[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         
                                          
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+



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