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Bluetooth SIG Attacks Linux Bluetooth List
Karma Sucks writes "As reported in the latest free edition of LWN the Bluetooth Qualification Administrator has demanded that the Linux BlueZ project take down the highly-useful Bluetooth hardware compatibility list for Linux with the intimation that 'As neither of these products have been qualified using Linux it is illegal to make them available for public use'. This was apparently done at the request of a registered member of the Bluetooth SIG. Anyone know who this member was?"
This issue is almost one year old. The page under link was last modified in April.
This happened back in March. it still sucks though.
w ww.holtmann.org/linux/bluetooth/devices.html
The list is available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20050310010832/http://
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
I agree with your point, but "Bluetooth" is probably a registered trademark and in order to use it on anything you need to comply with the terms of the trademark owner, which in this case probably includes passing a test suite and sending them $x.
So it's not *directly* illegal, you just run the risk of a trademark violation lawsuit, unless you call it something else.
Bluetooth is a propietary technology; standardisation is being worked upon (IEEE 801.15). There are several patents involved on the technology, therefore companies that wish to use it sign a licensing agreement. I can't get a hand on the exact terms, though I read that it's royalty free.
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
The list is still there. From http://www.holtmann.org/linux/bluetooth/devices.ht ml:
h tml. Just look for an entry in the "HCI Version" field to verify the device works with Linux.
"I am keeping the features document, because it has nothing to do with Linux. These products are available on the market and thus all of them should be qualified. If the HCI Version field is filled in this table, then this device should also work perfect with Linux."
The "features document" can be accessed at http://www.holtmann.org/linux/bluetooth/features.
This isn't the sig you're looking for... Move along.
It's called trademark. Congress passed laws protecting registered trademarks quite a long time ago. The owner of the Bluetooth trademark is legally obligated to protect their mark. If they don't the mark can be considered as falling into general use and then they will lose any legal protections the trademark currently gives them.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this now render the issue moot? The reason the SIG was interested in taking the list down was because BlueZ wasn't qualified. Now it is (or rather, back in April it became) qualified, so what is the issue here?
The list still does not seem to be up, although I didn't look very hard for it. So is there something still blocking it?
The Linux BlueZ site wasn't selling anything either.
Probably not, but companies with products listed with the bluetooth logo are very likely trying to make a profit.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
A trademark is not a copyright. A trademark owner has no power over nominative uses of the mark such as the subject list (or this discussion, for that matter). The list is entirely legal and need not have been removed.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
But he wasn't using any patent, just distributing factual information about some products out there...
Whether or not anything is be sold is irrelevant. A trademark owner can prevent others from use his mark to label their products or in ways that might confuse the public as to what is being sold, but he cannot prevent them from using it to refer to his products. Nominative use is not restricted. The list was stating simple facts about Bluetooth products. This is entirely legal, no matter how much the trademark owner may dislike it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
TFA links to http://lwn.net/Articles/163266/
On that page we read:
On that page there are two mailto: links - mailto:bqa@bluetooth.com and mailto:member.relations@bluetooth.com
See that @bluetooth.com bit? That's called a domain. Since these bits of email are going to people @bluetooth.com it is safe to assume that they are involved with the website that appears at http://www.bluetooth.com/ - let's go there, shall we?
There is a very prominent link "about the SIG" that appears on this page. Since TFA was about "a registered member of the Bluetooth SIG" it is fairly probably that this is the SIG in question. Let's click on the 'about the SIG' link, shall we?
http://tinyurl.com/e4olu
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
In response to this story I did a little research and sent a letter to the website's author with some quick legal analysis and a suggestion to seek actual legal counsel. For those who are interested, here is the quick and dirty part of the letter:
It would be helpful to get a copy of the full letter from SIG, but I gather their central claim is a trademark violation. On this issue you have several possible defenses. First, I suggest your strongest argument is based on the unavailability of a generic term by which to describe Bluetooth technology. This is similar to the situation Kleenex found it self many years ago... by using the term Kleenex to describe their product and never using the generic term (tissue), they destroyed their own mark. A company who owns a mark, even a patented mark, MUST provide a term that can be used to describe their product by the competition. I reviewed the entire SIG site and could find no generic term to describe Bluetooth.
Second you have an arguable fair use defense. Your site is making commentary on the products in question, noting that these devices will work in Linux. That is classified as criticism and protected under the First Amendment.
Only 120 characters... who can summarize their entire world understanding in 120 characters?!
Which I've now done, and the location should be obvious to any moderately sentient being. However, please be kind and get your copy from archive.org, because they've got shedloads more bandwidth than I have.
To those people who say 'there's no point' for one reason and another, the point is that if people get used to the idea that the only thing you achieve by taking down something like this is a whole raft of mirrors, we'll see far fewer such takedowns.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
If I find a product in a Linux-compatible list, I'm much more likely to buy the product. The harder it is to confirm something works under Linux, the greater the chance that I'll buy something else which I can confirm more easily. And if something doesn't work with Linux then someone gets to process a returned item; that has some effect on future sales.