On Tue, 18 Dec 2001, Leonard den Ottolander wrote: > Hi Ed, > > Thanx for the links. > In regard to Robert's question I found an interesting link myself: > http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/page3.html :).
while i am not a lawyer, i'd say that explanation pretty well substantiates what i suggested. to take the mcdonald's/burger king analogy a bit further, as long as cheapbytes does not claim an official affiliation with red hat, it would seem they have every right to say something like, "our RH linux is, actually, neither better nor worse than red hat linux 7.2 since it's really a bit-for-bit copy of it." frankly, the more i think about this, the more i believe this isn't really a trademark issue at all. red hat's major complaint seems to be that people are buying something called "red hat linux" from elsewhere, then calling red hat looking for support. i don't see how red hat can solve this problem by falling back on trademark law. it depends, i guess, on how one defines the entity called "red hat linux". if it's just the organization of bits on a CD, we already know that the licensing permits you to make unlimited copies of that software to your heart's content. if, however, as someone suggested here recently, the trademark "red hat linux" implies official support as well, then all one has to do is advertise that something else is "red hat linux, without official support," thereby not violating the trademark. while it may drive red hat nuts to get support calls from consumers who got their red hat elsewhere, i think they just have to suck it up and put up with it. trademark law is not going to help them avoid inappropriate phone calls related to a product that is, let's face it, freely available everywhere. that's just a nuisance red hat is going to have to accept. rday -- Robert P. J. Day Eno River Technologies, Chapel Hill NC Unix, Linux and Open Source corporate training _______________________________________________ Redhat-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
