Guideline for using SPDX logo in tooling

[sschuberth]

Hi @goneall et al,

could we get some guidance on the license / copyright to use in a REUSE file when adding the SPDX logo to own tooling, like ORT? I find https://spdx.dev/about/legal-notices/ not to be super clear on that, as it does not explicitly refer to logo / media asset use.

Like, when using this SPDX SVG logo, would this be the correct REUSE.toml file entry?

[[annotations]]
path = "logo-color.svg"
SPDX-FileCopyrightText = "2011 The Linux Foundation"
SPDX-License-Identifier = "CC-BY-3.0"

[goneall]

I checked with @swinslow and got the following pointer:

The LF’s overarching trademark policy (which would apply to SPDX marks and logos, in addition to https://spdx.dev/about/legal-notices/) is on the LF website at https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/trademark-usage. It includes more details about uses of logos and LF trademarks more generally. 

If you need further info,@swinslow can connect you to the right folks in LF.

[sschuberth]

Thanks @goneall for checking!

Ping @willebra, does that answer all our question regarding the copyright and license to use for files that contain the SPDX logo? I'm a little bit uncertain regarding the "trademark license" vs "copyright license" topic, TBH.

[willebra]

In this case the file is a picture which is also a design mark. Reuse.software, which is used to express copyright license information, does not consider and is not intended to communicate trademark licenses. @sschuberth is looking for an answer to what copyright license should be attached to the file containing the design mark by way of a reuse metadata file.

Or what is the suggested practice by the trademark holder, LF here, with respect to copyright markings for the file in question? Or with respect to third party open source projects, such as ORT, embedding the SPDX trademark file into the project's file tree?

The referenced materials above answer well the question of trademark license, but do not at all address copyright licenses with respect to trademark material.