Debian Questions Trademark Policy

An anonymous reader writes "The OSS/developer community at large is paying more attention to the trademark issue, especially since Linus Torvalds bid to trademark the name 'Linux' in Australia failed recently. Branden Robinson, Debian's project leader, says the current trademark policy needs updating to ensure it has the appropriate level of protection against legal challenges. Robinson said there are various questions that project members must address when deciding how to change the policy. These include whether Debian Linux should have a trademark at all, and whether the trademark can be used to penalize those who 'prey upon' the community."

Comments

Re:Has it happened yet?

[mr_tenor]

If the GPL is "not enforcable", whatever that means, then you are using my copyrighted code without a licence and I sue you :)

Should it have a TM? Yes.

[panurge]

I don't regard this as even a question that should need asking. If it isn't already, the name Debian should be a trademark. And if it can't be on its own, then they should get in touch with Linus, agree to recognise one another's marks, and trademark Debian Linux as a TM.

In the meantime, signal your intentions by updating every internal and external document you can find to read Debian(TM). Same goes for Ubuntu.

Remember: a trademark protects the name, not the content. Trademarking the name of a distro does not attempt to take away or add anything to the copyright or software licences of any component. It just prevents evil corporate bastard or pakistani virus spreader from calling his CD of spyware, viruses and trojans "Debian".

Is there any trademark attorney out there who would help these people pro bono or at reduced rate? If there is an appeal, I would certainly contribute to the filing costs.

Re:Has it happened yet?

[m50d]

How enforcable is the GPL

So enforcable no-one's dared challenge it. There have been plenty of companies with the motivation to go up against it if they thought they stood a reasonable chance of winning, and none of them have tried.

and IS "linux" a trademark

In some countries, yes, definitely, Linus only got the trademark after a legal battle when someone else trademarked it. However, in Australia it isn't. It just depends on local laws.

They don't have an option...

[Whafro]

Regarding the notion that Debian might not want to "have a trademark at all," they really don't have any choice, strictly speaking.

Trademarks aren't trademarks simply because they've been successfully registered. They're trademarks anyway, but registration affords some ADDITIONAL protections, beyond what a non-registered trademark gets.

Any mark that's used in commerce is automatically given trademark rights and protections under common law in almost every western nation, including the US and Australia.

The real issue in this case is that trademark protections are weakened when they are not protected by the owner of the mark. So if Debian lets anyone use "DEBIAN" for commercial purposes whenever they like, it will be hard for them to then go and protect that mark in the future.

Hell, depending on the examiner, it may already be unregisterable due to lack of protection.

It's never going to happen (Linux Trademark)

[oliverthered]

IT's too late, the horse has already bolted, if only people would have listend to RMS and called their distributions GNU-Linux Linus may still have had a chance.
The reason you can't trademark Linux is because well, there's Redhat Linux (That's GNU-Linux + lots of other stuff), and Linux programming 2nd edition (and it's not about kernel programming) and a quick google for linux turns up

Linux
www.microsoft.com/getthefacts Read in-depth 3rd party performance analysis of Linux & Windows.

as second on the list!!, and that's not about the Linux kernel either.