Logo and trademark issues for openSUSE

A contest for new logos for the openSUSE project and for four separate distributions of it, Tumbleweed, Leap, Slowroll, and Kalpa, has turned into a bit of an uproar in that community. A vote has been held on the candidates and winners have been announced, but some are questioning why there is a need to change the existing logo (the "Geeko" chameleon) at all. In addition, there are questions about whether the new logo will be trademarked (as previous ones have been)—and how many years that will take.

The logo-design contest was meant to try to foster a single unified "look" that meshes well with the existing logos for the MicroOS, Leap Micro, and Aeon distributions. Tumbleweed and Leap have existing logos that share the look, but there have been some "visibility and recognition issues" with Tumbleweed's; Leap was added into the mix in case the community thought it should change. Unifying the look will "strengthen the visual identity of the openSUSE brand and make it discernible and cohesive". The guideline in the contest announcement said that logos should be "designed with simple shapes and lines for uniqueness and interest, typically as empty outlines, although the possibility of using fill is not excluded". A look through the submissions will show multiple examples of what is meant.

The link to the announcement about voting on the designs was posted to the openSUSE project mailing list on November 23 by Douglas DeMaio, who is a member of the openSUSE Board and is managing the contest. He was encouraging people to read about the contest and to vote for their favorites. But there was no option to vote for "no change" on the overall openSUSE project logo (seen at left), even though the existing Tumbleweed and Leap logos were options; Slowroll and Kalpa do not yet have logos.

Since they could not vote for it, several people noted their happiness with the existing openSUSE logo in the thread. For example, "victorhck" said: "I really don't want to change the main Geecko image for openSUSE." Javier Llorente agreed, noting that there are "some nice logo designs", but lamenting the lack of a "'keep the current the logo' option".

"Marcel" raised the possibility of "legal problems" with the existing openSUSE logo, saying that it is too similar to the SUSE logo. Stefan Seyfried expressed surprise about that; if that was the reason behind the switch, he said, it should have been mentioned in the announcement. Former board member (and current SUSE Distributions Architect) Richard Brown said he thought that there was not any actual legal problem; "The current logo is a formally registered trademark".

Brown also noted that changing the trademarked openSUSE logo would require a new trademark registration, which comes with a substantial financial and time cost, unless the project is "just abandoning the idea of openSUSE having a defensible trademark". There are multiple problems with not having a trademark, however, including the trademark guidelines becoming unenforceable for the logo. In addition, SUSE would have an interest in ensuring that openSUSE (which, obviously, shares part of its name with its parent) has a valid trademark.

One of the openSUSE branding contributors, Jacob Michalskie (also known as "LCP"), pointed out that while some of their designs were part of the contest, there was some confusion in the messaging about the logos. They were concerned that the vote will not be "representative of the intent of the people that voted".

DeMaio noted that the "plan would be to trademark a new design" at the end of what "will likely be a long process". He quoted from the contest announcement, which says:

The person doing the branding changes and maintenance has a say in any changes. The ultimate brand decision will rest with members of the project doing the implementation, but the results from this logo competition will provide an expressed opinion of the brand identity project wide.

But Brown complained that there was no option to express the "no change" opinion, though concerns about that were raised "here, on Reddit, and across other social media platforms". In addition, he wondered why there was such a push to do this contest, which is pressuring the branding folks who may or may not think there is any need to change the logo. He suggested that "those pushing this logo-change agenda" step back and process the feedback they had already been given.

As might be guessed, DeMaio saw things differently; he suggested waiting for the results of the vote once it ended (on December 10). It is not clear to him that there is a groundswell of opposition to changing the logo; he personally thinks that not making a change may be viewed as stagnation. Some of that post seemed to have greatly angered Brown, who replied in a heated fashion—to the point that a new community member called out "the accusations, insinuations, and anger" in the post.

Brown's complaints seem to boil down to his perception that all of the effort that is going into the contest may be entirely wasted if SUSE is not on board with spending the time and money on registering a new trademark. He seems to think that the majority opinion is that the logo should not change and, in truth, it seems to be hard to find many advocates (other than DeMaio) in various places that the subject has arisen. Brown clearly does not believe that DeMaio should be the one driving the effort—if the effort is needed at all—though angrily airing that in public seems counterproductive at best.

Part of Brown's frustration may stem from the lengthy process that resulted from changes to the openSUSE logo in 2005 and 2007; the paperwork on those took two and six years respectively as he described in a Reddit comment. Meanwhile, the prospect of spending money to change something for change's sake seems like a bad plan to some. Carlos E. R. said: "Change just for changing? No.". Board member Patrick Fitzgerald thought that "money is better spent on events and infrastructure than trademark lawyers... but having enough for both would be even better ;)".

At this point, the voting has closed and a new set of logos has been "chosen", though there was a three-way tie for the Tumbleweed logo and, of course, there was no "keep existing" option for the openSUSE logo. Where things go from here is unclear; the holidays approach, for one thing, and DeMaio seemed to indicate he would let others drive the process going forward. But, before any change to LCP's winning openSUSE logo (seen at left) can be effected, the issues around trademark registration will need a resolution of some sort. Then there may be a lengthy wait for the trademark-registration process to play out—if the community, and SUSE, find that to be a worthwhile thing to pursue.