Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Australian Linux Trademark Holds Water

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the trademarks-hard-at-work dept.

Seft writes "The Inquirer is running a story in response to the recent Linux trademark news in Australia which was previously covered on Slashdot. The story was dismissed as a hoax by many, but now it seems that Linus Torvalds is dead serious." John 'Maddog' Hall stated for the article that the move was not about getting a slice of anyone's action but purely to protect the quality of products that utilize the Linux name.

3 of 408 comments (clear)

  1. More at Groklaw by DarkkOne · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At Groklaw they've got a pretty clear writeup as to everything behind it.

  2. They could have done a lot better... by inflex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I received the letter re Linux it quite honestly scared the daylights out of me. There was this letter that started out saying "this is a notice, not a letter of demand" but then it goes on talking about moderately large sums of money and potential legal fees.

    What was doubly annoying though was that the letter appeared to be sent out without checking to see if the recipient was applicable. None of the services or products that I had on my WWW site used the word "linux" in them, they simply happen to be able to /execute/ on linux too (so linux was listed as a "compatible OS".

    I still consider the email to be bordering very close to spam.

    Next time, a registered letter in the post after each site is checked for relevance would be a far more reputable manner of distribution.

  3. Not fair to very small projects by tvlinux · · Score: 5, Interesting
    IBM and Novell can afford $5000, a small linux project of just a few people $200 is a major burden.

    It costs about $100 per TVLinux show ( tapes, food, equipment), all paid by one person. TVLinux just wants to inform the TV public about open source and Linux. Do I drop 2-3 shows to pay for a "MARK". I think the rate should be $20-$50 for very small projects.

    TVLinux