[Fsf-friends] Ensuring quality and performance of free
Mahesh T. Pai
paivakil@vsnl.net
Wed Dec 24 20:40:16 IST 2003
fjsylvester said on Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 11:54:09AM +0530,:
> The Red hat a proporietary software , It is a shocking news
Red Hat is a registered trade mark of Red Hat Incorporated, a company
registered and incorporated under the laws of United States of
America. You cannot use the name `Red Hat' to refer to any product,
including a CDROM containing an ISO image of a GNU/Linux installation
because the *law* relating to Trade Marks says so; there is no point
blaming poor Red Hat for this. The free software movement is about
freedom for software users. AFAIK, it does not concern itself with
TradeMarks; and rightly so.
By the way, the word `linux' and the image of Tux, the penguin are
also trademarked by Linus. So, he can prevent you from using the Tux
image to refer to works modified you. I do not know, and have not
verified if Linus has permitted unlimited use of the Tux Logo.
> , It uses the linux kernel ? how could they make it proprietary ?
RH uses not only the Linux kernel, but also the GNU C compiler
collection, GNU libc libraries, GNU emacs multi-purpose program, the
GNU Network Object Model Environment (GNOME) desktop, GNU wget, GNU
coreutils, GNUplot, GNUmeric, GNU bash, GNU bash-builtins, GNU
readline, GNU GPG, GNU bc and dc utilities, GNU aspell, GNU sed & awk,
GNU ncurses, GNU sharutils, GNU terminfo, GNU make and friends, and so
on. (I will stop with this ...)
Starting from version 8, RH has removed all non-free programs from
their freely redistributable CDs. They continue to be free
redistributable, so long as you remove the RH logo and other
references to their trade marks.
Debian, OTOH, uses a more sensible Trademark policy. The Debian logo,
which looks something like this:-
.''`.
: :' :
`. `'`
`-
(sort of a spiral) is freely modifiable and redistributable. The real
logo of the Debian project is *not* included on the downloadable ISO
images or CDs sold by Debian. See www.debian.org/logos/index.html
Note the term `if official approval is given by Debian..' etc.
I think that the issue of logos explains[1] the fact that several
distros are based on Debian. (Knoppix, Gnoppix, Lindows, skolelinux,
to name a few).
IMHO, distros are perfectly justified in zealously protecting their
Trade Marks. There is a difference between saying `this product is
from foo' and `this uses products from foo'. The latter statement is
required by law of copyright; you cannot make the former statement if
you have modified foo's product.
[1] Of course, Debian is much easier to customise, IMHO than other
distros. That too is a contributing factor. They distinguish between
the several variants of free software licenses; and is technically
much better.
--
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,
'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,
Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,
Kerala, India.
http://in.geocities.com/paivakil
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
More information about the Fsf-friends
mailing list