Red Hat & Centos On Name Usage

Mister Incognito writes "As you probably know, Centos is a free distribution compiled from sources of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. As requested, the distro has any references to Red Hat removed. But now Red Hat has decided that Centos must not even mention their name on the web site, or link to Red Hat, or even use metatags with its name on it. " Well, actually, what RHAT has asked for is that Centos comply with the their terms for using the name; Matthew Szulik has talked about this before, and should be noted that not all of the copyright stuff is "bad."

Comments

Jesus H. Christ

[gowen]

should be noted that not all of the copyright stuff is "bad".

Hey Hemos, before sticking your ignorant oar in, can I recommend that you learn the difference between trademarks (which is what this is about) and copyright (which is completely unrelated to this case).

Re:Whitebox

[GigsVT]

It would, if whitebox wasn't dead already.

CentOS formed because whitebox stagnated. On the plus side, it only takes like 5 minutes to "convert" your whitebox to CentOS, just change your apt or yum sources.

Re:Gosh...

[sepluv]

TMs are partially desiged to protect consumer confusion.

In fact the are entirely designed for that reason, which is exactly why RHAT's claims are incorrect.

A trademark registration only stops others from using the mark as a trade mark (i.e.: the name they use to trade/sell their product under) so this doesn't cover stuff in the software (that's why Mozilla can't sue Microsoft over MSIE's HTTP UA product token for instance).

It is perfectly acceptable to even change the main trading name of Centos to "RedHat-based Centos" as this is descriptive; they would not be claiming when selling the product that it is RedHat, but just Redhat-based.

Re:I Don't Understand The Need For Centos

[Anonymous Coward]

I build linux clusters and compute farms for biotech and pharma customers.

Redhat is often required due to the demands of certain commercial scientific software.

We need distros like Centos and Tao because we need a stable OS that has a multi-year lifespan. As others mentioned -- an every-6-months upgrade for Fedora Linux is not cool when you have production systems doing heavy science 24/7.

If Redhat had a sane pricing model for scientific computing I'd gladly pay for it. As it stands though their cheapest WS line is for low end X86 systems. If you have a cluster of opterons or boxes with more than 4GB RAM (very common) you are forced to go with the enterprise line which costs thousands of dollars per machine each and every year. This is not feasable even for enterprise customers (unless they have a site license with Redhat).

This is why over the past year or two I've started deploying clusters based on Suse and Centos.

my $.02

Re:Makes Sense, kind of

[karnal]

Except that there are no more "free" copies of current RedHat, and I'm pretty sure the older distributions no longer have support, right?

NOT TRUE

[Anonymous Coward]

the white box site is http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/ run by John Morris

someone else wanted to be a co-developer and registered http://www.whiteboxlinux.net/ on their own initiative.

That second person who invited themselves to the party was rebuffed by Morris, who did not want to share control, and has moved to CentOS He was NOT the "main developer".

The original (one-person-run) whiteboxlinux show continues unchanged.

Our Position

[KainX]

I would like to clarify the position of the cAos Foundation, of which CentOS is a project, on the web site matter.

First, I'll refer to the following summary (taken from this post):


First let me say that I appreciate your feedback and your candor.
Your comments are well received.

However, the situation as it currently stands is that we do not have
legal counsel to advise us on what we can or cannot say on our web
site, nor do we have the financial resources to pay for such.
Furthermore, RedHat is required by law to protect their trademarks or
risk losing them, and they do have valid concerns about trademark
dilution.

RedHat has always been very generous with their code and open with
their processes and resources. I would point out that their primary
competition in the commercial RPM-based distribution space is not
nearly as generous or cooperative. While we may not agree with
everything they have said, we have an obligation to respect their
trademarks and their role in helping to create what we are and what
CentOS is.

The bottom line is this: The references to Red Hat and any other
marks they own MUST be removed from the web site and will remain so
indefinitely. We want to be clear about what CentOS is and what it
offers, but until we can secure legal counsel to help us balance our
interests with those of RedHat and other companies in this space, we
must err on the side of caution. That means if we're not sure we can
say it, we don't say it.

This course of action, while perhaps not the ideal solution from a
purely Libertarian point of view, is correct and in the best interests
of the project and the community at this time. We gain nothing by
hurting, diluting, or pissing off RedHat, nor would we want to. And
we certainly gain nothing turning this into a big legal fiasco.

Please understand that this is right and necessary at this point in
time, and support Donavan and the rest of the CentOS team in following
through on what we've asked of them.


Second, I want to reiterate that the RH legal team has been extremely patient and helpful. They pointed out a number of legitimate concerns, and we continue to work with them to make sure our web site is in compliance with their trademark usage policies.

Third, as we (and our projects) continue to grow and develop, we will be in need of legal counsel. If you are willing to provide pro bono legal advice to the Foundation and its member projects, please contact us (legal ~a~t~ caosity ~d~o~t~ org).

And finally, I would like to point out that projects like CentOS could not exist without the continued support of RedHat, and we thank them for their continued efforts to find the right balance between running a for-profit business and helping the non-profit community.

Regards,
Michael Jennings
The cAos Foundation

Here's the clencher

[mcrbids]

CentOS is not just "like" RedHat - it literally *IS* RedHat Linux! Same sources, same compile tree.

The /ONLY/ thing different is the manufacturing date! (compile time)

Can you imagine the SHITFIT that Coca-Cola would have if there was a competing product called "Co-sola - Coca-Cola derived soda"??? I mean, artificial diamond production would quintuple overnight, and the Men's Wearhouse would have a run on all the suits needed to cover all the lawyers' bodies involved...

RedHat is being very, very good about this. And it's a good thing, too - RedHat would lose all future business from me (and very nearly did with their RHL -> Fedora switcharoo) if they did anything to actually stop CentOS or WhiteBox.

But, the name is theirs, and they have every right and responsibiltiy to protect it as legally required.