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Universities Dispute with Red Hat over 'Fedora'
Carl Lagoze points out that a pre-existing software project is already using the Fedora name, dating back to 1998. They're unhappy with Red Hat's claim to the name, and have objected.
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Founded December 2002 by University of Hawaii Computer Science student Warren Togami, the previous Fedora Linux Project is an international team of volunteer software developers united for the development of high quality 3rd party RPM packages for the Red Hat Linux platform.
Did Darl McBride take over Red Hat when we weren't looking?
"Fedora is now a trademark of Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat will defend this trademark in order to protect the integrity of The Fedora Project"
Looks like Red Hat needs to find another name.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
I don't see why they didn't just keep the name "RedHat Linux."
The World is Yours.
seems www.fedora.info is using a hat that looks similar to redhats doesnt it? im sure everyone will throw stones for a while...till the glass house falls down.
Kind of like http://freshmeat.net/projects/gentoo/ and http://www.gentoo.org.
Blue BabyBonnet Linux
Raspberry Beret Linux
I mean really. The attempt at "fedora" from "red hat" was cute.....but it isn't exactly necessary.....
Pink Sunglasses Linux.....
Green Visor Linux
fedora is a "cute" inside joke that most people won't even get. [how many PHB's or joe-sixpacks or even college students do you really expect know what the hell a Fedora is anyway]
-b
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Well, can't use "Pink Tie" if I recall correctly, as that's what cheapbytes used to sell what would have otherwise been a Red Hat distro.
How about calling it "The Distro Formerly Known as Red Hat Linux for Consumers?" -- or "|" for short? Instant recognition from avid *nix users...yet geeky enough to separate the "in-crowd" from the strictly-windows folks.
The ironic thing about this is that Fedora is supposed to be the community edition of Red Hat Linux (so the PR wants us to imagine as opposed to bluntly being beta testers of RHE) -- it really isn't good press to be creating negative buzz in the community.
That said, I'm running a downloaded version of RH9 and wondering how things will go from there.
You got that right. "Fedor" in Portuguese means stench. The "-a" ending is feminine, so "fedora" sounds like, well, you can imagine.
What the heck were they thinking???
The last entry on the way back machine doesn't show that TM on the FEDORA Project site.
However, it does appear that they have been using the Fedora name longer than the original Fedora Linux Project, but not longer than Red Hat has been associated with the Fedora.
This user account is inactive account replaced by the PDA
As far as I know, there are basically two ways of getting a trademark: the first is by registering and the second is by using something commercially long enough for it to become clearly associated with a company or a product. The first kind of trademark is denoted by having an R inside a circle whereas the second is denoted with the small tm symbol.
In other words:
(R) = Trademark through registration
tm = Trademark through established use
Using the tm symbol in the press release is consistent with their position because they're saying that they have become associated with the name 'Fedora'. They can have a trademark claim to the word even when they haven't registered it.
Disclaimer: IANAL etc.
If you look at archive.org wayback machine you will also find that until after the trademark filing by Red Hat they were called "F.E.D.O.R.A." - without a tm, which is an acronym not a trademark.
Makes you wonder which computer companies sponsor their research
When have trademark cases actually been won by the big guys? When has a major company had to rename a product, after it had shipped? I'm sure there are examples, but I can't think of any.
-twb