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anil@samadhanam.org anil@samadhanam.org
Fri Dec 26 02:11:45 IST 2003


On Thursday 25 December 2003 22:18, Mahesh T. Pai wrote:

>  > Here there is no case of trademark infringement. The CDs which are
>  > labelled with redhat logo contains only redhat distributed packages.
>
> The first sentence contradicts the second.

Your feeling of contradiction may get cleared once you go through following 
link.
http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/guidelines/page9.html

> The  redistributor has  the obligation  to remove  the logos  from the
> packages if the  sources and logos are interwined.   (that is why they
> make the sources available).

redhat does not demand so, if it is for a non-commercial educational project.

> Hope you are not involved with  creation of the CD. This statement can
> be used by RH as proof of violation.

I consider facts are more important and not manipulation of statements.

> The  other  contains a  customised  version  of  RH. 

 There is no customisation of content.

> May be, you distribute the ISO as  it is from RH site; but, as pointed
> elsewhere, the RH trade mark policy does not permit that wholesale.

There is no wholesale. As per the work order CDIT has to develop and 
distribute a free software  familiarisation CD for entry level users. By 
realising the need, it was CDIT's own decision to distribute OS along with it 
for which no commercial activity is involved. 

We have to encourage such a realisation by a public sector firm.

As CDIT have used content of  a redhat distribution  for this purpose, they 
thought that it is morally right to give the credits to redhat. They did not 
voilate any instruction from redhat. 

> But more  than the  Courts, we  need to look  into the  ethical issues
> involved. 

There some more ethical issues involved. There is some disorder in the unity  
among the free software promoters in Thiruvananthapuram. May be that is 
natural. What is ethicaly unjustified is that they are always find fault in 
each others work in a pre-judicious manner.

> The costs to be paid to the free software developer community by going
> ahead with  such distribution will  be high.  The  entire geographical
> region will have to bear that. Can we afford it ?

That we have to think off together. I think we should have a local 
distribution.

On Thursday 25 December 2003 21:11, Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
> Again, how will CDIT/Akshya  comply with requirements of GPL regarding
> making  source   code  available  for  3  years??   RH  makes  several
> modifications to the sources released by upstream authors.

I think CDIT is capable of finding a way out.

Regards,

Anil



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