Hello,
I am trying to find out about how Fedora will be released. I.E., if I wished to release CD's of the Fedora Project, Could I do so under another name without infrigning on anyone's rights? In other words, I may wish to have burned CD's available of the Source and Binaries, but not call it Fedora, so that people can order the same for a small fee. Is this feasibale under the Fedora Project, or will this be considered an infringement of the rights of the developers and contributors?
The last thing I want to do is make people upset. I merely want to enable those without a broadband connection or patience to be able to order a CD or DVD set without the hassle of the big download. Also, can documentation then be built for same and charged for, or would that be considered a violation of Red Hat's rights? Also, how do developers who contribute feel about that? Is it a problem, or is it expected that others will deliver CDs and DVDs?
I am not trying to cash in on this, I am jusy trying to come up with a way to start a fund for the Corporation for Public Software by providing a service first. Getting that off the ground is still a long-term goal for me.
Due to the noise level of the list, I would ask that responses please come direct to me as this is not a development question, but a delivery question. I am not sure that is appropriate for the list (maybe it is, but I am not certain, and I don't want to take away from the development discussions).
My email (intended for human eyes and comprehension): ctalk at austin dot rr dot com.
Thanks in advance for your replies.
Sincerely,
Chuck Talk
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On Saturday 01 November 2003 17:00, Chuck Talk wrote:
I am trying to find out about how Fedora will be released. I.E., if I wished to release CD's of the Fedora Project, Could I do so under another name without infrigning on anyone's rights? In other words, I may wish to have burned CD's available of the Source and Binaries, but not call it Fedora, so that people can order the same for a small fee. Is this feasibale under the Fedora Project, or will this be considered an infringement of the rights of the developers and contributors?
You can't use the Redhat-specific art in this case, nor the Redhat-owned trademarks (whatever they are, "Redhat" at least). Redhat seem to put these goodies in nicely separate packages.
Otherwise there's nothing wrong with this as I understand it, for example Mandrake is a fork of Redhat from some time ago. Redhat do not own the copyright on the vast bulk of the things in Fedora, so no rights are infringed for those things. For the redhat-* utils I don't know how they are licensed, I assume they are also GPL-d in which case you can have those too. Definitely the case for Redhat's anaconda which Debian seem to be incorporating. I guess that redhat-* utils might need renaming to avoid trademark horror, or maybe that would be exactly the wrong thing to do. Maybe someone from Redhat can clarify.
I hope somebody does this distro wrapping action for non-financial reasons, in order at least to make a tracking version of Fedora which includes mpg123 and mplayer in the install directly. Its the great power of the GPL that people making new stuff can stand on the shoulders of giants like this.
- -Andy
On Nov 1, 2003, Andy Green fedora@warmcat.com wrote:
On Saturday 01 November 2003 17:00, Chuck Talk wrote:
I am trying to find out about how Fedora will be released. I.E., if I wished to release CD's of the Fedora Project, Could I do so under another name without infrigning on anyone's rights? In other words, I may wish to have burned CD's available of the Source and Binaries, but not call it Fedora, so that people can order the same for a small fee. Is this feasibale under the Fedora Project, or will this be considered an infringement of the rights of the developers and contributors?
You can't use the Redhat-specific art in this case, nor the Redhat-owned trademarks (whatever they are, "Redhat" at least). Redhat seem to put these goodies in nicely separate packages.
Note that the redistribution terms of Fedora Core are different from those of Red Hat Linux. This was actually one of the reasons for the rename.
See http://fedora.redhat.com/about/trademarks/ for all the details. Compare with http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/
On Sat, 1 Nov 2003, Andy Green wrote:
wished to release CD's of the Fedora Project, Could I do so under another name without infrigning on anyone's rights? In other words, I may wish to have burned CD's available of the Source and Binaries, but not call it Fedora, so that people can order the same for a small fee. Is this feasibale under the Fedora Project, or will this be considered an infringement of the rights of the developers and contributors?
You can't use the Redhat-specific art in this case, nor the Redhat-owned trademarks (whatever they are, "Redhat" at least). Redhat seem to put these goodies in nicely separate packages.
Otherwise there's nothing wrong with this as I understand it, for example Mandrake is a fork of Redhat from some time ago. Redhat do not own the copyright on the vast bulk of the things in Fedora, so no rights are infringed for those things.
Copyright isn't the issue anyway. Red Hat *does* own the copyright on a lot of software in the distribution, either having written it entirely inhouse (redhat-config-* et al), or having made major contributions to a piece of software such as the kernel, etc. It isn't copyright ownership which allows or prevents someone from copying/modifying/redistributing/using software however, it is "licensing". All Red Hat written software included in Fedora (and previously in Red Hat Linux) are GPL licensed, MIT licensed, or some similar open source license. They are copyright by Red Hat, and others can use them however they see fit under the given license (like any other OSS software).
For the redhat-* utils I don't know how they are licensed, I assume they are also GPL-d in which case you can have those too.
Yep.
Definitely the case for Redhat's anaconda which Debian seem to be incorporating. I guess that redhat-* utils might need renaming to avoid trademark horror, or maybe that would be exactly the wrong thing to do. Maybe someone from Redhat can clarify.
I've been told that the "redhat-" in the software name is part of the program's name itself and so needn't be changed, however I don't remember who told me this and wether or not it was official legal advice. If someone wants to modify a tool, they're free to do so as it's OSS. Of course we would much rather if people work together, and contribute their efforts back to the future developement of the tools rather than fork them off on their own. That makes OSS processes work together for everyone than splitting off unnecessarily. Of course people can always rename the tool if they see fit or want to be safe too. Still best to share development if possible though.
I hope somebody does this distro wrapping action for non-financial reasons, in order at least to make a tracking version of Fedora which includes mpg123 and mplayer in the install directly. Its the great power of the GPL that people making new stuff can stand on the shoulders of giants like this.
It's definitely clear that anything having the "Fedora" name and any Red Hat trademarks attached to it will not contain mpg123 or any other MP3 related software. If someone wanted to whip up a distribution based on Fedora which contained any potentially illegal software, they would definitely have to remove all Red Hat trademarks.
That said, it is indeed the great power of the GPL and other OSS software licenses that make things like this possible. And that in turn provides software longevity in one form or another, and freedom of expression, freedom of sharing, freedom of innovation, etc.
So for me personally at least, I hope to see people use the distribution for whatever purposes they like that benefit them. I also hope that any good modifications they make, they contribute back to the various upstream projects that comprise the distribution as well, including the redhat-* tools, etc. and any other patches to the installer, etc.. Those efforts can then benefit Fedora Core 2 development as well, and give Fedora based distributions less stuff to have to carry around and maintain themselves too.
Hope this helps, TTYL
On Sat, 2003-11-01 at 11:00, Chuck Talk wrote:
I am trying to find out about how Fedora will be released. I.E., if I wished to release CD's of the Fedora Project, Could I do so under another name without infrigning on anyone's rights? In other words, I may wish to have burned CD's available of the Source and Binaries, but not call it Fedora, so that people can order the same for a small fee. Is this feasibale under the Fedora Project, or will this be considered an infringement of the rights of the developers and contributors?
Why call it something besides what it is? Fedora is free to use and distribute. You can resell it to your hearts content as long as you can find someone willing to pay what you are asking.
You must distribute it AS IS without changes.
If you want to distribute it under another name you will need to change all of the artwork and remove all references to fedora.
Hardly worth the hassle.
If you want to write documentation and charge for it that to is your right.
These things are not a violation of the GPL.
Keep in mind also, that you can't change the license on these products. What's free for you to use and distribute is free for everyone else to use and distribute.
For the record though the answers to your questions are addressed here for the most part: http://fedora.redhat.com/about/trademarks/guidelines/
-Chris
On Sat, 1 Nov 2003, Chuck Talk wrote:
I am trying to find out about how Fedora will be released. I.E., if I wished to release CD's of the Fedora Project, Could I do so under another name without infrigning on anyone's rights?
Short answer: Yes.
In other words, I may wish to have burned CD's available of the Source and Binaries, but not call it Fedora, so that people can order the same for a small fee. Is this feasibale under the Fedora Project, or will this be considered an infringement of the rights of the developers and contributors?
If you're redistributing Fedora unmodified, if I recall correctly, our trademark guidelines permit this. You'll have to read the guidelines on the website yourself to be sure though.
Also, if you're re-rolling Fedora as your own distribution with possible changes, you can charge whatever you like for the results as it is effectively your own distribution - as long as Red Hat trademarks are removed. Again, you can clarify this by reading our trademark policies on the Fedora site and main Red Hat website.
The last thing I want to do is make people upset. I merely want to enable those without a broadband connection or patience to be able to order a CD or DVD set without the hassle of the big download. Also, can documentation then be built for same and charged for, or would that be considered a violation of Red Hat's rights? Also, how do developers who contribute feel about that? Is it a problem, or is it expected that others will deliver CDs and DVDs?
Red Hat is only concerned about protecting it's trademarks. The software is all OSS software and freely distributable, thus allowing anyone to modify it, and redistribute the results, including using Fedora as the basis of their own distribution. There should be no problem redistributing CDs/DVDs based on a modified Fedora, as long as the Fedora name and trademarks are not used. Again though I defer to the published trademark guidelines for complete details.
I am not trying to cash in on this, I am jusy trying to come up with a way to start a fund for the Corporation for Public Software by providing a service first. Getting that off the ground is still a long-term goal for me.
You can try to cash in on it if you want to though. As long as you're following the trademark guidelines, there are really no problems. It's all OSS software. ;o) Nobody has any right to be upset with you if you're not violating any trademarks or licenses, etc.
Due to the noise level of the list, I would ask that responses please come direct to me as this is not a development question, but a delivery question. I am not sure that is appropriate for the list (maybe it is, but I am not certain, and I don't want to take away from the development discussions).
I think it is very relevant to the list personally. There are other people who probably want to do the same thing, or are at least interested in answering the results.
My email (intended for human eyes and comprehension): ctalk at austin dot rr dot com.
I'm not sure why people try to hide their email address in this fashion. Your real email address is in the mail headers, and any address harvesting software can just pull it from the headers. Of course that could only happen if some harvester subscribed to the list addresses, or got it from web available archives that don't munge addresses. ;o)
Hope this answers your questions about redistribution. Take care!
TTYL
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Alexandre Oliva -
Andy Green -
Chris Spencer -
Chuck Talk -
Mike A. Harris