heard of! New Logo... and dataportability will get over it. I never ever was a 'Red Hat' or fedora fan. Let these little god's play god. They'll feel cool for all of 5 minutes.
Posted by: Don Crowley | February 22, 2008 5:35 AMWell... do a google image search for the DataProducts logo.
Dataproducts has been around for a LOT longer than any of these companies... I think _they_ would have a claim against Redhat, actually.
Pwned.
Posted by: alex eckelberry | February 22, 2008 7:48 AMChris Saad has announced a logo contest for DataPortability, here is the post: http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/dataportability-logo-competition/
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.
Posted by: Jacob Chapel | February 22, 2008 1:44 PMAs Tantek Çelik would say "Just use existing, open standards!" ; )
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.
Posted by: Todd | February 23, 2008 8:35 AMThis DataPortability logo entry is by far my favorite:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradybd/2305282463/
Posted by: Byron | March 19, 2008 1:27 AM