Clarification on RedHat's Trademark Policies?

Hitch asks: "My LUG's mailing list has had a thread for about a week now arguing about Red Hat's policy which prohibits calling CD's burned from iso's available on Red Hat's site 'Red Hat Linux' or including 'Red Hat' in the name of the CD in any way. This includes things like 'Sombrero Rojo' and 'Maroon Head Covering' according to some of their pages. And according to some others, you cannot make a CD called 'My Linux' with the line 'Contains Red Hat version X.X' in small print underneath. We have, however, found another page that says precisely the opposite, also on the Red Hat website. I was wondering what the rest of the community's thoughts on this are, and perhaps since I know Red Hat people read this, what the official word is. Primarily we're concerned for Installfests, burning and handing out CD's to friends, and things like CheapBytes. How does this affect them?" According to a recent article on NewsForge, Red Hat has changed their Trademark policy. Hopefully the new changes will make the policy less confusing. What do you think about the new changes to the policy?

Comments

Don't be abusive...

[Otter]

IANAL, blah, blah, blah.

First, the article Cliff linked to is what I was going to point you to: they're still working out exactly what the formal policy is. Second, whatever the formal policy is, their concern is mostly about vendors and E-Bay sellers claiming to be selling "Red Hat Linux". If you're just distributing burned CD's at installfests or whatever, they're probably not concerned about you, especially if your labels and documentation say that it's a CD copy and carries no support.

I was wondering what the rest of the community's thoughts on this are, and perhaps since I know Red Hat people read this, what the official word is.

Um, have you considered writing or calling them instead of hoping they read section-only Ask Slashdots? ;-)

This is not funny

[mvdwege]

Slashdotters get this wrong so often in any Intellectual Property discussion that the one time it is correct, there is noone pointing out the reason for Red Hat's policy:

The name Red Hat is a trademark, and they cannot hold on to the trademark if they don't prevent dilution.

I think it is fine. They are acting to protect a valuable part of their business, their name recognition, and they are doing so in a nice, cooperative manner (no cease and desists yet, I hope?). I think the Linux community in general should support them on this, as it is only fair.

Mart