TradeMarked Name --redhat-config-

Mike A. Harris mharris at redhat.com
Sun Nov 9 14:03:28 UTC 2003


On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Lance Davis wrote:

>> "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 ??

Attitude?  Um, no.  That sums up my personal opinion. Perhaps I
shouldn't be feeding the trolls on a Sunday. <sigh>


>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.

>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


>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.


>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.


>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 ??

They are more than happy to participate in the Fedora project 
also, and contribute patches and improvements to the code, as it 
is open source and GPL licensed.  The more people who are 
interested in doing so, the merrier.


>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.


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

Feel free to call Red Hat legal on the phone and have it 
clarified directly if you wish.  I'm not particularly interested 
in this pointless flamewar however.

Alas, perhaps someone will invoke Godwin's and the S/N ratio will 
improve on the list.  Fingers crossed.  Any takers?



-- 
Mike A. Harris     ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat





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