RH Decisions (was Re: APT, Yum and Red Carpet)

[Maynard Kuona]

Trademark issues come into play when you try make money using Redhat's
branding. It should be no problem if you want to burn cd's for friends
and family. If that is what you were asking. Redhat 'has' to protect its
name and trademarks, otherwise it will end up with cheap knockoffs.

On Thu, 2003-08-14 at 05:21, Kyle Maxwell wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-08-13 at 19:21, Jef Spaleta wrote:
> > If OEM's can't market the fact that they pre-install RHL and call it
> > RHL..whats the point..for me as an end-user. I'm going to have to buy a
> > bare-bones box and make sure the components work together when i install
> > rhlp myself....no thanks. I WANT to pay for an OEM i trust to give me
> > hardware they are reasonable sure works(with some hardware support
> > garuntee) for my home desktop that runs RHL...not pink tie linux...not
> > green shoe linux...not monkey chunks linux...I want to KNOW its its
> > rhl...and I want that OEM to be able to tell me without hassle that what
> > they have pre-installed as the operating system is RHLP. I'd be even
> > happier if I had a good way to tell if the OEM was a member of the RHLP
> > community in good standing, and not just a leech.
> 
> <sniff> I feel like I'm watching Patton... brutha, you have hit the nail
> on the head. I hear an anthem and I'm waving the flag while reading your
> post.
> 
> I've been a RH user and fan for years now, since the 5 series anyway.
> I've burned RHL ISOs for friends and family members because I believe
> it's one of the best distributions for someone who wants things to Just
> Work. I bought retail boxes of the distribution because I like the way
> RH has stood with and behind Free Software. At work, I've pushed for
> (and gotten!) RHL production installs in places where Windows and
> Solaris were being considered or even used previously. That's why I run
> Severn here at home: not to get bleeding-edge software on my desktop,
> but to do my little part to help out with making it even better. 
> 
> But some decisions are starting to leave me in the cold. I think that
> the trademark restrictions are more onerous than they need to be,
> although I'm glad that they're trying to make sure that their brand
> stands for something. I think that the decision to completely pull the
> RHL website and leave everyone completely in the cold while they decide
> what additional information to add is a bad idea too, though I'm glad
> that they want to become a free, public distribution a la Debian. I
> think that we need to hear more from RHL, and not just for developers
> (this is holding up some major decisions at work), but I'm glad that key
> RH developers *are* on the list and participate in the technical
> discussions.
> 
> RHL is really at a cusp right now, and giving us the cold shoulder --
> worse, *pulling* the information that we had for reasons that still
> haven't truly been explained -- isn't going to take it in the right
> direction. If you're going to be more open, then let's do it! I'm on
> board! If not, then I need to start pushing my application vendors
> towards other distributions and look into doing the same at home. It's a
> small part, but it looks clear that a lot of RH True Believers are being
> forced to become Doubting Thomases: we *want* to believe, but so far
> we're not given anything in which *to* believe, and it doesn't look good
> so far. If RH thinks I'm off-base, great! I want to be wrong -- but show
> me the plans so that I will be wrong. But if I'm right, then it'll be
> time for me to close this chapter and move on.