No need to consult a lawyer, just open an issue at http://support.github.com and ask if it's okay.

No need to do that, they've pointed out in the past that it's a stock image they've bought the rights to use and can not authorize others to use it.

I forget where I read this, but it was someone asking the same thing. I might have been on HN, actually.

GitHub now owns the octocat art.

githacking left me with the impression that it was an official github thing, because of the octocat.

Cool! Congrats on finally getting it. :-)

You guys should seriously think about allowing other projects to use the octocat when the projects are associated to github.

it would be a nice way of everybody having a common "icon", much like twitter has the bird.

I know people can link to github, but that's not always possible (mobile apps?) even though people use github..

Twitter previously used some stock bird art, but the logo was just the bubble letters. Now they have an original bird logo. But 3rd party Twitter stuff can use arbitrary bird art, or maybe the old stock one since it's unclear who owns it.

I think a good solution would be a new open license logo, like the Minefield logo as opposed to the restricted Firefox logo.

@defunkt

We'll get on that ASAP. Nothin' but love.

Yeah, working on that too. Our creative juices started to run dry after the weekend sprint. We'll refresh that in the coming days.

Might want to make that sooner than just "in the coming days."

One thing I've learned from reading HN over the years: Few things kill the buzz of a new site like the introduction of legal/copyright issues.

I don't see the big deal; it's cosmetic. The logo's easy to remove. I can't imagine significant damages. Legal issues are only a problem when the content is infringing, such as video uploads.

I agree, it shouldn't overshadow other stuff. But that's the odd thing about those kinds of issues -- they tend to overshadow the work anyway.