Fedora spin from RpmFusion

Rahul Sundaram sundaram at fedoraproject.org
Sun Sep 30 17:14:48 UTC 2007


Douglas McClendon wrote:
> Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>> Douglas McClendon wrote:
>>
>>> But you do see, that our point of disagreement is over whether or not 
>>> what I described was a 'modification'.  I.e. your question is 
>>> irrelevant to the conversation, since no modification is taking place.
>>
>> I wasn't merely concerned about what you are doing. I was talking 
>> about the trademark guideline clauses which allow certain kind of 
>> modifications while retaining the name and whether they fit with the 
>> current project goals.
> 
> Can you give me an example of a permitted modification that is currently 
> allowed that you think should not be?

I make no such claims. I just want Fedora Project Board to verify if the 
trademark guidelines match the project goals and see if any 
modifications are required in light of the interest in spins and 
derivatives. It might even be adding more permissions.

> Can trademark guidelines on free software restrict the ability to 
> redistribuite bit-for-bit copies of the software, that don't use the 
> trademarks in any other way than the fact that they are included in 
> those bits?

Unlike copyright licenses which are broadly consistent across various 
regions, trademark and patent laws seem to be quite different in scope. 
Someone more familiar with US trademark laws would have to answer your 
question.

I know RHEL has some sort of requirements on plain redistribution based 
on a couple of non-software packages which contain the Red Hat branded 
images which appear to based on trademark. So it does seem to be 
possible but I haven't looked into it in depth.

Rahul




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