Having a benevolent entity (hold on, yes I do realize that "benevolent" can be contentious to define), and an entity that has some resources it can bring to bea

Having a benevolent entity (hold on, yes I do realize that "benevolent" can be contentious to define), and an entity that has some resources it can bring to bear if necessary, holding the rights over some IP paradoxically can help protect the community. The fact that O'Reilly is commercial should not ipso facto be evidence that its stewardship of the trademark is bad. I'm not saying the letter is wrong (or right) but I would lean toward skepticism toward the letter because it doesn't seem to recognize the history and the full situation, including the protection afforded the logo by O'Reilly, and it doesn't seem clear on how making the logo "free" will in any sense protect the logo and the community (or O'Reilly, which has a stake as the originator of the camel in this case). You might wonder, why should a logo need "protecting"? The short answer is that various "bad" things like loss of trust can happen, if the logo becomes associated with just anything that just anybody wants to associate it with for their own non-aligned purposes, and that loss of trust can detract from typical goals like having people interested in the project, interested in using and maintaining it, etc. So I wouldn't start out with a default assumption that O'Reilly should give any letter writer anything they want. But certainly they should be open to a dialog if the proposal seems well thought out (but the current one is a bit thin, imho).