[Kde-games-devel] Kapman default theme

[Mauricio Piacentini]

Parker Coates wrote:
> Just to clarify, I don't think we should be concerned about any
> possible patents on game mechanics or any such nonsense. I don't see
> that as being a real issue. Trademarks were really my only concern.

+1 here.

> I just did some quick research and it seems that sound trademarks are
> a relatively new thing and vary quite a bit from jurisdiction to
> jurisdiction. One common thread seems to be that sound trademarks only
> really apply to sounds that can be represented in musical notation, so
> I think we're in the clear here.

Good research!

> P.S.: I would also just like to point out that we shouldn't assume
> that the lawyers won't come after us just because we're a relatively
> small, non-profit project. This guy [1], had his free Flash Pac-Man
> clone taken down for trademark infringement.
> 
> [1] http://www.neave.com/games/pacman/

Sure, we do not want to knowingly infringe on trademarks and copyrights, 
otherwise we would not be protected ourselves, as all of our open source 
licenses are based on the copyright/copyleft framework. I think our 
effort here shows that. And like any other project we are not immune 
from lawyers. Thankfully as part of KDE we have good friends that can 
help us, like the FSF guys, if needed.

Regards,
Mauricio Piacentini