An official trademark policy for CheapBytes-type RHL CDs?

[Charles Bronson]

James J. Ramsey wrote:
> There is a vast difference between a hint that can be
> misunderstood or misinterpreted and being direct.
> References to names being changed for "legal reasons"
> could be considered a sign that something is fishy
> about the CD. As long as Red Hat has its own retail
> distribution, that works to Red Hat's advantage, since
> confused users looking for a canonical distribution of
> Red Hat Linux could just buy a box clearly labeled
> "Red Hat" from Red Hat. THAT WILL NO LONGER BE AN
> OPTION.
The issue wasn't that Red Hat was losing sales to the other distributers but 
rather that customers from the other distributers expected the same level of 
technical support(free) that the people who bought an official boxed received.

> 
> Sorry to shout, but it makes no sense to me for Red
> Hat to rely on third parties for CD distribution
I don't imagine that Red Hat does *rely* on third parties for CD distribution. 
They still have their FTP site open so that uncle Bob can pull them down and 
burn them for everyone that wants them. Besides, purely from a commercial 
standpoint, customers who don't buy boxed sets, support or RHN subscriptions 
are not *customers* and Red Hat doesn't have to protect themselves from losing 
that nonexistent income.

> (SINCE IT WILL NO LONGER SEL ITS OWN CD-ROMS **gasp
> after shot at top of lungs**) while forcing them to
> tap dance about what they are distributing.
Let's be honest. Red Hat has, does and probably will continue to do a LOT to 
support and promote the Open Source community. They don't strike me as some 
petty little empire builder bent on "owning" their users.


-- 
(¬_    Some days you're the windshield    >o)
//\    Some days you're the bug...        /\\
V_/_                                     _\_V
Charles Bronson