[Perl] Logo and T-shirts for perl.org.il

[Reuven M. Lerner]

>>>>> "Gaal" == Gaal Yahas <gaal at forum2.org> writes:

    Gaal> Excuse me? Nobody bought any such thing, if only because
    Gaal> nobody can sell that. You are free to use the word camel, as
    Gaal> well as paintings and pictures of it, in any context that
    Gaal> you like. Unless, of course, the particular picture you want
    Gaal> to use is restricted by copyright, as is the O'Reilly Perl
    Gaal> logo.

Actually, O'Reilly is pretty much convinced that they do own the
association between a camel (yes, *any* camel) and Perl.  You're
welcome to believe that they're wrong, but their lawyers will quickly
try to convince you of the opposite.  I'm not sure who is right, but
trademark law is a tricky thing to understand.

I know that O'Reilly is *very* aggressive about defending its
trademarks, or its perceived trademarks, on animals and books.  For
example, I'm now writing a new book for Apress.  Apress apparently
gives authors the opportunity to participate in many different parts
of the publishing process.

Well, one Apress author I know of wanted to have a dog on the cover of
his book.  Apress refused to do it, because O'Reilly apparently sues
computer book publishers who put animals on their covers.  

There was also some discussion on the mod_perl list a while back, when
people wanted to have a camel mascot for the project.  The idea was
nixed because of O'Reilly's trademarks.

You can read the official statements at

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

Again: I'm not sure if O'Reilly is right on this issue, or if they're
simply taking a stand.  But I don't have the time, energy, or money to
figure out where I'm right and they're wrong, particularly when
O'Reilly has many more lawyers and lots more money.

Reuven