Re: [Fsfe-uk] Red Hat and the DMCA

[Alex Hudson]

On Sat, Oct 19, 2002 at 09:48:12PM +0100, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
> (re John Winters)
> Although http://www.cheeplinux.co.uk/ does ship Cheep Linux 8.0
> without any qualms AFAICT.
> 
> Maybe John's just being more cautious than CheepLinux, perhaps
> justifiably so.

I believe that the CheepLinux stuff is actually modified; whereas
John doesn't tend to mess with the software (AFAIK). There is talk of
a Sourceforge project or something to actually take RH isos and turn
them into Free Software, but I don't know if that has happened yet.

I think this is a fairly serious problem, although I don't see any 
obvious way out for RH at the moment. The trademark thing has been
rumbling on for a while, but I suppose the way to do it would be the
way Debian handle it: you have official logos, and you have unofficial
logos. The official ones cannot be used by redistributers, for many
of the same reasons, because they are used as marques, to show that 
they are 'the real thing'. This is analoguous to 'trademarks' - marks
by which you trade, a sign which a customer can see and know that 
they are dealing with the 'official' merchandise.

The main difference between what Debian have done and what RedHat have
done is that the marques are protected differently - use of the official
Debian is controlled by copyright; whereas the RH one is being 
controlled as a registered trademark. Perhaps it is this difference that
is causing the trouble.

Cheers,

Alex.