Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

1 in 9 Companies Sign Linux Trademark Letter

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the wonder-where-this-will-go dept.

An anonymous reader writes "More than 10 percent of the 90-odd organisations which received a letter asking them to relinquish any legal claim to the 'Linux' name have agreed to do so. Jeremy Malcolm, the lawyer who's leading the charge on behalf of Linux Mark Institute, described the response and favorable, saying: "Not all of the recipients were using Linux as part of their business of product/service names. He added that one of the purposes of sending the letter out in the first place was to discern which organisations might use the name for commercial gain."

3 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Re:1/10 = 1/9? by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    no reading comprehension

    You sure hit that nail on the head...if you go back and read the summary carefully , you'll note it says "More than 10 percent".

    Pot, meet kettle.

    --
    ____

    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

  2. Trademark == reputation by G4from128k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I suspect that some of this is about reputation. If Linux is to become a widely-used, trusted OS, then it needs trustworthy businesses to provide trustworthy services. The first step is to control the name "Linux" so that only those companies that adhere to certain standards, codes of conduct, etc. can be allowed to use the marque. Linus can't control the codebase, but he can control the name.

    I'm not saying that the Linux Mark Institute is doing this, but it is what they should do as part of the Linux maturation process.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  3. Other way around? by Mr_Silver · · Score: 5, Insightful
    More than 10 percent of the 90-odd organisations which received a letter asking them to relinquish any legal claim to the 'Linux' name have agreed to do so.

    Personally, I think the bigger news is that just under 90% of the 90-odd organisations that received a letter have not responded to requests to relinquish any legal claim to the 'Linux' name.

    In other words, 80 of those companies may attempt to assert a legal claim to the 'Linux' name now or in the future. This is a hell of a bigger volume (and worry) than the 10 that said they wouldn't.

    Finally, if not all of them were using the 'Linux' name in their business/product/service name - what exactly was the point in sending them this letter? So they could ignore it?

    --
    Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.