Trademark license agreement status

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 09/08/2009 10:17 AM, Robert 'Bob' Jensen wrote:
> Sad to see some of the spirit that made this community so cool for the last 5 years die, killed by lawyers.

Okay, really? One guy decides that he's not willing to wait for the
lawyer to research German trademark law to see if we can work with him
and you're claiming that the community's spirit has been "killed by
lawyers"?

That's absurd. I'd make the point that if anything is poisonous, it is
hyperbole and negative statements like the one that you made.

Red Hat Legal is active and works very hard (both in public and private)
to ensure that we are protected from risk (legal and financial). The
things that Fedora is doing are pushing the boundaries of existing
copyright and trademark law and precedence, and Red Hat Legal never
simply tells us "no, stop, don't do that", they research the issues and
work with us to come up with acceptable solutions whenever possible.

I think they deserve a bit more respect than you're giving them.

It is NOT the intent of Red Hat or Fedora to prevent community members
from using the trademarks in reasonable ways, in fact, it is the
opposite of that. We're actively and persistently trying to address
every concern that we are aware of, to improve the trademark license
agreement so that it is acceptable to as many people as possible.

So, please, let's try to turn off the negative energy here. Like my 2nd
grade teacher used to tell us, "if you ain't got nothing nice to say,
keep it shut".

~spot