TradeMarked Name --redhat-config-

[Lance Davis]

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Mike A. Harris wrote:

> On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, David Farning wrote:
> 
> >> Do you worry about contributing to gnu-cc ?
> >> 
> >> I do understand the point you are trying to make but its GPL code and so
> >> you can either rename it or not worry about it (Red Hat ships gnu-cc, nothing
> >> stops other folks shipping redhat-config-blah really as I understand it).
> >> 
> >> You'd want different artwork of course.
> >I wonder what state GUN/Linux would be in if it was redhat-cc ;)
> >
> >Early on in my thinking, I looked at putting a paralle project called
> >gupta (Grand Unified Packaging Tool) at sorceforge .  Just pull off the
> >trademarks and repackage.
> >
> >But, wouldn't that that just contribute to FUD.  Same product two names,
> >two locations, two appearances.
> >
> >I be honest--I think that the fedora/redhat effort can be a win-win for
> >everyone involved.  I'm just concerned that if the redhat side of the
> >house starts to push it's fedora developers too hard, (the community
> >ones at least)  they'll jump ship.  Then we will have a lose-lose.
> 
> "Ximian" of "Ximian Evolution" is also a trademark, as is "Linux" 
> itself.  Are people going to jump ship and use the GNU Hurd 
> kernel now because these are trademarked?
> 
> Please people, with all due respect...  get a life.  ;o)
> 
> Write some code, and contribute it.  Improve the morass of open
> source code out there, and make all of our lives better.

That really sums up redhats attitude does it ??

None of the other projects / companies mentioned , including XFree86 , 
Apache etc, use trademarks to restrict the distribution of GPL software 
like Redhat does.

Who is to say that in the next release we may be told to rename all of the 
redhat- rpms as well as redhat-artwork and anaconda-images, because they 
use redhats trademark - it is redhat inc that have chosen the rules and 
changed the goalposts at each release of Redhat(TM) Linux(TM).

And even though neither we nor our lawyers may agree with redhats 
interpretation of trademark law we do not have deep enough pockets to
argue.

It is right that the questions are asked now, and hopefully anmswers 
given. The use of redhat- for an rpm in theory contravenes redhats published tradmark guidelines, and 
permission is not given anywhere for its use.

Surely if redhat does allow this use then it may be weakening its 
trademark position ....

And what about all of those people calling up redhat inc for support on 
the redhat- rpms when they havent paid for it because they got it from a 
back street cd vendor ??

What if I called my package redhat-config-widgit because it configures a 
widgit to work with redhat/fedora/other rpm based distro ???

So - get yourself a life ... and ask your lawyers to give the answers.


Lance

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