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On Friday 19 August 2005 9:42 pm, Rob Beard wrote: He did this a long time ago - check out Linux magazines, each copy of LinuxFormat quotes the trademark on the last content page. "Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds, GNU/Linux is abbreviated to Linux throughout for brevity. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. > Just seen this article on The Inquirer: > http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25529 All that's changed is that Linus is now using that trademark to protect the wider community. Nobody wants companies to profit by passing off something else as GNU/Linux. "only to protect the quality of products that go out under that brand." > It seems in Australia, 90 companies have received letters asking them to > pay US$5000 to use the Linux name. > > Surely this would be bad for Linux overall? Why? You only need permission to use the name if you are making money from it's use. If you are using the name fairly, there's no problem. RedHat have trademarks, Mandriva, Novell, IBM, Sun, trademarks aren't a problem. If you see a RedHat logo and it's Lycoris inside, you have a right to be upset. It doesn't matter one jot that it is free software inside - the software is still free no matter what the trademark - what matters is that if you DO pay for a package with a logo, you have the right to expect that the contents match the trademark. Even the Debian swirl is protected in it's own way. http://www.debian.org/logos/ Counterfeits are just as much a problem to open source as proprietary because human nature being what it is, people do respond to a particular flag and less scrupulous types will seek to gain advantage from this behaviour. It's a bit like a signature on a package - I sign software so that people who download it can have the assurance that: 1. It has not been altered since I packaged it. 2. That it comes from the same source as the last one with the same signing key. 3. That the user can reasonably expect that if the last one was OK, this one will be too. None of that affects the freedom of the software contained in the package - it is all about assurance, not restriction. A trademark does much the same thing in the wider world of boxes and print as a key can do over FTP/HTTP. RedHat allow their logo to go on the box to assure the purchaser of precisely the same concepts as I do with my signature on my packages (or emails). -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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