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Legal Summits to Tackle Linux

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the open-to-suggestions dept.

An anonymous reader writes "BuilderAU has the story that the Linux Foundation, custodians of the Linux trademark, have announced that they will host two summits to deal with legal issues surrounding Linux and open-source software. Attendance at the first summit will be restricted to members of the Linux Foundation and their legal counsel. The second summit — an open meeting — will be held in Autumn 2008 where legal experts from any background will be able to attend."

6 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. The foundation owns only the trademark by jkrise · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Trademark violations of Linux are few, and insignificant. Linus himself seems to be against the spirit of the GPL - either version 2 or 3. Had he chosen the BSD, MS would've swallowed it like Kerberos or the TCP/IP stack and bastardised them, and Linux would've been kicked dead before it started breathing.

    The danger from Linus is the one that eeds to be tackled, IMO.

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    1. Re:The foundation owns only the trademark by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Linus made Linux in the first place. It's his baby. He should be able to take it wherever he wants, whether you or I like it. The first place was a long time ago. The first release of Linux was about 10K lines of code; about half the amount of code that I have released so far this year as Free Software (not to Linux, so I have no personal stake in this). Since then, he hasn't exactly done nothing, but his contributions are dwarfed by the large number of other people who have contributed. He can do whatever he wants irrespective of what I want, but I don't think he should ignore the hundreds of other people who who have written the code that makes the kernel what it is today.
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    2. Re:The foundation owns only the trademark by EvilRyry · · Score: 2, Interesting

      MS can always come up with a proprietary protocol and make it the "market leading" protocol, whether it is based on an open one or not does not really matter. It does not limit the use of BSD Kerberos protocol by open-source systems, and it wouldn't have changed if it had been GPL'd (in fact, quite possibly even fewer systems would support it). Yes, they tried this. They called it NTLM and it sucked. Hence the move to Kerberos which was then mangled a tad to make it incompatible. Why reinvent the wheel (poorly) when you can just modify the existing one a tiny bit it so that it doesn't fit your competitors product?
    3. Re:The foundation owns only the trademark by _merlin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The first place was a long time ago. The first release of Linux was about 10K lines of code; about half the amount of code that I have released so far this year as Free Software (not to Linux, so I have no personal stake in this). Since then, he hasn't exactly done nothing, but his contributions are dwarfed by the large number of other people who have contributed.

      Yes, you make a fair point. I know Linus hasn't written all of what is now Linux. But when people/corporations contribute to Linux, they are granting rights rights to that code to the "Linux project", of which Linus is still effectively the "spiritual leader".

      He can do whatever he wants irrespective of what I want, but I don't think he should ignore the hundreds of other people who who have written the code that makes the kernel what it is today.

      Two uncomfortable facts:

      • Contributors have granted rights to their code, so Linus can do what he sees fit - sure, they can contribute their code to other projects, too if they want, but they can't take back the rights they granted when they submitted the code. And when the code was submitted, one condition was that it could be distributed under GPL v2. As harsh as it may seem, they can't now go and say they only want it distributed under GPL v3.
      • A lot of contributions are from corporations like IBM and Novell - people who have commercial interests in Linux. I honestly doubt these contributors would like to see their contributions restricted under GPL v3. Linus also needs to respect these contributors.

      Whether I like Linux or not, I think staying with GPL v2 is probably the most sensible path forward to keep the most people happy. As a wise politician once said, "You can please all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time; but you can't please all of the people all of the time."

  2. Re:Against the spirit... by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You're honestly suggesting that Google, HP, IBM and Novell don't contribute code?

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  3. Taking things seriously by JeremyGNJ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's nice to see the Linux Foundation taking things seriously.

    Despite what the board-posting-fanboy-home-users say on slashdot, the legal ramifications of Linux are a serious concern to businesses adopting it. If they aren't nailed down and addressed, then it will continue to be the preferred OS of Mom's basement.

    In the end I think that the outcome will be playing nicer with closed-source and allowing a certain amount of concession. The question is: Is the community mature enough to handle that?