On Sunday 09 October 2005 00:44, Kevin P. Fleming wrote: > Dinesh Nair wrote: > > after the original asterisk source is untarred, and the freebsd specific > > patches are applied to it, it ceases to be Asterisk(tm), correct ? since > > the compilation and linking with openh323/openssl happens after it > > ceases to be Asterisk(tm), then how does this make the freebsd asterisk > > port GPL-legal ? > > There is no 'legality', there is only license conformance or > non-conformance. Non-conformance to the license exposes you to action > from the copyright holder(s), should they choose to take any. There is > no 'illegal' or 'legal' involved. > > All of this is only relevant (as another poster has posted) to > redistribution; making modifications on your own system and using the > results does not in itself violate the GPL. It may, however, violate the > license of other software that you link it with, so if you link it with > OpenH.323 then you may have violated the license under which you > received that software. > > If you distribute those binaries linked against license-incompatible, > then you are violating the terms of the GPL under which you received the > source code. The copyright holder(s) can then choose to take action to > stop you from distributing the infringing items, or sue you for damages. > They can also choose to do nothing. > > It would be highly counter-productive for Digium (or any other Asterisk > copyright holders, of which there are a large number) to take action > against a Linux distribution vendor, FreeBSD or any other 'packager' for > using the Asterisk trademark on binaries they distribute to their users. > However, that does not mean we cannot take action against any other > parties that distribute modified source code (or binaries made from > such) and call it 'Asterisk', if we deem it prudent to do so.
Firstly, I am not a lawyer myself, however my understanding is that if a trademark holder only selectively enforces a trademark in the manner you mention above then eventually the trademark holder can lose their trademark... You are also confusing trademark and copyright in the above statement... -- Peter Nixon http://www.peternixon.net/ PGP Key: http://www.peternixon.net/public.asc _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Biz mailing list Asterisk-Biz@lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz