On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 11:53:27AM +0200, Eli Billauer wrote: > The CD logo legal discussion brings the paranoia to a new record. I can > understand that a company, which wants to use GPL-licensed software, is > a bit worried about the legal implications. But us? What are we afraid > of? Can anyone here really imagine that Red Hat would sue us for this CD > logo? Will they ever know? Would they care? Who would they sue, exactly? > And frankly, wouldn't they make complete idiots of themselves if > they did?
You are confusing a few things, notably the GPL'ness of the code and RedHat's trademark. RedHat is not telling you that you cannot use the code. It is telling you that you canot call it RedHat, because only they can call it RedHat. Quite reasonable, IMHO. In this case, I think that since we are distributing unmodified RH cds we are in the clear. IANAL, however, and Haim, who is, appears to think otherwise. He's probably right :-) > What should really worry us, is not what Red Had will do to us, but that > we think in that direction. No. It is because we CARE about free software that we care about preserving other people's rights, including RedHat's trademark rights. Free software is not an anarchy, the very law that gives the GPL its power is copyright law. If we didn't care about copyright (and by extension, trademark) law, why would someone else care about our rights under the GPL? (or a BSD style license, etc, etc). Cheers, Muli -- Muli Ben-Yehuda http://www.mulix.org | http://mulix.livejournal.com/ "the nucleus of linux oscillates my world" - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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