Levente Polyák (hereinafter the "Arch Linux Project Lead") and Judd Vinet, on behalf of Arch Linux, own a number of trademarks including "ARCHLINUX", "ARCH LINUX", "A simple, lightweight Linux distribution" and the stylized Arch Linux logo. The trademarks are recognized in both word and logo form. Any mark beginning with the letters ARCH is sufficiently similar to one or more of the trademarks that permission will be needed in order to use it. This policy encompasses all marks, in word and logo form (collectively referred to as "Trademarks").

Certain usages of the Trademarks are fine and no specific permission from us is needed.

Advocacy. Arch Linux is built by, and largely for, its community. We share access to the Trademarks with the entire community for the purposes of discussion, development and advocacy. We recognise that most of the open source discussion and development areas are for non-commercial purposes and will allow the use of the Trademarks in this context, provided:

Derived works. The ability to customise Arch Linux to meet your specific needs is one of the great strengths of free software in general, and Arch Linux in particular. While we encourage customisation and derivation of Arch Linux, we must balance that freedom with the integrity of the Trademarks and the quality which they represent. To help reach that balance, we have established the following guidelines and definitions.

We recognise and encourage the concept of a "remix." Remixes are derived versions of Arch Linux, and it is intended that any software and hardware certifications will apply to a Remix. Therefore the changes from official Arch Linux products must be minimal to be permitted to use the Trademarks. These changes can include configuration changes through the existing Arch Linux configuration management tools, changes to artwork and graphical themes and some variance in package selection. In general, a Remix can have applications from the Arch Linux archives added, or default applications removed, but removing or changing any infrastructure components (e.g., shared libraries or desktop components) will result in changes too large for the resulting product to be called by a Trademark. Note that if the nature of the product’s divergence from Arch Linux changes, the Remix naming and Trademark use may no longer apply.

Therefore, if you are creating a derivative of Arch Linux, you may use the Trademarks in association with the software product provided:

If you are producing a new product which is based on Arch Linux but which has more substantial changes than those described above as a Remix, you are allowed to state (and we would encourage you to do so) that your product is "derived from Arch Linux", "based on Arch Linux", or "a derivative of Arch Linux" but you may not use the Trademarks to refer to your product. In some cases you may be allowed to use the Trademarks, but permission must be explicitly granted by the Arch Linux Project Lead. In that event, these products will need a trademark license, and such a license can be revoked if the nature of your divergence from Arch Linux changes. Products which include very invasive changes, such as a new kernel, the inclusion of packages which are not part of the Arch Linux repositories, or anything else that significantly impacts the technical quality or user experience would fall into this category are unlikely to be approved. (Note that if you are including packages which are not part of the Arch Linux repositories, we encourage you to work within the community processes, such as the Arch User Repository (AUR) to submit and maintain those packages within the community repositories in order to minimise this issue.)

Building on Arch Linux or for Arch Linux. If you are producing new software which is intended for use with or on Arch Linux, you may use the trademark in a way which indicates the intent of your product. For example, if you are developing a system management tool for Arch Linux, acceptable project titles would be "System Management for Arch Linux" or "Arch Linux Based Systems Management". We would strongly discourage, and likely would consider to be problematic, a name such as ArchMan, Arch Management, ArchTools, etc. Furthermore, you may not use the Trademarks in a way which implies an endorsement where that does not exist, or which attempts to unfairly or confusingly capitalise on the goodwill or brand of the project.

Commentary and parody. The Arch Linux Trademarks are designed to cover use of a mark to imply origin or endorsement by the project. When a user downloads something called Arch Linux, they should know it comes from the Arch Linux project. This helps Arch Linux build a reputation that will not be damaged by confusion around what is, and is not, Arch Linux. Using the Trademarks in your discussion, commentary, criticism or parody, in ways that unequivocally do not imply endorsement, is permissible. Anyone is free to write articles, create websites, blog about, or talk about Arch Linux — as long as it’s clear to everyone — including people completely unfamiliar with Arch Linux — that they are simply referring to Arch Linux and in no way speaking for the Arch Linux project.

We reserve the right to review all usage within the open source community, and to object to any usage that appears to overstep the bounds of discussion and good-faith non-commercial development. In any event, once a project has left the open source project phase or otherwise become a commercial project, this policy does not authorize any use of the Trademarks in connection to that project.

Explicit permission from the Arch Linux Project Lead is necessary to use any of the Trademarks under any circumstances other than those specifically permitted above. These include:

If you wish to have permission for any of the uses above or for any other use which is not specifically referred to in this policy, please email trademarks@archlinux.org and we will let you know as soon as possible if your proposed use is permissible. Permission may only be granted subject to certain conditions and these may include the requirement that you enter into an agreement with us to maintain the quality of the product and/or service which you intend to supply at a prescribed level.

While there may be exceptions, it is very unlikely that we will approve Trademark use in the following cases:

In addition to the restrictions imposed above, the Trademark declaration ( ™ ) must remain intact whenever displaying the logos.

Our logos are presented in multiple colours and it is important that their visual integrity be maintained. It is therefore preferable that the logos only be used in their standard form but if you should feel the need to alter them in any way, please keep the following in mind:

The Arch Linux trademark policy is published under the CC-BY-SA license, courtesy of the Ubuntu project. You are welcome to base your own project trademark policies off of it, but you must give credit to the Ubuntu project as the original source, and let others use your changes freely.

The Trademark Policy has been originally developed on the Arch wiki, where its history can be found. Later revisions of this document can be found in the Arch Linux Service Agreements repository.