On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 10:40:11PM +0000, Roger Leigh wrote: > Joel Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 11:01:49AM +0100, David Weinehall wrote: > >> Branden's second proposal of using something from Pratchett did have a > >> nice ring to it, and then there's always the valar. > > > > Actually, given that I'm a long-time and deep-seated Tolkien geek, I rather > > like the notion of using the Valar - they're fictional, and Tolkien's work > > isn't yet out from under copyright, but they *are* reasonably well-known > > (Okay, not as well as Pratchett, but better than Christian demonology), > > and if we're liable to get in trouble over using just the names, we should > > probably strongly reconsider our use of Toy Story character names for > > tagging distributions... > > > > Suppose it's time to dig out my reference books and see if I can come up > > with a suitable set of names out of that mythos. > > > > Besides, using Tolkien names is a long geek tradition. > > Would "Debian Aulė" be appropriate? > > "Of the fabric of Earth had Aulė thought, to whom Ilśvatar had given > skill and knowledge scare less than to Melkor; but the delight and > pride of Aulė is in the deed of making, and in the thing made, and > neither in posession nor in his own mastery; wherefore he gives and > hoards not, and is free from care, passing ever on to some new work." > > Ainulindalė, J. R. R. Tolkien, /The Silmarillion/.
Appropriate? As much as any of the Valar would be; he's certainly on the list. But since we know of at least 4 active ports, one name isn't going to be enough... > There are also important Elves, such as Fėanor that might also qualify. See my followup, elsewhere in the thread. > However, there may well be copyright issues. "Slink", "Woody", > "Potato" and "Bo" etc. aren't exactly unique, but you would be hard > pushed to find another book with "Manwė", "Oromė", etc. in it. Given that we say, on the webpages, that they're Toy Story characters, that isn't much of a defense. We're equally in trouble, except that Disney is far more lawsuit-happy than Tolkien's estate has ever shown itself to be. That, and let's face it - given the number of machines in the world with hostnames based on LotR, if the *name* - all we're using - is really copyrightable (and the only opinion expressed so far on debian-legal has asserted that it doesn't appear to be, as opposed to a *character*), there are a whole lot of people who're going to be in trouble. -- Joel Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ,''`. Debian GNU/NetBSD(i386) porter : :' : `. `' `-
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