On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Mike A. Harris wrote:
>That really sums up redhats attitude does it ??
Attitude? Um, no. That sums up my personal opinion. Perhaps I
shouldn't be feeding the trolls on a Sunday. <sigh>
or even trolling yourself. ..
>None of the other projects / companies mentioned , including
>XFree86 , Apache etc, use trademarks to restrict the
>distribution of GPL software like Redhat does.
We're not using trademarks to restrict the distribution of GPL
software, so you are very wrong there.
'released under the GPL as long as you conform to our trademark
requirements' seems clear cut to me.
http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/guidelines/page6.html is
even clearer.
>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).
/me rolls eyes
attitude again ???
>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.
The Red Hat legal department has clarified this issue in the past
when people asked, and they've been re-contacted to <sigh> once
again clarify the issue.
I dont believe they have clarified this actual issue, which is why AC said
he would refer it to them.
>Surely if redhat does allow this use then it may be weakening
>its trademark position ....
You may wish to consult an IP attourney before making such
assumptions, but feel free to speculate by all means.
I already have - I am just going by missives from redhat ...
>What if I called my package redhat-config-widgit because it
>configures a widgit to work with redhat/fedora/other rpm based
>distro ???
IANAL, so I don't have an answer for that one.
... ask your lawyers to give the
>answers.
Lance
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