Trademarks Considered Harmful To Open Source

An anonymous reader touts a blog posting up at PC World titled "Trademarks: The Hidden Menace." Keir Thomas asks why open source advocates are keen to suggest patent and copyright reform, yet completely ignore the issue of trademarks, which can be just as corrosive to the freedom that open source projects strive to embody. "Even within the Linux community, trademarking can be used as obstructively as copyright and patenting to further business ends. ... Is this how open source is supposed to work? Restricted redistribution? Tight control on who can compile software and still be able to call it by its proper name? ... Trademarking is almost totally incompatible with the essential freedom offered by open source. Trademarking is a way of severely limiting all activity on a particular product to that which you approve of. ... If an open source company embraces trademarks then it embraces this philosophy. On the one hand it advocates freedom, and [on] the other it takes it away."

Comments

Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[levell]

I disagree with the whole underlying point of the article. I think Mozilla should be able to stop someone taking their source, adding a whole bunch of unstable "improvements" as patches and calling it Firefox. It would damage a brand that is one of the best brands that FOSS currently has. It doesn't stop people getting the browser, if they don't Mozilla's restrictions they could call it, say, EarthHorse.

The article throws around terms like "restricted distribution" and "severely limiting all activity" but gives examples like CentOS where CentOS and Red Hat exist happily together but with Red Hat still able to build up a brand with some protections.

The article ends "just like patents and traditional copyright, it's totally incompatible with the spirit and ethos of open source software.". People here may not like the length that copyright lasts for but the GPL relies on the fundamental idea of copyright. Similarly there may be some issues with trademarks but if so they need patching not a whole sale revolution as this article seems to suggest.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[mizzouxc]

Debian already does this with Iceweasal. I agree with the article. If you don't like restrictions, run Debian.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[rolfwind]

I think trademarks are great as it stops the Microsoft's of the world to make it their own, which they could otherwise in a heartbeat. Imagine "Windows 7 integrated with Microsoft's new browser Firefox!" Which sounds great (90%+ marketshare) until you realize that MS can fork it, and continue to embrace, extend, and extinguish it as their own while providing updates through their channels (getting around GPL because most people just don't care and will let the computer do anything for them automatically that it can, having the upgrade channels is a powerful thing) with most nontechy people never knowing.

I can't even imagine the scenario if the Linux trademark was like that as well.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Trepidity]

I agree, but only to a certain extent. It's certainly reasonable to ask those who create forks to choose a different name rather than distributing using exactly the original name. However, it's not unreasonable, I don't think, for the fork to use some derived name that BOTH 1) makes clear it is not the original project; but 2) makes clear that it is derived from the original project. For example, the principal GNU Emacs fork is named XEmacs. Would it really be better for us all if GNU had taken a hard line on that and forced Lucid to choose a name for their fork that didn't contain the word "emacs" within it at all?

So, sure, it's fine in my book if Mozilla doesn't want a modified Firefox to be called just "Firefox". Maybe more distinction than Emacs/XEmacs is also reasonable; e.g. a GtkFirefox or something could imply that it's an official GTK version. But they seem to want to take this to the extent of trademark law, and not even allow derived names that are clearly distinguished, like DebianFox or something. I don't see how that really fits within free-software culture.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[drolli]

Exactly. The freedom which open source is about is the freedom to use you computer and your future computers in a way you tailor your system. Nobody will be able to force you to buy the next distributom from Redhat if you invest the time to make the required changes yourself. If it is GNU you may even redistribute this work.

If it is GPL, no matter hoe many trademarks there are associated with some project, you may redistribute it under another name.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[k31]

I concur; if anything, Trademarks can be used to enforce branding/quality. A company trademark is like a personal signature.

What I still don't understand is why people are talking only about openness in software, and ignoring how closed hardware is becoming... try writing an alternative to the Award-Phoenix BIOS and you're see what I mean (yes, I know they're some projects to do just that, but look at how hard it is an how many NDAs would be involved if you wanted to support most hardware)....

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[wisty]

Trademarks do seem a little harmful to open source. It's a bit of a pain to explain why Firefox is the same thing as Ice Weasel. Inconsistent terminology can hurt a field - just look what happened to postmodernism.

But "Considered Harmful" is a bloody big call. That's comparing trademarks to "gotos". Ouch. Open source has other worries - like web applications (online data processing), proprietary devices (iPhones), companies turning GPL programs into XML wrapped libraries, the .net framework, walled garden communitites (facebook), and proprietary file / stream formats.

Trademarks? Big deal.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Daengbo]

CentOS does the same thing with the whole of Red Hat. They just strip out the RH trademarks. Should they be allowed to call it Red Hat? No. Does removing the trademarks restrict their freedoms in any way? Also no.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[shutdown -p now]

Trademarks do seem a little harmful to open source. It's a bit of a pain to explain why Firefox is the same thing as Ice Weasel.

Would you prefer having to explain why some random IE-based China-made shareware/adware browser that's called "Firefox Pro" isn't really Firefox at all?

Because that's pretty much where we'd be if it wasn't trademarked.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Anonymous Coward]

But Firefox is an internet facing application and gained his reputation through better stability, security and protection for the users' pc, users which are no more only highly technical savvy: while a power user may know the difference between Emacs and XEmacs, and place the blame where it's due, imagine what could have happened if Browzar could sell itself with the Secure Internet Explorer moniker.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[xigxag]

Debian may do this with Iceweasel, but Debian doesn't do this with Debian. Parens implicitly acknowledges that on some level, you need a way to establish and verify trust. Debian says, "We'll do the verification for you. If you trust us, you can trust the untrademarked software we use." In essence, Mozilla(TM) Firefox(TM) becomes "Debian(TM) Iceweasel."

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[damburger]

Whats to stop a Chinese company doing that right now? IP isn't exactly strong over there.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[impaledsunset]

Trademarks are a way to protect the brands of an organization and products. And to help the customers from being deceived. Open source is a tool that you use in creating your product or program, and free software is a way you treat your customers. How would trademarks hurt any of these is beyond me. Really.

Copyright and patent law might need a reform, and workarounds like we do with FOSS, but trademark doesn't. It's arguably doing it's job. When I get get X by company Y I'm given some assurance that this is indeed X by company Y, and not something else someone decided to call that way. I don't see any reason that one should want CentOS to call themselves "Red Hat Enterprise Linux". I would be very happy if they don't.

Nobody restricts distribution or anything. You were allowed to use and improve the technology, but there is no reason you should expect to use the name. Does anybody really want people using FOSS code to create malicious programs and then name them "Linux" and "Firefox"? If somebody wrote a book and put it under Creative Commons license he didn't give you the right to change the content of the book and claim that it is still written entirely by you.

Even if trademarks did hurt (and at worst they cause minor inconveniences), they play an important role which is a bit more important than someone's ability to "compile software and still be able to call it by its proper name". Sorry.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[blowdart]

Except ... Rails. Rails is a trademark, so in theory we now need to write Rails(tm). Now I can understand the Ruby on Rails(tm) logo being trademarked, if you don't want it appropriated, but Hansson has gone a bit further.

On the use of the logo he's said

So I only grant promotional use for products I'm directly involved with. Such as books that I've been part of the development process for or conferences where I have a say in the execution.

This steps out of protection and into control, he's been refusing to allow books to use the logo on their covers. He's even trademarked "Ruby on Rails", taking the name of something he didn't invent or write and using that as part of his mark;

"Rails", "Ruby on Rails", and the Rails logo are trademarks of David Heinemeier Hansson.

Want to have a Ruby on Rails(tm) conference? Better not include the name of the platform in your conference name then, that would be violating Hansson's trade mark. Even more "interesting" is the Ruby on Rails(tm) logo was a community effort (although the wiki pages for that are now gone. The original logo was even open source. The money to register the trademarks came from the community, but the marks are in the hands of Hansson alone.

It's not trademarks that are the problem, it's the person who controls them. If, for example, the Rails(tm) marks were overseen by a committee (made up, as a starting point, of everyone that helped pay for them) then that would be more acceptable than the current situation.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[msimm]

"I think Mozilla should be able to stop someone taking their source, adding a whole bunch of unstable "improvements" as patches and calling it Firefox. It would damage a brand..."

Exactly. Without a way to protect your brand you could be exposing yourself to all sorts of litigation or liability. You mention a branded unstable Firefox scenario but there could also be flat-out misuse (other software using your brand, inappropriate products using the brand) or even purely malicious misuse like branding malware or inferior builds to undermine the product.

Anything can be obstructive, but if the free software movement had decided they wanted to challenge trademark they probably wouldn't have needed a PC World article to clue them in on it.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Sensiblemonkey]

Trademarks do seem a little harmful to open source. It's a bit of a pain to explain why Firefox is the same thing as Ice Weasel.

Ice Weasel isn't the same thing as Firefox; they don't share the exact same code base. Also, the last time I used it, Ice Weasel still had some really screwy bugs to contend with that are not present in FireFox. Which sorta of drives home the gp's point.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Hognoxious]

The article throws around terms like "restricted distribution" and "severely limiting all activity" but gives examples like CentOS where CentOS and Red Hat exist happily together but with Red Hat still able to build up a brand with some protections.

Given the choice of running RHEL under a different name, having to pay mucho $£, or not being able to run it all I know which I'd choose.

The author of TFA is clearly deluded if he mentions CentOS - it's as good a counter example as you could find.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Anonymous Coward]

Except ... Rails. Rails is a trademark, so in theory we now need to write Rails(tm).

Or better, R*ils.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Hognoxious]

just look what happened to postmodernism.

What happened to postmodernism?

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Hognoxious]

The key phrase is "over there". I'd rather it didn't get like that over here.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[RichardJenkins]

My $0.02:

What if MS released a copy of 'Mozilla Firefox' with a round of improvements which introduce stability or performance issues. If they bundled it with their OS (they could do it alongside IE and help resolve some of these anti-trust issues they have) they'd put most people off all Mozilla branded products in a heartbeat. Trademark protection is the only thing which guarantees you're really getting what it says on the box, I think it's a good thing you can't say "This is Mozilla Firefox" after you've changed the code.

On the other hand; there should always be provisions for using trademarks as references to products/companies as long as you're not misrepresenting yourself as being part of them. I cringe when I see CentOS referred to as being 'binary compatible with a prominent North American Linux distributor'. They should be able to say 'This is based on, but not the same as, Red Hat Enterprise Linux'. In this case they may have to go to some lengths to make clear what their relationship with Red Hat is. Even more importantly, if I write a comparison of MS Office and OpenOffice I should be able to be clear and unambiguous about the two products I am comparing.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Well, trademarks aren't that hard to get around. E.g, for the conference, I cannot find anything to prevent a conference of "Rapid Web Application Conference for Ruby on Rails users". From wikipedia, that should be ok since you are "using the mark to describe accurately an aspect of its products". Wikipedia gives the example "In a related sense, an auto mechanic can truthfully advertise that he services Cadillacs", which is basically the same thing and is a car analogy, almost ;)

Misappropriating a community designed logo, if that is what he has done, is violation of copyright law. But (again from wikipedia), the license of the logo is MIT, which means that said community chose a license that permits this, much as if Mr. Hansson had bought the logo from an artist. Perhaps they should have considered a copyleft license? Still, the laws of trademarks severely limits what he prevent; e.g., "A book to quickly learn Ruby on Rails [logo]" is again, probably ok.

I do agree, however, that Mr. Hanssons approach is hindering rather than helping ruby on rails, which is a shame because it is a very sweet framework for web services and applications. Especially for people like me who only do web as an aside from our "real" skills :) But of course, the community could fork off and change the trademark (maybe even get a non-ugly logo? :P) in a week, with very little momentum lost.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[ThePhilips]

In other words it is all about identity.

Trademarks are sort of like authorship. You can transfer copyright to your work to somebody else - but you can't transfer authorship. That's doesn't prevent you from using the work, it only prevents you from imposing on somebody else.

Seems pretty logical to me.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[jonbryce]

The trademark doesn't prevent people from writing books about Ruby on Rails, and saying it is a book about Ruby on Rails on the cover, as long as it is clear that the book isn't written by the Ruby on Rails people or endorsed by them.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Znork]

You're getting towards the foundation of the issue here; trademarks attempt to cover multiple layers of information and fail badly.

On one hand it's the original manufacturer/major contributor(s), and on the other it's brand applier/controller/minor contributor. It may be an issue in software, but it's, IMO, a far bigger issue in physical goods and the other way around, outsourced production and generics that get a trademark logo slapped on them when it's exactly the same product, from the same factory, as the one next to it that costs a third of the price.

So not only do I think derivatives should be able to use the trademark name as an origin notice; at a certain level of similarity they should be _required_ to label with the identity of the original product (/manufacturer/etc).

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Daengbo]

I live in Asia so I'll just have a "Luby on Lails" conference, and no one will be confused at all.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Znork]

And to help the customers from being deceived.

Ah, no, that was the old way. Then it used to prevent Chinese companies to manufacture cheap copies of Western goods complete with trademark name.

Now it's the new way. Now all the goods are cheaply manufactured by Chinese companies, and trademarks prevent Western consumers from getting exactly the same goods for cheap.

that this is indeed X by company Y

Except it's not any more. It's X by company Z, labelled and marketed as A, B, C and D trademarks by companies Y, E, F, and G and available for a tenth of the price in China. The days when trademarks were used to prevent deception are gone with in house production, now they're often used to deceive instead.

I don't see any reason that one should want CentOS to call themselves "Red Hat Enterprise Linux".

That I can agree with. I would, however, like to see a requirement for a clear origination labelling, like CentOS (derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux), Blu Wear Jeans 1023 (derived from XianPing model Ping134), Coca-Cola Dasani (derived from bromate contaminated tap water).

If someone else made it, consumers should be able to tell who did and what the product originally was.

Basically, the purpose would be enforcing the supposed consumer protection of trademarks both ways; you shouldn't claim your product is someone elses, but neither should be be able to claim that someone elses product is fully and exclusively yours.

Even if trademarks did hurt

They're nowhere near as damaging to the economy as copyright and patents, but I think they certainly have room for improvement. Particularly as applies to their function as consumer protection.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[pjt33]

Inconsistent terminology can hurt a field - just look what happened to postmodernism.

The death of the author (lexicographers excepted)?

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[pdh11]

It's a bit of a pain to explain why Firefox is the same thing as Ice Weasel.

"Because the Mozilla people have done something insane, egotistical, and counter-productive." There, that wasn't very painful.

As you imply, the reason that anyone who forks Firefox should be able to call the binaries their project produces firefox is the same reason that anyone who forks ls should be able to call the binary their project produces ls. Anything else just causes user confusion. If you want to have a trademark because you think you're so darn good that anyone else's version of your code just won't be the same, trademark your organisation name, not your project name. FSF Emacs vs XEmacs, FSF Glibc vs eglibc, coreutils ls vs BSD ls: there's no ambiguity in any of those cases.

By trademarking the name of the product, and imposing restrictions on uses of that trademark which affect people carrying out the normal processes of open-source natural selection, the Mozilla people have placed their own personal egos above the quality of the user experience. That's the sort of behaviour that open-source more usually comes as a blessed relief from.

That such restrictions on trademarked product names are allegedly compatible with open-source licences should be viewed as a bug in those licences, and Debian are absolutely right to call the Mozilla people on not being DFSG-free. If you want to pinpoint the moment they lost their way, it was when they trademarked "Mozilla" and named their foundation after it, and changed the mozilla tree so that it no longer built a binary called mozilla. If when they realised their "mistake" they'd changed the foundation name not the binary name, there'd be the Seamonkey Foundation's mozilla versus everyone else's mozilla, which would be perfectly straightforward, and they'd have generated much less ill will.

Peter

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[kripkenstein]

In other words it is all about identity.

Trademarks are sort of like authorship. You can transfer copyright to your work to somebody else - but you can't transfer authorship. That's doesn't prevent you from using the work, it only prevents you from imposing on somebody else.

Seems pretty logical to me.

And not only is it logical, it's very much at the heart of open source. Even the most permissive licenses (BSD, etc.) have the requirement that you not remove the original author names, and not claim that you wrote the original software (unless you actually did, of course).

In other words, all open source licenses explicitly support the principle of identity - use the code, but know who wrote it. That's the principle behind trademarks as well - to let people know where something comes from. To lop this in with patents as a "risk to open source" is completely incorrect.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[LingNoi]

If you don't like restrictions, run Debian.

What a joke. I'm sure Debain (TM) wouldn't mind me setting up my own alternative Debian (TM) then? oh wait!

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Anonymous Coward]

> What happened to postmodernism?

Yellow, then it fish.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[maxume]

This is one of the many situations where someone is complaining about the status quo because they want other people to behave differently, not because they are facing horrible restrictions (he even points out that much of his use of the word "Ubuntu" is likely fine, even under trademark restrictions). If the damage from trademarks were truly severe, there is nothing stopping anybody from working around them, so the article is basically complaining that they don't like trademarks.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to pinpoint the moment they lost their way, it was when they trademarked "Debian" and named their foundation after it

Fixed.

Your argument is stupid and hypocritical. Currently Ice Weasel contains numerous bugs which Firefox has already fixed. So lets assume Debian (TM) were allowed to call it Firefox. Right now they would be redistributing a crappy version of it and who would their users blame for that? Mozilla, not Debian (TM).

So given this situation why do you even care that the name has changed? My guess is selfishness. You want to exploit the popularity of the brand Firefox to push Debian's (TM) inferior Ice Weasel onto unsuspecting users that do not realise that both program's code bases are quite different.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[debrain]

Would you prefer having to explain why some random IE-based China-made shareware/adware browser that's called "Firefox Pro" isn't really Firefox at all?

That's a great example, highlighting the rationale behind trademarks. The purpose of trademark law is consumer protection: reducing consumer confusion when equivalent products have confusingly similar marks. The creation of goodwill by companies in the form of production recognition is incidental.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[mizzouxc]

The problem with this is that I'm sure loads of people don't know that Iceweasal is firefox rebadged. People are more likely to buy/use a brand rather than what can be viewed as a generic. This is where OSS and Patents collide. They hurt the open source community while also keeping a good open source product out of the end user's hands.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[mizzouxc]

We allow all businesses to make reasonable use of the "Debian" trademark. For example, if you make a CD of our Debian GNU/Linux distribution, you can call that product "Debian". If you want to use the name in some other way, you should ask us first.

The difference is they want you to use their name, unlike Firefox where they're much more restrictive.

In addition, this is a trademark, not a copyright. Big difference. All Debian wants is to keep Microsoft from coming out with "Debian windows Vista", tainting the product and dragging them into the depths of hell with MS.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Angostura]

Surely it is simpler than that. There's no need to muck about with source code and forking. Without trademark protection, Microsoft could simply launch MIcrosoft Firefox, which would be identical to Internet Explorer in all respects, except with a different skin. Actually it wouldn't even need a different skin. The "new" browser could run on Microsoft Linux, which would be a rebranded version of Windows 98.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[FooRat]

I think you (and many posters here) are missing the point (regardless of its validity) - he's not complaining about a threat that someone might attempt to control what software people publish or what they call it. As I understand, the "threat" he refers to is this: Imagine for a moment that Ubuntu strike it really big and become "the" OS on 90% of computers. Now, any ISV has to make sure their software runs on Ubuntu ... then imagine that Canonical forced every ISP to pay a small "trademark use licensing fee" every time they had to mention the platform their software ran on was Ubuntu, e.g. say they made Adobe pay to mention things like "Photoshop for Ubuntu" or "the Ubuntu version of Photoshop" as a "licensed" use of "their trademark". Even if the figure was low, Canonical could probably make a tidy sum if Ubuntu was dominant.

Whether or not this is a valid concern is another issue, but my understanding is that this is the author's concern here.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[jvillain]

Why look, there is a tempest in my tea cup.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Hognoxious]

I read the article, I don't know if you did, but I didn't come to that conclusion at all.

Wouldn't work anyway. I forget the legal phrase, but it comes down to this: if I'm a mechanic I can say that I specialise in VWs, BMWs and Mercedes and I don't have to ask any goddam kraut's permission to do so.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[larry bagina]

Congratulations. You didn't read the article, you didn't read the summary, you didn't read the title, and you didn't even read the comment you're replying to.

Patents aren't trademarks.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Anonymous Coward]

Because that's pretty much where we'd be if it wasn't trademarked.

So, basically, we'd be free.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Anonymous Coward]

Does removing the trademarks restrict their freedoms in any way?

Yes. Just as closed source software is restricting my freedom.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[kzieli]

I recall reading some rants about how hard stripping a trademark out of a piece of software can be. Though I can't find the link right now.

The thing is that the upstream provider can make removing their trademarked name very very hard by including it in various obscure places. All of which need to be found and updated.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[HiThere]

Does Debian own and trademarks? I'd be surprised if not. (And I RUN Debian on my system...I've just never paid attention.)

I'd need significant proof, however, before I took his claim about trademarks being bad seriously. (And I mean concrete examples, not arguments.)

As noticed above, CentOS and IceWeasel are reasonable counter-examples.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Anonymous Coward]

Now it's the new way. Now all the goods are cheaply manufactured by Chinese companies, and trademarks prevent Western consumers from getting exactly the same goods for cheap.

In what way does Trademark "prevent Western consumers from getting exactly the same goods for cheap"? It doesn't. Rather, it prevents those Chinese companies from using the Trademark name when selling those exact same goods for cheap to Western Consumers. In NO WAY does it stop them from selling it. Now, you can call that a bad thing if it IS the same exact thing under a different name - because consumers erroneously assume it's a different product. But, it's a GOOD thing when it prevents a hundred companies from selling a product under a confusing name meant to deceive the consumer. I think the later is a far bigger danger - mostly because it's trivial to boost sales by deceptively fooling the consumer with a fake brand-name, which hurts the consumer and the company who spent time building that name.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop being so lacist

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[hairyfeet]

Nominative use is the phrase you are looking for, and the "mechanic" precedent is Volkswagen V. Church. Same as I can make a piece of hardware and say "This works in Windows XP" but if I want the little "Designed for Windows XP" logo then I have to pay. Seems pretty fair to me, I personally want to know where the stuff I'm using is coming from. After all, if it wasn't for trademark protection what is to keep some domain squatter from getting a name close to Ubuntu and pushing a malware ridden distro AS Ubuntu?

Reading TFA (I know, but I got bored) it sounds like this guy is trying to cash in on the Ubuntu name and got pissy when they said he needed permission to splat their logo all over his site. Considering the fact that it IS for commercial use (even he admits that ) I can see why Canonical might have a problem with that. After all, I can't put out a book saying "How to make Windows Vista NOT suck. Really!" and cover it with MSFT logos and not expect MSFT to come knocking at my door. Why should Ubuntu be any different? Did he give the first draft to Canonical to let them make sure that any of his "tips" didn't end up causing problems down the line? I kinda doubt it. Considering the fact it is a "commercial project" (his own words) I think the folks at Canonical are being very fair. You know Apple or MSFT would have probably hit this guy with a C&D so fast it would have made his head swim.

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[dpastern]

And I have to disagree. Trademarks, patents & copyright really are against true freedom. I hesitate to use the word open source, since it's not necessarily true freedom (think BSD).

Dave

Re:Trademarks helps some of OSS best organisations

[HitoGuy]

My only real complaint about the BSD license is that any company can take the code and lock it down. I'm thinking of the NT IP stack here, which I read somewhere was completely lifted, line-for-line from NetBSD, I think. Just seems like there's no real protection of accountability in the BSD license.

I wish...

[Anonymous Coward]

someone would Trademark "First Post"

Re:I wish...

[Anonymous Coward]

One bright bit o' news: 3D Realms is now defunct. Duke Nukem' Forever is now Duke Nukem' Never. I wonder if we'll ever see a post-mortem analysis or if the people involved are simply going to clam up?

Copyright reform?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who in open source is pushing for copyright reform? That's the glue that connects source code to the GPL.

Re:Copyright reform?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who in open source is pushing for copyright reform? That's the glue that connects source code to the GPL.

BSD folks, to start.

Re:Copyright reform?

[mister_playboy]

In theory, the the idea of the GPL exists only in opposition to copyright... it is a "necessary evil" for an future good.

If there was no copyright, there would be no GPL... two sides of the same coin.

Re:Copyright reform?

[argux]

If copyright didn't exist, maybe we wouldn't need GPL.

Re:Copyright reform?

[noidentity]

In theory, the the idea of the GPL exists only in opposition to copyright... it is a "necessary evil" for an future good. If there was no copyright, there would be no GPL... two sides of the same coin.

Nope, you're confusing that with BSD-style licenses. BSD-style = do what you want with the source, including releasing products without source code. GPL = if you release product using source, you must release source you used to build product. Without copyright, BSD-style is all you'd have.

Re:Copyright reform?

[mysidia]

Then you could just distribute binaries.

Modify the source code however you like, sell the binaries, with purely technical restrictions (ala Product Activation, Genuine Advantage) to prevent people copying them, and frequent updates to obsolete any old cracked version.

Re:Copyright reform?

[m50d]

That would force people doing that to make frequent updates to their software with genuine improvements, which is hardly the worst way things could go.

Re:Copyright reform?

[mister_playboy]

The GPL exists to force work that builds upon it to be GPL, as well. It directly opposes copyright by forcing that which builds upon it to be copyleft.

BSD has no such rules. It doesn't oppose copyright, rather' it simply doesn't care one way or the other You can "build either copyright or copyleft works upon it.

Perhaps that makes my point more clear.

Re:Copyright reform?

[supernova_hq]

Note quite, but almost. You only need to provide the parts of the program that are derivatives of the original work.

Eg. You make a game and want to use the Quake3 engine. You decide that you want the graphics and physics parts, but write your own networking part. As long as the networking code and the quake3 code, as a separate executable called by the engine for example, then you only need to release the physics and graphics part of your application.

Re:Copyright reform?

[shutdown -p now]

I think GP meant a bit different thing. Historically, the reason why GPL appeared in the first place was because of copyrights on software. RMS himself said that if copyright was gone, there would be no need for GPL.

Re:Copyright reform?

[moon3]

BSD code is truly free no matter what you use (or misuse) it for.

Stating that GPL mean free software is like saying that Patriot act protects freedom in America.

Re:Copyright reform?

[timmarhy]

almost - if you've made CHANGES, you have to include the source. pretty redundant if every single OSS project out there released the source of all the libraries it used

Re:Copyright reform?

[Requiem18th]

Bullshit, GPL code is 100% free to use, 100% free to build upon for internal use and 99% free to build upon and distribute. It's only restriction is on restricting other's freedom.

  Does BSD licensing provides more freedoms?

  Actually not, not freedoms in plural, in practice it only gives you one (1) more freedom, there is only one single reason why someone looking for an open source license would choose BSD over GPL, to keep the freedom to restrict your users freedom at some point, directly or by a third party.

  You can choose whatever suits you but comparing the GPL with the PATRIOT Act is nothing more than FUD.

Re:Copyright reform?

[the_one(2)]

This is not strictly true. You have to be able to provide ALL source code. I assume you could just point those who want the source code to each projects webpage though.

Re:Copyright reform?

[Insanity Defense]

There seems to be an assumption in this thread that copyright reform means copyright elimination. People can be pro reform while still being pro copyright. Reforming copyright can be as simple as changing the term from the current excessively long (IMO) time to a shorter one more in tune with the idea of "a limited time". They can also be in favour of a better system to get copyrights declared abandoned so abandoned materials can enter the public domain.

There are other aspects that people might like to see changed. Why does a photo of the Mona Lisa (just of the painting nothing else) deserve a copyright when the original is centuries out of protection? Why could I edit an old bible to correct punctuation errors and get a new copyright?

There are of course others who want copyright to last forever. A Senator for example wanted to legalize copyright vigilantes destroying computers that they believe contain unauthorized copies of their copyrighted materials. These too are reformers who are still pro copyright.

So you see people may well be pro copyright and still want changes

Re:Copyright reform?

[Insanity Defense]

The GPL exists to force work that builds upon it to be GPL, as well. It directly opposes copyright by forcing that which builds upon it to be copyleft.

Without copyright the GPL is unenforceable. It requires copyright to exist. To be pro GPL you need to be pro copyright. You can still want changes to the current copyright system however.

Re:Copyright reform?

[RichardJenkins]

The main point about the GPL isn't that it allows you to distribute and modify code; it's that it forces you to licence any derivative of GPL code that you distribute under the same terms.

Mandating the same freedoms for derivatives is a central tenet of GNU philosophy (I suggest reading about the Emacs fork which drove RMS to write the GPL in the first place), and a very important one. If Linux was released under a BSD style licence I'd bet my life that a proprietary closed source fork would have become dominant.

The thing about this is - it relies on copyright law to force this. It's a brilliantly creative use of the law. If you have time, consider reading the GPL FAQ - it's very interesting.

Re:Copyright reform?

[EsbenMoseHansen]

BSD code is truly free no matter what you use (or misuse) it for. Stating that GPL mean free software is like saying that Patriot act protects freedom in America.

It merely depends on what you mean by free, and to whom. One could claim that BSD is the ultimate freedom for the coder, and GPL for the code. So could we stop this silly contest now? All of us know the difference between BSD, GPL and LGPL, and I, for one, use all 3 licenses depending on my wishes. The argument is akin to an argument whether men in a society that allows murder is more or less free than one that does not.

Re:Copyright reform?

[noidentity]

The GPL exists to force work that builds upon it to be GPL, as well. It directly opposes copyright by forcing that which builds upon it to be copyleft.

But both copyright and "copyleft" are restrictions placed on distribution/derivation from protected material. They may be aiming for different ends, but they still use the same legal "force".

BSD has no such rules. It doesn't oppose copyright, rather' it simply doesn't care one way or the other You can "build either copyright or copyleft works upon it.

A BSD-style license explicitly demolishes the copyright protection the author would otherwise have on the work. It roughly gives the work the status it would have if copyright didn't exist. That seems like opposing copyright to me.

Re:Copyright reform?

[noidentity]

Excellent rebuttal. I look at it as an inherent tradeoff between different people's freedoms, here developers and users. Either the developer can boss his users around since he holds the source code, or the users can restrict him from doing that. The BSD and GPL simply favor the respective parties. The GPL argument is that there are far more users than developers, so trading for more user freedom is a net benefit.

Re:Copyright reform?

[tepples]

If Linux was released under a BSD style licence I'd bet my life that a proprietary closed source fork would have become dominant.

But without copyright, it would be lawful for a competing company to take this proprietary fork, disassemble it, comment the crap out of it, and spread it on Usenet.

Re:Copyright reform?

[Ginger Unicorn]

With DMCA, and no copyright law, DRM becomes totally impotent. It only takes one crack and a mirror at say "freephotoshop.com" and its game over. You would have no legal recourse againt "freephotoshop.com"

Frequent updates you say? How is that supposed to be a problem? Simply dont update till the new crack is out. You must know as well as everyone else that DRM is just an arms race - hence the necessity for the DMCA.

Re:Copyright reform?

[RichardJenkins]

The GPL requires source distribution precisely because this is very difficult to do and come up with something useful.

Re:Copyright reform?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. GPL depends on strong copyright laws to provide the legal framework for the restrictions it creates. Without copyright, the restrictions would be unsupportable.

Re:Copyright reform?

[moon3]

I used GPL too, but I found it difficult for students to use their work at university later in life when transitioning to software for real life use, a medical software as it is my experience. I found BSD license more flexible, less constraining and better suited for such situations.

Re:Copyright reform?

[EsbenMoseHansen]

I used GPL too, but I found it difficult for students to use their work at university later in life when transitioning to software for real life use, a medical software as it is my experience. I found BSD license more flexible, less constraining and better suited for such situations.

Yep, that sounds like a situation better suited to BSD. I prefer that license, too, for something that is going to be used extensively in business software.. like parsers and such.

Re:Copyright reform?

[Anonymous Coward]

GPL doesn't oppose copyright.

Copyright itself places no restrictions on a work, rather it gives the owner of a copyright the right to choose who can and cannot produce copies of said work, and under which terms.

GPL uses copyright to choose who can and cannot produce and distribute copies of a GPL'ed work and under which terms.

GPL doesn't oppose copyright in any way, GPL is in fact a copyright license, and does exactly what copyright is supposed to do.

Re:Copyright reform?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite. Without copyright, public domain is all you'd have. BSD-style licenses rely on copyright too.

It's not about Freedom

[GameGod0]

It's about protecting your users, and protecting your project.

Take a large, reputable open source project like Audacity. If some scammer comes along and bundles their own version of Audacity with some spyware and tries to distribute it under the Audacity name, this is damaging to both users and the reputation of the software. Audacity's defense against people like this is their trademark. Nobody will confuse real "Audacity" with any ripoff, because nobody else can use the name.

This also protects the developers, who have worked hard to produce great software, and who deserve to have it recognized as something special on their resumes/CVs. Preserving the reputation (ie. name) of your software project helps ensure their contributions to the project aren't devalued.

Lastly, the Mozilla example in the article can easily be countered by the infamous OpenSSL/Debian fiasco, where a Debian packager incorrectly patched OpenSSL and created a vulnerability. This was certainly damaging for OpenSSL's reputation, even though it wasn't their fault. If Ubuntu decides to patch Firefox and introduces bugs, it's Firefox (NOT Ubuntu) who looks bad to users. IMO this is good justification for exercising ownership of your trademark.

Re:It's not about Freedom

[derGoldstein]

That last part has less to do with trademarks. Ubuntu could "make" Firefox less stable simply by poorly managing underlying infrastructure. It's not in their interest to do so, obviously, but if it were to happen, and they didn't make sure to properly test a new release using enough scenarios, then when Firefox crashes it would make Firefox look bad (unless users figure out that it was fine when it was running on the previous version of Ubuntu).

When it comes to dependencies, whoever is facing the user will usually look bad. If a some library updated their code and didn't make it very clear to their users that either internal or external structures/interfaces would be changing, then it's the the library's fault, but the users won't care, they'll blame whatever software it is that uses the library.
(and yes, it's the developer's responsibility to check prior to changing dependencies, but sometimes changes are subtle and the bugs won't reveal themselves until extremely specific scenarios take place)

Re:It's not about Freedom

[m50d]

Ubuntu could "make" Firefox less stable simply by poorly managing underlying infrastructure. It's not in their interest to do so, obviously, but if it were to happen, and they didn't make sure to properly test a new release using enough scenarios, then when Firefox crashes it would make Firefox look bad (unless users figure out that it was fine when it was running on the previous version of Ubuntu).

And they're already doing that with KDE.

Re:It's not about Freedom

[derGoldstein]

Windows does it with everything...

*ducks*

Re:It's not about Freedom

[Hadlock]

Thanks for posting this. I came in here to say the same thing. I wish they had mod points for "close thread, this is the correct answer", I would give you all my mod points.

Re:It's not about Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Misuse is not the only problem. I think it is also about competition. Let's not forget that a large part of the software is closed-source, and if open-source is to find any place in the "market", it needs to have brands fighting brands.

With many forks (which is one of FOSS's specialty), it is important to know associate a fork with a name/brand. If there were 100 forks, and finding which fork is whose was very hard, not many people would find using FOSS fun.

You would have to compile each plugin separately depending on your fork of Firefox. Package Managers would die, because no single distro will have over 10,000 users. So each user will have to compile each software (and the dependencies).

Trademarks ensure that the best are known. Its a way of filtering out the tried and tested versions from the random forks. It's the only way to earn a market share. You cannot have stats like:
MS IE 7: 40%
MS IE 6: 20%
PQR FF: .598
ABC FF: .256%
XYZ FF: .235%
RTS FF: .135%
How am I supposed to think FF is actually better than IE? And even if I do, I will be fed up of trying the many different forks, that I'll settle for the worst anyways.

Re:It's not about Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Lastly, the Mozilla example in the article can easily be countered by the infamous OpenSSL/Debian fiasco, where a Debian packager incorrectly patched OpenSSL and created a vulnerability. This was certainly damaging for OpenSSL's reputation, even though it wasn't their fault. If Ubuntu decides to patch Firefox and introduces bugs, it's Firefox (NOT Ubuntu) who looks bad to users. IMO this is good justification for exercising ownership of your trademark.

This is a great point, and though it seems like it was meant to contradict the article, I think it really helps to underscore the problem.

First, trademarks are important. As parent said, they do a lot to protect producers and consumers alike by ensuring that the consumer knows they're getting the product they want from the producer they trust. Maintaining that trust/security is a great reason why Mozilla or The OpenSSL Project might have a problem with people distributing modified software bearing their trademarks.

But at the same time, free software is, by definition, meant to be modified and redistributed. Do we want every piece of software in every *nix distribution to have a different name? "I'm pretty sure Kommunikator is Konqueror-based, but I can't remember what Net-Browser really is. And is Internet Iguana an actual fork of Firefox or just a couple little distro-specific changes?"

If everyone took trademark enforcement as seriously as Mozilla, the Iceweasel/Icedove thing would be multiplied by every software suite and for every distro that needed to make even the slightest changes to improve the software or just make it fit into the distro better. I'm not sure which would be worse: the same software having a different name in each distro, or everyone else using Iceweasel/Icedove/whatever other less restrictive trademark to rebrand the software, which could lead to the original trademark being worthless and putting us back at square one.

So really, I think the article has a legitimate point, though maybe the author took it a bit far... and naturally many of the comments here have made the article sound even more extreme than it actually is. Trademark is a real contradiction for free software, and it's not clear how best to manage it. Is this current case-by-case system really the best we can do, or is there a better and more universal way to handle this problem through standard licensing or something?

Re:It's not about Freedom

[vrmlguy]

But at the same time, free software is, by definition, meant to be modified and redistributed. Do we want every piece of software in every *nix distribution to have a different name? "I'm pretty sure Kommunikator is Konqueror-based, but I can't remember what Net-Browser really is. And is Internet Iguana an actual fork of Firefox or just a couple little distro-specific changes?"

If everyone took trademark enforcement as seriously as Mozilla, the Iceweasel/Icedove thing would be multiplied by every software suite and for every distro that needed to make even the slightest changes to improve the software or just make it fit into the distro better. I'm not sure which would be worse: the same software having a different name in each distro, or everyone else using Iceweasel/Icedove/whatever other less restrictive trademark to rebrand the software, which could lead to the original trademark being worthless and putting us back at square one.

Name spaces are pretty big, so I don't think that having a different name for forked software is a bad thing. Nominative use provisions allow all of the things that you've mentioned. "Kommunikator, based on Konqueror" is permitted in the "About..." box, as is "Iceweasel, a deriviative of Firefox".

Debian felt that they needed to make the slightest change to either improve OpenSSL, or just make it fit into the distro better, and introduced a bug. If Debian had been forced to call their modified product "DebianSSL, a deriviative of OpenSSL" then I would have known a lot faster if I was at risk.

Trademarks are a requirement for FOSS, since otherwise you cannot be sure about whose product you're using. Craftsmen and artisans have long used trademarks for this purpose, and I thought that they were who most of us are modeling ourselves after.

Look at it this way. DNS provides human-friendly names that map to collections of IP addresses. Trademarks provide human-friendly names that map to collections of cryptographically signed code. Is DNS harmful to FOSS?

Open source is about SOURCE

[SuperKendall]

Just because source is open does not give you the right to hijack the work of a team and call something by the same name.

It does give you the right to take the source and make something else with it, and that is great. But because so much of the reward of open source is working on something that many people get to use an enjoy, diminishing the power of trademark removes a strong element of motivation by allowing names to mean less through dilution.

Shakespeare said something about this...

[dov_0]

"A Rose by any other name is still as sweet."

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[Yetihehe]

Well, not really. Giving names to something can alter perception. Blindfold someone and give him rose oil to sniff, saying it's perfumed sludge.

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Blindfold someone and give him rose oil to sniff, saying it's perfumed sludge.

Do you tell them it is perfumed sludge before or after they smell it?

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[dov_0]

The basic thing is this - and before any of you pedants out there spot my misquotation, I know - people should be allowed to defend their name, investment and reputation. Trademarks are very good for that purpose, in fact I have one for my business name. If someone wants to take their code and change it in a way that could potentially damage the functionality of it, then why should the original developers wear it? On the other hand, good code is good code and it should be available. I think the present system, eg Firefox, works quite well.

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[RichardJenkins]

I'm no Shakespeare, but it seems to me if someone hadn't seen a rose, and you gave them a pile of manure to smell calling it a rose - they wouldn't be to keen to smell the roses in the future.

Likewise, if I give you a non-functional crappy piece of software, and called it MS Windows - you wouldn't be too keen to try the *real* windows, would you?

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[youn]

You may say I am pedant... but if someone calls a rose an apple, or calls slashdot CNN, I'll give him a smack over the head... common sense :)

I agree with you though... I believe in trademarks and the right to defend them... someone who modifies firefox should do so under a different name... I guess if someone takes salt, puts it in meat, cooks an elaborate dish.. and still calls it salt, I'll smack him over the head too :)

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[edittard]

if I give you a non-functional crappy piece of software, and called it MS Windows - you wouldn't be too keen to try the *real* windows, would you?

I don't see the difference.

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[192939495969798999]

Shakespeare was talking about the exact opposite scenario. The problem with trademarks using the rose quote is: someone can take a pile of crap, spray paint it red and call it a rose. In other words, "Anything else called a rose probably doesn't smell a damned thing like a rose."

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[Eudial]

Well, to be fair, you could use a trademarked name to launch some form of elaborate smear campaign.

(1) You write a program called "The vehemently evil project, closely associated with Hitler and Firefox;" plaster 50 ft advertisements about it in New York.
(2) ???
(3) Profit!

If Firefox isn't a trademark, there is little to nothing they can do about it. If it is, they can sue the crap out of the perpetrators of the smear campaign.

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

even if it was called 'shit weed'?

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[earlymon]

"Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed."

Re:Shakespeare said something about this...

[jadin]

Would you like to buy a dozen roses?

(Roses are my name for cow dung)

Trademarks != (Copyright || DRM)

[jskora]

DRM and copyright protect stuff, technology or data or ideas. Trademark, on the other hand protects a name, an identity.

Kleenex has not been the only brand of facial tissues for a very long time, the name is protected but not the concept. RedHat and CentOS, as already mentioned, are a perfect example of this working, the name RedHat is protected but the open source code is not.

Brand means more in some cases and than in others, as consumers and techies are at times very brand loyal. But when things become commodity items, consumers look less at brand than function, need, and appeal.

Re:Trademarks != (Copyright || DRM)

[Actually, I do RTFA]

DRM and copyright protect stuff, technology or data or ideas

Patents protect ideas. Copyright protects the expression of ideas (and boat hulls). DRM is an extralegal enforcement of copyright.

But, you are right. Trademarks only protect identity.

Trademarks get lost when the identity does. A long time ago a Zipper, was a Zipper(tm). But it became so associated with the idea, that they lost the trademark.

Re:Trademarks != (Copyright || DRM)

[snsh]

It's still Zipper(tm). It's just not Zipper(R).

Re:Trademarks != (Copyright || DRM)

[skine]

Actually, the only name that BF Goodrich still has the rights to stemming from their original "Zipper" trademark is "Zipper Boots." Zipper itself was stripped of its trademark and has been classified as a legally descriptive word, and is no longer owned by its inventors.

Re:Trademarks != (Copyright || DRM)

[Actually, I do RTFA]

It's still Zipper(tm). It's just not Zipper(R).

Not only has the generic Zipper product had the trademarked stripped, but registered is a subset of trademark. You lose both or neither due to the brand becoming a generic word.

This is ridiculous.

[darkmeridian]

Trademarks are meant to protect the origin of a commercial good. This allows consumers to recognize a product and remember its quality or lack thereof. It's necessary to have trademarks in open source software. Imagine if anyone could create a browser and call it Firefox. Mozilla Firefox is going to get stomped down by "forks" that introduce all sorts of spyware in the source code. Without the protection of trademarks, Mozilla would have to sit idly by as its market share gets split up.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[noidentity]

After reading that article, I agree, and am going to start my own website and magazine called PC World.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[Sir_Lewk]

Imagine if anyone could create a browser and call it Firefox. Mozilla Firefox is going to get stomped down by "forks" that introduce all sorts of spyware in the source code.

If they were going to do that, I can't imagine trademark law would stop them.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

And boost their reputation?

Why?

Re:This is ridiculous.

[youn]

you're not going to call it slashdot?

Re:This is ridiculous.

[jonbryce]

Why would you want to do that? British people might think it is in some way related to a chain of computer shops owned by Dixons Store Group.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine if anyone could create a browser and call it Firefox. Mozilla Firefox is going to get stomped down by "forks" that introduce all sorts of spyware in the source code.

If they were going to do that, I can't imagine trademark law would stop them.

No but lawsuits might.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[jythie]

Initially no, but since creation of spyware is not, in and of it'self illegal, it would give someone somewhere a legal tool to shut them down.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine trying to port firefox to a new platform and having to go through hell unbranding it! I don't want to change it, i just want it to run on my OS! Those bastards won't take upstream patches!

Value of Trademarks is Psychological

[reporter]

The value of trademarks is psychological. Most people attribute value, warmth, and comfort to a name. Consider the name, "Toyota". Immediately, it engenders feelings of "high quality", "reliability", "lots of bang for the buck".

A while ago, the same factory produced a Toyota Corolla and a Geo Prizm. Chevrolet sold the Geo Prizm. Even though it was nearly identical to the Corolla, customers preferred the Corolla, and it had higher resale value than the Prizm.

Trademarks are important because the name itself -- a string of characters -- has financial value.

Re:Value of Trademarks is Psychological

[siloko]

The value of trademarks is psychological. Most people attribute value, warmth, and comfort to a name.

Blimey! I think I'm using trademarks wrong. The ones I use just let me identify a product. You get Value! and Warmth! and Comfort!, I want my money back!

Re:Value of Trademarks is Psychological

[SlashWombat]

A better example is Toyota - Lexus. In Japan, many of the vehicles sold in the USA as Lexus's were sold in Japan as Toyota's. (Although, this is strictly no longer the case ... Also, the Toyota's in Japan were often more luxurious than the Lexus in the USA!)

It's about the code

[Anonymous Coward]

Trademarks don't run on computers.

GAIM

[Anonymous Coward]

GAIM felt this already, that is why it is called Pidgin.

Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a geni

[Joseph_Daniel_Zukige]

You guys are missing the point.

The guy who wrote this insane piece is at best a troll, most likely an expendable pawn.

The guys who want to tie down our "intellectual property" and use it, not just to take our money, but to control what we think, say, and do, are feeding us a decoy.

Watch the other hand.

Trademark = Signature

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree, the problem with copyrights and patents is that they restrict the distribution and development of the 'protected' ideas.

The only restriction a trademark places is that you can't represent yourself as something or someone you're not.

I doubt the author would be happy to find the movie he rented for his children Trademarked as "Disney's the Lion King" was actually hardcore porn.

This sounds like sour grapes that some developers can't coast off the work of others.

Re:Trademark = Signature

[Anonymous Coward]

The only restriction a trademark places is that you can't represent yourself as something or someone you're not.

...

This sounds like sour grapes that some developers can't coast off the work of others.

Bingo. (I fail to see how it could be anything else.) Give this man a +1, Insightful and a cigar.

Re:Trademark = Signature

[Tuoqui]

Hit the nail on the head there. Too bad I'm out of mod points.

The only form of 'Intellectual Property' that has remained true to its original intent is Trademarks. Trademarks are about protecting business identity not a specific product or technology (copyright and patents).

As far as I've seen, most open source projects don't mind if you include a comment like 'based on X' if you made a new browser you'd have a different name like Iceweasel and can state 'based on Firefox'. Only the most anal projects like RedHat/CentOS comparison avoid even mentioning the original project they are taking things from.

Try the new Microsoft browser Firefox Pro!

[distantbody]

...The trademark allows Mozilla to protect Firefox's reputation. Anybody can still redistribute any derivative of the worst quality under a different name. As for the GPL: it is there to stop anyone from impeding access to the original or derivative code.

The person does not know what he is talking about

[houghi]

Trademarks are not a bad thing. It makes it clear what you can expect. If I download firefox, I would like to know what I am getting (for better or for worse). Now If I would make a fork that has a completely different aproach and won't work with certain plugins (like Adblock), you will think that Firefox is bad. Well it is, but it is my version, not the one somebody else made.

So I do understand the need for trademarks. Now how do companies deal with trademarks is a different question.

It is e.g. perfectly possible to re-distribute openSUSE as it is. It is also extremely easy to make your own openSUSE distribution that includes e.g. MPlayer, the codecs and libdvdcss and some other stuff that might be illegal or forbidden.

So what they say is to be able to do that to either contact them (If you are a magazine, they will be very helpfull and have often a special distro just for you) or to remove all the branding. I contacted them and their legal department where very appologetic in saying that they could not change anything about it due to the fact that they MUST react to any trademark issue.

So instead they made a toold that makes it easy to remove those trademarks, so it is now even easier to make something like CentOS but from SLE or openSUSE and even get the help from Novell to do so.

Your Mark

[OnlyHalfEvil]

I take it all back, I think this is a dumb idea.
Signed,
Keir Thomas

What?
If trademarks are a restriction of freedom, then me using Keir's name to endorse my own ideas sounds like exactly the type of freedom he's arguing for. So what if it breeds confusion and implies an endorsement that doesn't actually exist?

Trademark is simply a compliment of attribution

[iamacat]

Attribution - you can do anything you want with another person's work, but you can't pass it as your own
Trademark - you can do anything you want with another person's work, but you can't pass the derivative as his/hers.

I don't see what's the big deal. It's something that an honest person or business would be already doing even without any laws to the contrary.

Re:Trademark is simply a compliment of attribution

[Alex Belits]

Sometimes you WANT to give credit to the original developer, even though you made a minor modifications. For example, OS port to some hardware not supported by the original developers -- port may involve a minor amount of changes, so it would be misleading to call it by something other than the original name.

Re:Trademark is simply a compliment of attribution

[roguetrick]

Then ask the original developers to support it. You can't just run around claiming someone supports even a minor change if they don't.

Its about forking, DUH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Trademark is no threat to FOSS because it fails to prevent forking. FOSS is about the right to fork.

Wow, Someone who doesn't understand Trademark

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading the article the only thing I can say is that the author has no clue about how Trademarks work. The examples don't even make sense. The protection afforded by Trademarks to the consumer is important - more so than other forms of intellectual property. With open source, a trade mark does not prevent you from redistributing the product under a different name or a derivative name. Trademarks are one of the few forms of intellectual property that makes sense. Why is that? Because they evolved organically and were not constitutionalized.

In contrast, copyright has been steadily extended to the point where it no longer serves its original purpose of rewarding the creator. Now copyright rewards the business that buys it up and monetizes the product after the creator is dead. While patent has been extended as a concept to the point where it inhibits the creation of new ideas. Give us back an 8 year patent and a 13 year copyright.

Re:Wow, Someone who doesn't understand Trademark

[russotto]

After reading the article the only thing I can say is that the author has no clue about how Trademarks work. The examples don't even make sense.

If he doesn't know how trademarks work, neither does Red Hat. This IS probably the case, however.

One of his examples is Red Hat's attempt to prohibit redistribution of their binary distribution by claiming it's a violation of trademark rights to copy the programs which include their trademarks. However, one of the few areas of IP law where the courts have actually been fairly reasonable is in attempts to abuse one form of IP to extend another. Using a trademark to obtain copyright-like protection isn't likely to survive challenge.

That is my TRADEMARK

[Anonymous Coward]

Cease and desist you kommie freeloading dole-sucking bastard!

This is the dumbest thing I've read on "IP"

[Nick Ives]

This is what happens when people use the term "IP" - they get things like Trademark and Copyright totally confused.

With FOSS you're free to modify + redistribute. If the project you're redistributing is trademarked then you're going to have to change the name for your modified version.

In fact the GPL requires that modified versions be marked as changed; obviously the best way to comply with that is to change the name.

Strange point

[Andtalath]

What you are saying is that you want to see Microsoft Firefox being the name for IE.

Is that really a good idea?

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[supernova_hq]

The guy who wrote this insane piece is at best a troll, most likely an expendable pawn.

And he was able to find another troll (kdawson) to post it on slashdot!

It's amazing, every time a stupid article is posted, I scroll to the top and guess who poasted it? kdawson!

Imagine a Microsoft Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

They could take IE and just rebrand it, then everyone who hears about Firefox would probably end up getting it.

He's just grinding an axe

[derGoldstein]

The reason for this article appears in the first sentence. He was irked that they weren't too happy that he went about using their trademark for personal financial gain, and decided to air it out in public.
If this guy really understands the topic that he himself is choosing to write about, he should be able to take a step back and realize what everyone commenting on this thread already knows: trademarks protect your own personal branch of the code. Even the most permissively licensed (BSD/MIT) project can have a trademarked name and logo. They're protecting their "fork" or "branch". This has nothing to do with open-source, it doesn't take away any of your freedoms.

I don't think it's a problem

[Toonol]

Zealous trademark enforcement can't shut anything down. No matter how crazy, say, Mozilla someday goes with a powerhungry IP grab, all they can do is stop you from representing your product as Firefox, identifying your product using their logo/name. You can still mention Firefox. Trademarks don't give a company control over a word. You could absolutely market "JoesBrowser" and say "this awesome browser is based on the excellent opensourced Firefox(tm) code, with only the atrocious Awesomebar(tm) stripped out."

Re:I don't think it's a problem

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

Trademarks don't give a company control over a word.

Strictly speaking that's true. However, what open source project has the ability to fight a trademark battle with a company? There's a reason that on the CentOS web site it says "CentOS is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor.", never mentioning Red Hat...

Re:I don't think it's a problem

[Tuoqui]

They do that in CentOS because most of the people involved with that project are also involved in RHEL. They dont want people to get confused between the two.

Main problem with Linux is that IE icon is missing

[spaceturtle]

When reviewers review Linux they often say things like "Even I couldn't figure out how to install X with Linux, how could a novice user possibly learn how to use Linux". However computer novices don't try to install software. In my experience the main problem novices have with Linux is that they cannot find the Internet Explorer icon. Once you tell them to click the Firefox icon instead they have no problem.

I don't think that Trademarks are anything like copyrights. However they can be a PITA, and they could have potential for abuse. I don't think we should use the e.g. IE icon for firefox even though it would save new users some grief. However I agree that some uses of trademarks could be seen as abusive. I can see how Prohibitions on unmodified redistribution could be seen as abusive, for example.

Idiots.

[todd10k]

Advocates freedom, but then takes it away? Are you fucking kidding me? Open source is a good thing. ubuntu, redhat, gentoo. These are names we associate to particular operating systems. without trademark, we would have every fat greasy linux geek calling his own homebrew distro "Knoppix xtreme" or something equally banal. Trademark preserves the quality image we have in our minds of a particular product. I mean, let's take the DS and PSP for example. Their trademarks are ripped off blatently by chinese company's making extremly low quality, similar looking products. Eliminating trademarks on opensource product's will have the EXACT same effect. Every trademan, programmer, anyone who put's anysort of work into a product, either for self gratification or momey, deserves to have their product, if made to a high degree of quality and worksmanship, be considered good. he doe's not deserve for some charlatan to come along and call his lower quality and inferior product the same name to leech the reflected glory away from the original worksman, who im going to call bill. Bill has 3 kids and a mortgage, a nagging wife and a goldfish. if bill leaves boston travelling in a car at 60 miles an hour and tracey is travelling from new york in a time capsule travelling 120 miles an hour, how much wood will a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood? To summarise: dont do school, stay in milk, drink drugs. I'm all for freedom and the open source way, but there's limit's, without those limit's,we wouldn't have limits, and we'd be limitless in our depravity. if we follow that particular line of thinking,pretty soon we'll have women riding horse's one leg on each side, salt in our lasagne and massive orgies in the street, thousands of naked bodies writhing in ecstasy, all on the cusp of losing complete sexual control.......................on second thought, down with trademark!

Android, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

For all of you who still don't believe that trademarks are a powerful tool to prevent the spread of free software, ask yourselves: Why has only one company released a phone with Android OS, when it should be freely available as open source software?

Releasing something as open source, whilst retaining the trademark can give you all the good PR and still let you make exclusive deals.

Re:Android, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try.

The reason that there is only one phone with the Android OS is because the license terms of the OS don't suit anyone else.

It's the same reason that Microsoft haven't just released a distro of Linux with a Windows Theme patch.

What they want is the ability to, for example, prevent you from making an app that interacts with VoIP (except to the specific extent that they permit). They can't prevent that if it's Open.
(They can't prevent that in any case, but they can make it a million times harder.)

Trademarks don't help them do this. Closed-source is the only way they have a chance for any length of time.

Mostly misinformation

[pugugly]

IANAL, but I am a layman that did papers on this in college - and the long and the short of it is this mostly sounds like a massive misunderstanding on several peoples parts about what can and cannot be done via Trademark.

Fundamentally, a trademark, used properly, means that if something you were using doesn't work as expected. you know who to blame. You may not be able to get satisfaction from Microsoft when Windows crashes, but you can at least be assured that when you say "Microsoft Windows just rolled over and *died*" People are reasonably sure who you are ticked at.

Yeah - if you've altered Firefox or Ubuntu or something else, and you give it away, then if it says Firefox, and it's not actually Mozilla's code, Mozilla has a right to be ticked that you altered it but didn't tell your end users they weren't actually using Firefox. But if you recompile your modified code and call it "Mike's fiery fox (A firefox based browser)" - they know the difference, and there's no copyright infringement.

All this amounts to is sign your oen name to your own work. That is *not* a big opensource conundrum.

Pug

Re:Mostly misinformation

[damburger]

Sounds perfectly reasonable; in fact I noticed in the article that Ubuntu were fairly cool with the guy, and that taking down their logos may have been an overreaction on his part as they never threatened him with legal action.

Re:Main problem with Linux is that IE icon is miss

[Anonymous Coward]

A pain in the ass? I'm sorry i'm not Microsoft defender (software either) but excuse Microsoft if they don't want Firefox being passed off as Internet Explorer. Would you or especially the folks at Mozilla appreciate if for Windows 7 they shipped IE 8 with a Firefox theme and used the Firefox Icon? No! Many here would be outraged. It might take a few extra minutes/days for first time Linux users to realize their browser is not the familiar Internet Explorer but committing trademark infringement just to take a shortcut is intellectually dishonest towards the users and towards Microsoft (who cares if you hate them, the same tm rules apply to all companies).

BTW, most reviewers of first time Linux use are always going to bitch about how Linux is not as compatible with Windows as Windows is. There is little to nothing you can do about that since it is by definition to be as compatible without being Windows itself.

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[im_thatoneguy]

That's because kdawson doesn't believe in indentity protection. kdawson gave up his trademark and as such any troll is now free to post stories under his name.

Sincerely,
kdawson

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[Anonymous Coward]

Quoth TFA:

Thunderbird became Icedove, for example (which is actually a better name IMHO).

At this point, I decided that the writer of this piece is a moron or a troll. Noting, of course, that the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

No Mention of Shareaza ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unprotected trademarks are a vulnerable means of attack.

It's worth pointing out that when corporate interests (Sony Records) objected to an open-source project (Shareaza P2P), they simply had a puppet company (iMesh) file for the trademark on the existing name.

The lesson is defensive trademarking.

His argument seems weak

[damburger]

From the article:

What tends to happen is that open source companies have to walk a tightrope, and slightly strange rules on trademark get put in place. For example, Ubuntu is cool with community remixes using the trademark, but if you intend to make money from Ubuntu and want to include the word in your business title, you're going to need permission. It's not quite clear here how the former won't dilute the Ubuntu brand, while the latter possibly will. The "protecting brand identity" argument falls apart almost immediately upon examination.

It is clear; commercial projects operate with different motives than free projects. Commercial projects aim primarily to make users cough up cash, whilst free projects aim primarily to provide something useful to users. The difference in motivation often produces starkly different results.

Mozilla is even worse. If I create a new Linux distro, and include my own compiled Firefox binary, it's unlikely I would be able to call the browser "Firefox", or use the familiar fox logo, without getting permission from Mozilla. This could put me at a competitive disadvantage compared to other versions of Linux because my users would be using what appears to be unfamiliar software. It's worth mentioning that Mozilla's trademark rules also indicate they're not terribly happy about the unofficial redistribution of their binaries, either, and would prefer it if they were the exclusive source.

Yeah, Debian is really suffering because of that...

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

And he'd be wrong about that, because then how could you force people to release the source code for the programs they derived from your open source app? Obviously he didn't really really mean it, because the GPL could have been written to only mandate permission to reverse engineer and derive. But it wouldn't have been nearly as useful. Richard's irritation from copyright law served as the inspiration for the GPL, but terminating copyright isn't the sole goal of the GPL, as you can easily confirm by reading it.

Re:Wrong

[Alex Belits]

But without copyright, what is the point of releasing binaries and not providing source? Users will distribute binaries to each other (no copyright -> no one has to buy or license them from you), AND won't contribute to your development, AND you will have to update your binaries for every new platform because no one else can produce the binaries.

Re:Wrong

[tepples]

AND you will have to update your binaries for every new platform because no one else can produce the binaries.

That's a good thing if you're the maker of a custom computing platform, such as Sony or Nintendo.

Re:Wrong

[Alex Belits]

I guess so. However then the platforms won't stay exclusive for long.

I realize that total lack of copyright may be undesirable for many reasons, however the primary reason for GPL was problems that were caused by excessive restrictions imposed by copyright.

Linux is trademarked

[Anonymous Coward]

So is the word "Linux" now considered harmful to open source?

The Answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Keir Thomas needs to http://tinyurl.com/gxhq

Look at the title

[trifish]

Can we please ask the Slashdot editors to avoid tabloid titles?

The title reads "Trademarks Considered Harmful To Open Source".

but it should read: "A Random [Uneducated] Guy Considers Trademarks Harmful To FOSS"

Thanks for listening.

Re:Look at the title

[pjt33]

He's not necessarily uneducated. He might just be an idiot.

Trademarks are good

[Anonymous Coward]

Trademarks allow a company or person to sell a product or service and protect them from people who want to cash in on their reputation and tarnish it by providing an inferior product.

Modding vs Branding vs Distros

[Requiem18th]

Suppose I build a custom car, I bought a sound system say, from JVC, for it, it doesn't quite fit so I take it apart to change its proportions. Does JVC have a ground to sue me for trademark violation? No because its obvious that:

a) This is a mod not the original product.
and
b) This is done for integration and compatibility.

This is EXACTLY what Debian and Ubuntu do to Firefox, why does it has to be treated differently?

Maybe its because it is not so obvious. If Ubuntu makes it so Firefox launches a notification on first launch:

"This version of Firefox was modified by the Ubuntu Team to better serve you"

On what legal grounds can they sue Canonical? And if so, does it mean that JVC can also sue me?

Re:Modding vs Branding vs Distros

[davmoo]

You're comparing apples to oranges.

First, you're not changing the functionality of the JVC unit. You're merely changing the case. It still works the exact same way JVC designed, and using only their electronics.

And second, you're not starting up a production line and redistributing your redesigned JVC head unit.

Thus, it is not EXACTLY what Debian and Ubuntu do to Firefox. They alter the functionality (and its irrelevant whether or not its an improvement) and then redistribute it. Is it fair for the Firefox people to have to take the heat, the blame, and the damage to their brand image if Debian or Ubuntu fuck it up?

Re:Modding vs Branding vs Distros

[vrmlguy]

Suppose I build a custom car, I bought a sound system say, from JVC, for it, it doesn't quite fit so I take it apart to change its proportions. Does JVC have a ground to sue me for trademark violation?

If you peel off the JVC logo and stick it on your mod, then yes, they do have grounds to sue you. You need to look back to the OpenSSL/Debian debacle. Yeah, maybe you're "merely changing the case", but what if your change causes a minuscule scratch on a CD whenever it gets ejected? For a while, error-correction hides the damage, but eventually you've got a stack of shiny coasters. Meanwhile, your friends who own similar cars have asked you to do the same mod for them, and you've been putting JVC's logo on the modified versions. Two years down the line, who will your victims call when their media stops playing?

That's why JVC doesn't want to you put their trademark on case mods, and that's why Firefox doesn't want their name on someone else's code.

Re:Modding vs Branding vs Distros

[Requiem18th]

No apples or oranges.

  > First, you're not changing the functionality of the JVC unit. You're merely changing the case. It still works the exact same way JVC designed, and using only their electronics.

  Maybe maybe not, maybe I removed some electronics to to fit it in. And even so I'm sure any modification however superfluous could get me in trouble if I tried to pass it for an original JVC product.

  > And second, you're not starting up a production line and redistributing your redesigned JVC head unit.

  Actually that makes no sense. There's nothing stopping me from buying JVC equipment and then selling it (retailing) and there is nothing stopping me from modding JVC equipment as a service even if I use a production line to mod them and by that logic there should be nothing stopping me from doing both things at once. It is only a problem if I pretend these are original JVC equipment

> Is it fair for the Firefox people to have to take the heat, the blame, and the damage to their brand image if Debian or Ubuntu fuck it up?

But why are they going to blame Mozilla if Ubuntu shows a disclaimer explaining that they modded it? This is the point, that as long as the consumer is properly informed no trademark violations have occurred because trademarks are all about informing the consumers!

Re:Modding vs Branding vs Distros

[Requiem18th]

I didn't peel the logo from the case, I just didn't covered it, it was engraved anyway, and why should I be forced to hide the fact that it WAS a JVC product?

  It is a piece of modded JVC equipment and that's how I'm selling it. That's why I said Ubuntu should show a notification stating they modded the package.}}

  Mozilla's concerns can be eased by changing the window title string from "Mozilla Firefox" to "Iceweasel" because it makes obvious it is not "THE" Firefox, why can't "Firefox [Modified by Ubuntu]" work too?

  Trademarks are all about informing the consumer aren't them?

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[RDW]

'The guy who wrote this insane piece is at best a troll, most likely an expendable pawn.'

Yes, his cover goes so deep his sinister paymasters have even instructed him to write several books about Ubuntu, and even give one of them away for free, presumably as part of a machiavellian plot to undermine other Linux distributions and deprive genuine FOSS-supporting authors of their livelihoods:

http://www.ubuntupocketguide.com/download_main.html

Back in 2006, his evil campaign of dangerous misinformation apparently managed to subvert a popular technology blog, which went so far as to describe one of his poisonous publications as 'a good book which is both informative and entertaining at the same time':

http://books.slashdot.org/books/06/03/29/1437217.shtml

I can't even hint at the shocking details of the plot that led to this guy being awarded an Editors' Choice Award by the hopelessly compromised 'Linux Journal' - I have a family to think about, and They know here I live...

Re:I'd just like to interject for a moment

[petrus4]

What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

The only reason why I agree with Stallman's "GNU/Linux," claim is because the kernel itself cannot be successfully compiled with any compiler other than GCC.

However, alternatives to the CLI GNU userland do exist. The most obvious one is the BSD, but there is the heirloom project, asmutils, and Caldera's source as well.

KDawson is...

[cbraescu1]

KDawson is the new Katz!

Its necessary

[FunPika]

If I recall correctly in one example before "Linux" was trademarked by Linus Torvalds, some random guy trademarked it and demanded royalties for its use.

Here we go...

[Yfrwlf]

I have no problem with trademarks because I have no problem with being restricted to not modifying a program upon distribution while still calling it the same name. That's *respectful*. If you modify a program, you rename it. Common netiquette.

What is wrong is modifying some software, like Firefox for example, and then distributing it, and then those modifications causing problems with various things (like Ubuntu's Firefox meddling causing issues with certain Firefox themes, for example), and then users reporting those bugs to the *Mozilla* developers, making them go wtf...that's not us who did that...it creates a nightmare for everyone.

Respect the developers and use *their* program, or call it something else! You shouldn't have to be recompiling *anything*. Play NICE with the internet community and developers, and stop pretending your distro is an island. Linux should be Linux, so start respecting it's programs and it's standards and in general communicating and playing nice.

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[dshadowwolf]

RTFA. Go on, do it.

.
.
.

Done? Now go and re-read the comments.

Oh, done already? Now tell me - where has anyone claimed that the author of TFA was a shill? What has happened here is the guy got in a bit of trouble over use of the Ubuntu trademarks. Rather than just admit that he had made a mistake, he decided to start spewing FUD about how trademarks are bad.

That act - and that act alone - is why he has been called a troll.

Try to claim game mechanics as trade dress

[tepples]

In Tetris v. BioSocia, Tetris Holding is trying to claim a combination of nine game mechanics as trade dress, despite that all but one of the listed mechanics have been seen in the Nintendo product Dr. Mario Online Rx.

Flamebait tag VERY appropriate

[fooslacker]

Trademarks serve an important purpose. They're the social equivalent of a encryption certificate, helping the consumer to associate a product with a known entity. Trademarks themselves are not dangerous or counter to open source in any way and writing them up as such is really just attention whoring by the author. What is damaging is the misuse of trademarks. Examples of misuse include when one tries to stop others from releasing products that claim compatibility with your trademarked good or that mention your trademarked good as a lesser competitor etc. This type of abuse should be forbidden by trademark law and penalties should include loss of the trademark for repeated offenses. Then maybe companies will use trademarks for what they are intended. That said much as RMS does us harm by ignoring rational discussion and turning every issue into a religious extremist philosophical debate with black and white lines where only he is right, this type of writing does us harm by taking a position that is silly and extremist.

Gah TYPO

[Ginger Unicorn]

With no DMCA

that should start...sorry

Re:I'd just like to interject for a moment

[Anonymous Coward]

However, alternatives to the CLI GNU userland do exist. The most obvious one is the BSD, but there is the heirloom project, asmutils, and Caldera's source as well.

That argument doesn't really make sense. There are alternatives to the Linux kernel too, so does that mean that no system should have the word "Linux" in its name? No, it means that systems that are based around Linux should have it, and those that don't, shouldn't. Same with "GNU" - if a system consists of the Linux kernel with GNU userland tools, then call it "GNU/Linux". If it consists of something else, then call it something else.

Because Linux isn't trademarked

[fast turtle]

does not mean that OpenBSD and NetBSD are not. The argument the author tries to fly is flawed in so many directions. As the FP stated, Mozilla is able to protect it's brand image from harm by enforcing their trademark. Everyone remember the recent openssl debacle that a debian maintainer was involved with? Provided a patch that shot the entire security of openssl down in flames on all debian related projects and yet the debian name wasn't harmed, just that of the openssl project, even though they didn't screw up.

Hey there boys and girls. I've got the latest Firefox Office Suite for sale. Price is 2 arms and a leg. It includes the latest root kit and keylogger and is a completely closed source proprietary project, which only runs on Microsoft and isn't related to the Mozilla Firefox webbrowser yet I'm using their Logo's and Names without fear of being sued.

That's exactly the kind of threat this article insists on allowing. In fact even MS wouldn't be for the elimination of trademark because then I could legally use all of their artwork/logo's and even the spelling to sell my version of Linux that I'm now Calling Vista 7 by Microsoft. That's my company name so where's the consumer confusion?

Re:Because Linux isn't trademarked

[PPH]

Actually, it appears that it is.

It's easy

[vrmlguy]

DNS provides human-friendly names that map to collections of IP addresses. Trademarks provide human-friendly names that map to collections of cryptographically signed code. Any questions?

Exactly what Microsoft already did

[davecb]

rolfwind writes: Imagine "Windows 7 integrated with Microsoft's new browser Firefox!"

You don;t have to imagine: this is what Microsoft already tried with Java, extending it with MS-only functionality. Only the trademark agreement with Sun protected Java uses from embrace, extend and extinguish. MS had to start an entire new language project in order to copy Java, and give it a new name thus losing name recognition.

MS fanboys use C#: everyone else uses Java, unextended and unextinguished. Now if they'd just add apply... (;-))

--dave

Re:Exactly what Microsoft already did

[leromarinvit]

MS fanboys use C#: everyone else uses Java

And Real Programmers use FORTRAN.

Re:Exactly what Microsoft already did

[ClosedSource]

Actually MS called their language J++ not Java. Sun succeeded in killing Java on Windows although I'm not sure that was their intent.

Re:Exactly what Microsoft already did

[Anonymous Coward]

I liked J++ on windows. On Sun's Java VM, windows would constantly flicker while updating, that was truly annoying. J++ VM on the same software did not. End of story.

Re:Exactly what Microsoft already did

[hairyfeet]

Actually we use VB6 and enjoy the screams of absolute horror from the "real" programmers. He he he!, take that, real programmers!

Re:Exactly what Microsoft already did

[davecb]

I was speaking slightly tongue-in-cheek: I normally tease Mac fanboys (;-))

--dave

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[RDW]

'Now tell me - where has anyone claimed that the author of TFA was a shill?'

'...most likely an expendable pawn'

This is what's called a 'metaphor', and is meant to suggest one under the control of another, more powerful entity. You may be confusing 'pawn' with 'porn', a common mistake often thought to be responsible for the (frequently observed) sharp decline in chess club attendance after the first week, when the terminology is explained. To illustrate:

Expendable pawn:

http://www.darlmcbride.com/

Expendable porn:

http://membres.lycos.fr/fredrichung/forum/nerd%20porn.jpg

The nature of trademarks

[jonaskoelker]

Just because source is open does not give you the right to hijack the work of a team and call something by the same name.

AIUI, that is a right which must be taken away, not given, and (this I'm sure of:) there is nothing in the Open Source definition which takes it away.

Just because a name isn't a trademark does in fact give you the right to hijack the work of a team and call something by the same name.

Let's consider the historical record

[jonaskoelker]

Imagine if anyone could create an editor and call it Emacs. The FSF is going to get stomped down by "forks" that introduce all sorts of lucentware in the source code. Without the protection of trademarks, the FSF would have to sit idly by as its market share gets split up.

Freedom not Protection from Ignorance

[Roger W Moore]

I completely disagree. Open Source is about freedom. It is not protecting you from your ignorance. If you always want to go with the 'brand' and remain ignorant of possibly better alternatives you should be free to do so.

Re:Freedom not Protection from Ignorance

[gnupun]

Open Source is about freedom.

There's no free lunch -- that freedom for OSS customers comes at the expense of programmers working like slaves, for free. Right now, the work is voluntary, so it's not quite slavery. But once protections provided by patents, copyrights and trademark laws are destroyed, OSS will be synonymous with "forced free" software, aka slavery.

Re:Freedom not Protection from Ignorance

[teflaime]

1) software shouldn't be patentable. It's a bunch of lines of code. Copywrite the bastich, but the thoughts of patents are stupid. 2) how do you figure OSS will become slavery without trademark?

Re:Freedom not Protection from Ignorance

[HitoGuy]

Wow, say that to the programmers in companies like Red Hat or Canonical who get paid to program open source apps. You're definitely underestimating how many people are paid for working on Linux, includign Linus Torvalds himself.

Yep ... another journalist at work ...

[gordguide]

I was somewhat curious about his arguments, so I read TFA.

The guy is wrong in so many ways it's astounding, considering the brevity of the article.

But, it's kind of persuasive, if you were clueless about the subject itself, and didn't have much interest or skill in reasoning out the arguments and what they would mean in the real world.

Then it occurred to me.

The guy can write.

He just can't think.

He's a Journalist!

Re:Yep ... another journalist at work ...

[PPH]

Perhaps he's not being paid to think. He might just be schilling for some s/w vendor who wants to grab a piece of open source code, fork off their own version and keep the original disto's name thereby creating confusion in the marketplace when two radically different products are available under the same name. Or they might want to grab a chunk of open source to replace their broken proprietary code and still be able to call it Wind^H^H^H^Hsomething else.

Re:Yep ... another journalist at work ...

[Anonymous Coward]

He might just be schilling for some s/w vendor who wants to grab a piece of open source code, fork off their own version and keep the original disto's name thereby creating confusion in the marketplace when two radically different products are available under the same name.

This makes no sense. There is obviously no chance of trademark law being changed because of this article or any campaign this guy might run. It's quite simple, he's just pssied off with Canonical about not being able to use the Ubuntu logos as he wants and this is his way of venting.

BTW It's 'shilling' not 'schilling'. A 'Schilling' is an obsolete Austrian currency unit.

Illegal is worse than difficult

[tepples]

The GPL requires source distribution precisely because this is very difficult to do

Difficult? Big fucking deal. The GPL requires source distribution because contracts between software publishers and end users (try to) make this illegal to do.

Re:Decoys, & why Bill Gates thought he was a g

[kimvette]

oh come on whether you like or hate kdawson that was funny!

Open Source does not advocate for user's freedom.

[jbn-o]

"On the one hand it advocates freedom [...]" is wrong. That movement's founders at the Open Source Initiative thought that dropping the freedom talk would make their movement more amenable to business which is their target audience. That movement's developmental methodology asks people to make choices not based on establishing and preserving user's freedom but short-term value to business.

The movement which focuses on user's freedoms is the Free Software movement which predates the Open Source movement by over a decade. The FSF, whose president Richard Stallman founded the Free Software movement, writes the most popular free software and free documentation licenses.

This difference in philosophy is why, despite both OSI and FSF agreeing to give their respective imprimateurs to various licenses, they reach radically different conclusions about proprietary software. Considering an example where one is faced with choosing to use or reject a powerful, reliable proprietary program, Stallman points out why the latter is better for society in his essay "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software":

The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program which is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. How will free software activists and open source enthusiasts react to that?

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but not at the price of my freedom. So I have to do without it. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

Brought to the forefront.

[WheatGrass]

Flame bait or not, this issue is currently pertinent to a project at my work place where I recently deployed a number of kiosks for a student government association at small community college. Those kiosks run Debian 5.0.1 with... IceWeasel and display location-tailored web sites produced by a supposedly open source-pioneering web developer. Since the developer doesn't understand that IceWeasel is Firefox (even with the 'about IceWeasel' screen referencing Firefox and Mozilla)... I've been asked to rebuild all of the kiosks with a more popular (i.e. I'm not a slut. I'm just popular.) operating system / web browser combination. Never mind all of the time it took to learn linux well enough to implement these things. Never mind the fact either that the web developer's .css doesn't validate. Never mind the fact that their xhtml doesn't validate, and never mind the fact that their java script doesn't validate. Blame it on the po-dunk, back-woods I.T. guy not using Windoze and Firefox. Comments and suggestions from the Debian crowd are appreciated. Thank you. (Now, if I could just get my SkyHippo going.)

Re:Brought to the forefront.

[PPH]

I guess I don't see how this is a trademark issue. Besides the IceWeasel/Firefox bit (I'd never heard that there was a trademark issue between these two names).

I've been asked to rebuild all of the kiosks with a more popular operating system / web browser combination.

So, prepare an estimate to to as requested. Make sure you allow funds for a legal review of the licensing issues attached to installation at multiple sites, your rights to modify the os/browser's splash screen or other attributes you might wish to customize, etc. If its what the customer wants, and is willing to pay for, its their call.

Correction

[FooRat]

sorry, "every ISP" -> "every ISV"

What elitist dross

[BemoanAndMoan]

Trademarking ties identification to a product, project or even concept/philosophy. This badge carries with it a culture and legacy of quality control, commitment, customer support, rules, regulations and a roadmap to the future. Those responsible for the product/etc. of course protect that space, wanting to ensure that some little piss-pot (i.e. the article's author) isn't interpreted as speaking with their voice.

Sure, trademarking is tied to marketing controls, access restrictions, and a whole assortment of tools that could be used to stifle innovation, but an invention that can be used for evil doesn't make it an evil invention. Used properly, even these sharper edges help establish source and maintain quality control.

The article was obviously inspired by a nose bent out of shape, and as usual with infotainment it offers opinion without balance, scope or suggestion of resolution. It should be taken as such and relegated to the pop-news section and forgotten.

---

"The baby is the bathwater".

Re:Your sig

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Atheism is the absense of religion. Agnosticism is an acknowledgement that god has not yet been proven to not exist. It's just simple honesty, though I feel that god like in the Bible is about as likely as having god be a 7 foot tall bunny made of spaghetti, used video tape and lug nuts.

Well, it's a joke. But in any case, almost all atheists I have met are agnostics in that sense. I feel that the chance of any gods existence (I believe about 2000 has been documented) is about as likely as a dropped beer can not falling according to the laws of gravity, thus I call myself an atheist. From what you say you would be an atheist too, in the sense I feel I am.

Re: Your sig

[Anonymice]

You've fallen into the classic apologists trap.
The simple existence of a god (as opposed to their supposed actions) is unfalsifiable.
An agnostic is someone who believes there is equal weight to each argument & simply hasn't chosen which to support.

/* poor attempt to claw back relevance */
I agree with the general sentiment that Trademarks are a simple method of quality control.
It helps verify the trusted developer - If I hear about a new fancy application & fancy giving it a go, I want to know I'm not unknowingly using some adulterated version which would provide undesired results.

As for many distributors strict control over their trademarks: they have no choice.
They have to prove an effort has been made to protect it, else they risk losing it as a generic term.

Re: Your sig

[Peter Cooper]

Trademarks don't help "verify the trusted developer" much of the time. Consider a Linux distribution called "X Linux" - there are plenty of such distributions but Linus or other core Linux developers have not been involved with that specific distribution. Same applies for alternative implementations of programming languages like, say, IronRuby and IronPython.

That needed an href...

[jthill]

MS fanboys use C#: everyone else uses Java

And Real Programmers use FORTRAN.

tftfy

Trademark is well founded.

[dlthomas]

Trademark exists to prevent fraud and protect reputation. Unlike data (protected by copyright, patent, and trade secret), reputation cannot be trivially reproduced - the value of a mark derives from its ability to inform, which evaporates if there are no restrictions on what the mark can apply to. While flaws in the current system are sometimes abused, and there is unquestionably room for improvement, the existence of trademark does not geometrically decrease the value in the system (as the other forms of "IP" do). I suspect this is why there is less railing against trademark than against copyright or patent - it's simply *less* broken.

Spice

[pavelthesecond]

On the one hand it advocates freedom, and [on] the other it takes it away."

Spice gives with one hand and takes away with all of its others

OP misses the point(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, trademark is just one class of intellectual property and one should be very careful not to confound the different classes.

Second, to be in favour of FOSS is not the same as to be in favour of no intellectual property rights (notice: rights as distinct from laws). Copyleft is often associated with OSS-type products for example, however it is a rehash of copyright and not an IP-free panacea.

While there are those of us who love the idea that there is no such thing as intellectual _property_, one should realise that in the real world trademark gives as much protection to Microsoft over Lindows as it would to Torvalds and co. over Microsoft Winux (eek!), though let us for the sake of argument sidestep exactly who should or does own "Windows(TM)".

If you're in strictly favour of wholly unlicensed software and absence of IP laws to codify rights, then FOSS is probably not for you. For better or worse, FOSS licences are not anti-capitalist, anti-property, anti-ownership tirades. They exist in an attempt to rebalance IP in favour of the producer and the consumer rather than the distributor, which just so happens to go rather nicely hand-in-hand with the Internet and attendant possibilities for disruptive models of distribution.

"Considered harmful" considered harmful

[Anonymous Coward]

The impetus behind Dijkstra's original essay was not that GOTO itself was a fundamentally bad language construct. It was that this construct was overused and abused.

Re:"Considered harmful" considered harmful

[Fantom42]

The impetus behind Dijkstra's original essay was not that GOTO itself was a fundamentally bad language construct. It was that this construct was overused and abused.

Have you even read Dijkstra's paper?

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd02xx/EWD215.PDF

Just to quote the beginning, a bit:

Since a number of years I am familiar with the observation that the quality of programmers is a decreasing function of the density of go to statements in the programs they produce. Later I discovered why the use of the go to statement has such disasterous effects and did I become convinced that the go to statement should be abolished from all "higher level" programming langauges (i.e. everything except -perhaps- plain machine code). At that time I did not attach too much importance to that discovery; I now submit my considerations for publication because in very recent discussions in which the subject turned up, I have been urged to do so."

Seems pretty clear to me that his intent was that goto statements be eliminated. The paper goes on to explain why in more detail.

My FOSS longs to be FREE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely agree with the OP. If they are putting the source "out there", it should be out there.

FOSS is more like saying "you can use it, but I get to tell you how you can use it". If the FOSS community REALLY believes in freedom... let it go!

Re:I'd just like to interject for a moment

[shentino]

That only means that GCC isn't the only compiler that doesn't suck.

BTW, Intel's compiler managed to compile it ok.

Wah! Wah! Its not fair!!!

[tiggertaebo]

"You can't own property man!" - Free Waterfall Jr.

Ahh the rallying cry of those who want to freeload off someone else's hard work.

Seriously though, this guy is an idiot. In a broad sense he is all for "freedom" as long as that freedom isn't in the hands of the original developers. As things stand those developing original software have lots of choices in how they send their creation out into the world. They can choose what to do with the source - There's closed source, open source, there's the various open source licences. Same with name they can choose to TM the name or not. And if they do choose to TM it then they can still choose to let people use it. Where's the problem?

From reading TFA it sounds like the guy got his wrists lightly slapped over slapping Ubuntu branding everywhere and now has his panties in a serious bunch. Since when were cry-babies like this news?!?

Bruces Sketch

[Anonymous Coward]

This banter sort of reminds me a little of the "Bruces" Monty Python sketch. Everyone was named Bruce, and so to avoid confusion the new guy was just called Bruce. That way everyone knew exactly who you were talking to.

If you fork something and extend it should it be called exactly the same thing? I know in *nix we have all sorts of variations in core commands. I wouldn't say it makes it easier to use, but it's the way it is.

Now if there was something at the top of the tree compiling all the forks and merging them into the trunk, then that would be a good thing. Otherwise I would be inclined to say that it's only the same if it's the same. Otherwise it's different, and should be named as such.

FireFox - Plastic Dipped Edition!

Plain and simple

[WeeBit]

We come up with our own Trademark for the open source community. Just like the Open Source community came up with their own way to handle copyrights.

Problem solved

Trademark != (Patent|Copyright)

[XNormal]

Trademarks could be considered kosher even from a strictly libertarian point of view.

"No force or fraud"? Well, trademark law is about protecting your freedom from fraud by misrepresentation of the origin of goods and services. It's a good thing - at least when it's not enforced in overzealous and creative ways.

Patents and copyrights are about restricting your freedom in return for (allegedly) promoting the arts and sciences.

If Trademark infringment = Identity Theft then...

[Punknubbins]

So to reiterate and simplify many of the previous posts before I ask my question; Copyright protects development of good or services (preventing loss of investment) and Trademark protects from identity theft. Now that we understand that. So if we equate brand identity to personal identity (true not perfectly equal but close enough for this discussion), then didn't we solve, for most use cases, this problem long ago by the use of sir names in human culture? So the obvious solution is that a trademarked name created by the products original developers could, if the developer opted in or the law was changed, be carried on by subsequent generations forked from the original as long as they included a unique extension. I.E. Firefox, could be forked by another team to bring you Frederick, son of Firefox, or something else suitably ridiculous. And the brand confusion argument would hold little water because we are preprogrammed to understand this nomenclature due to our social structure.