Linux Trademark Fun Continues

Orre noted an article running on internetnews about LMI's efforts to license the Linux trademark to companies that use it. Prices range from $200 to $5k for companies with over a million bucks in revenue.

Comments

Why charge for it?

[benna]

Why not just create a blanket license which says for what purposes the Linux trademark is allowed to be used, and be done with it. No need to charge companies for it, if, as Linus says, it isn't about the money. It seems to me this would satisfy the requirement that Linus police his trademark.

Re:Why charge for it?

[xappax]

I agree that LMI needs and deserves money, and that it's fair to ask businesses who are making a profit off of linux to chip in, but there's a bigger problem than the fees that's unresolved.

If Linus is the trademark holder, then like he says, we're relying on his personal judgement to "protect Linux" rather than using it as some kind of "legalistic enforcement tool". I know he's a good guy, but if we just trusted everyone to be good guys, we wouldn't need stuff like the GNU license.

What happens if he changes his mind? What happens if he gets sucked into a weirdo-cult? What happens if he dies and his heir is a greedy scumbag?

If we're really serious about making Linux a decentralized movement, open to reinterpretation by anyone, we need to remove points of control like this one and put them in the hands of trusted organizations or legal agreements.

Re:Why charge for it?

[maxwell demon]

It is simple - if you are non-profit and want to call your product 'My Linux Babe', you can do it - just you won't get ANY protection when someone also takes this title. BUT if you are sublicenser of trademark "Linux", then your title is also protected.

It's not quite as simple. From Linus' mail:

Or, if the name ends up showing up in a trademark search that LMI needs to do every once in a while just to protect the trademark (another legal requirement for trademarks), LMI itself might have to send you a cease-and-desist-or-sublicense it letter.

Which means, that you are practically guaranteed to get a C&D letter from LMI sooner or later, even if you chose a name which isn't likely to be used by anyone else. Which in turn means that you are effectively forced to license the name.

BTW, I don't see how this legal requirement to enforce the trademark should suddenly disappear if it's in combination with another trademark. "Microsoft Linux" would still infringe on the trademark rights even though "Microsoft" is a trademarked name in itself. Therefore "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" should be an infringment either, despite "Red Hat" being a trademark in itself, and therefore the legal requirement of enforcement should hold there either.

IANAL, however.

Laws

[kevin_conaway]

Who enforces these laws? Are they enforced by the country where the trademark is being used?

If I am in Swaziland and I start selling my own version of Linux, who is going to stop me? I suppose the community won't recognize it as an official "Linux" distribution?

Red Hat doesn't have a license

[darthcamaro]

That's the real interesting part of this - Red Hat doesn't have a license, neither does Mandriva. Novell does. So if it's good enough for Red Hat not to have a license than it's good enough for me.

Linus disses /.

[Anonymous Coward]

" the whole _point_ of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session with people getting together and making their own "insightful" comment on any random topic, whether they know anything about it or not."

- Linus Torvalds, 20 Aug 2005

http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95

I call BS!

[ImaLamer]

Red Hat doesn't have one because they aren't using 'Linux' in their name. It's Red Hat, Inc.

Makes me wonder though why Novell pays, being that they are "Novell Inc.".

What about the product: "Red Hat Enterprise Linux"?

Interestingly, I notice that the Red Hat web site doesn't use "Linux" on the front page except in direct reference to RHEL.

What kind of revenue

[slapout]

revenue

Net or gross? :-)