Linux Trademarked

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Sharke
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Linux Trademarked

#1 Post by Sharke »

Hi
I found this when surfing the net.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/s ... 576,00.htm

Will this be good or bad for linux.

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Sharke
Puppy Full Speed Aheadnewsharkee@hypermax.net.au

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mike
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#2 Post by mike »

Will this be good or bad for linux.
I'm curious what BarryK 's take on this is.

Do I think that a commercial company should be able to make a fortune on the back of Linus's work, well, No, not without some sort of compensation.

However, I don't generally believe that trademarking words is a good idea. What about the term GNU/Linux? Will that be covered? Hmm...

Interesting read, thanks for the links. I guess it remains to be seen.

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rarsa
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#3 Post by rarsa »

lobster wrote:Will this be good or bad for linux.
Good and necessary.

It is done to protect the free (as in speech) and open nature of Linux.

Without this trademark a company may missled clients to think that the company IS linux. Or that the company produces linux.

e.g. a company called "Linux UK" that would sell linux computers in GB. In this case Linus is saying: "You can use the name to promote linux, you can make money with it, but you have to acknowledge that you don't own the Linux trademark".

It's just a precautionary measure to prevent future headaches. They may even decline to license the linux trademark to someone using it unfairly.

Sharke
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#4 Post by Sharke »

rarsa
I tend to agree with you but linus has a buisness and this would be costing a lot of money and as in any business it has to recoup costs from somwhere.

eg Puppy Linux $200.00 per annum to use linux trademark.

Maybe not

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Sharke
Puppy Full Speed Aheadnewsharkee@hypermax.net.au

raffy
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Just OK

#5 Post by raffy »

It is good that the place where the action is coming from is near Barry's place. This makes it easy to get the feel and coordinate things for Puppy.

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Pizzasgood
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#6 Post by Pizzasgood »

Hmmm.... Make a cool operating system, keep it open source, wait until fifty gazillion people make their own distro, then charge them to call it Linux. Sounds like Linus has been hanging around a certain billionaire lately......

Seriously though, it doesn't look like they're really intent on forcing people to buy a license, and if they did start to get rough about it, just call it "Puppy OS" instead. As long as the name doesn't contain "Linux" they don't care.
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#7 Post by Guest »

I suppose the forum & wiki will have to be renamed to Puppy Linux (R).

JaDy
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#8 Post by JaDy »

Trademark law is confusing and much misunderstood. Trademark is a contest. A trademark owner can never be certain that the ownership will persist. Consider the loss of the Xerox trademark, as now xerox is in the public domain, meaning "to photo-copy."

In the USA, Linux is a registered trademark. See http://www.linuxmark.org/

A sub-license is required if one intends to trademark a phrase containing the word Linux. This is reasonable. In all cases of usage, the registered trademark should be acknowledged. One does not need a sub-license to use the word Linux in journalism, documentation and titles.

This last, titles, is my opinion: One may write a book with the title "Windows Sucks" and not need a sub-license from Microsoft. One may write a book with the title "Replace Windows With Puppy Linux" and not need a sub-license from Microsoft nor LMI. Titles are covered by copyright law. "Puppy Linux" is the title of a creative work, not the trademarked name of a product, so a sub-license is not appropriate. Just my opinion.
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Sharke
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#9 Post by Sharke »

JaDy

Thanks for your explanation

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Sharke
Puppy Full Speed Aheadnewsharkee@hypermax.net.au

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Lobster
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update

#10 Post by Lobster »

Here are the results of that case
http://tinyurl.com/8h48h

and just for fun some Bash commands
http://www.ss64.com/index.html
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Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

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