Pidgin development with encryption

[Mark Doliner]

2009/3/30  <antony.maliakal at wipro.com>:
> I wanted to try to make a public-private key pair version of pidgin and saw
> that a plugin of similar nature was already implemented
> (http://pidgin-encrypt.sf.net/)
> I'm planning on making a version of Pidgin which has this encryption plugin
> as an essential.
> I will be releasing it back as open source but wanted to know about
> maintaining the Pidgin brand name.
> Should I have to find another name, or could I release it as Pidgin+ or some
> other similar name.
> Also please let me know about the Logo art etc. What are the policies or is
> it all under GPLv3?
>
> I will be putting the final version up only after it goes through a cycle of
> reviews from you guys.
> Because I wanted to ask you if it can be developed as a branch with special
> emphasis on encryption.
>
> I will get back to you with the beta version of the same at the earliest.
> Thanks

The Pidgin name is a trademark and you would have to find another
name.  I'm not sure how we usually treat the logo/art.  I think it's
probably safe to protocol icons and emoticons and other similar images
under a "GPLv2 or newer" license.  But I think the Pidgin bird is part
of our branding and probably shouldn't be used except when associated
with Pidgin.  But I don't know if that's legally enforceable, and we
certainly don't have any formal policy in place.  In any case, I don't
think it really makes sense to use the Pidgin bird logo for something
that isn't Pidgin.

Forking is a time-consuming endeavor.  If what you're doing is simply
a plugin then there isn't any reason to fork or change the name.  That
would be more like "an unofficial build of Pidgin with an encryption
plugin."  If you want to change libpurple or Pidgin directly then it
might be more beneficial to everyone if we can find a way to work
together to get your changes made to official libpurple repository.

-Mark