On Sat, 2002-12-21 at 17:03, John wrote: > On Sat, 21 Dec 2002, Matt Wilson wrote: > > > Red Hat Linux, as a product, is more than the CDs that you have > > burned. Representing only the CDs on a web-site for sell (or eBay, or > > other corporate endeavor) as "Red Hat Linux" is false. Only the > > software combined with the other goods and services that go into our > > product can be called "Red Hat Linux", and the use of that mark to > > advertise or endorse a product requires a trademark license from the > > trademark holder (that is, Red Hat, Inc.) > > I do not understand how I can burn CDs for the local LUG and represent > those as being Red Hat Linux, but if I sell them from my office, even at > a lower price, I can't. > > I downloaded "Red Hat Linux" from one of your mirrors, and I believe I > can properly claim to be running Red Hat Linux on all my computers that > I installed from this source of software. The answer lies in the grant of permission to use trademarks by Red Hat, Inc. located at http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/page9.html Here you will see that for LUGs, personal use, internal business use, and several other situations, including non-commercial distribution you are allowed to use Red Hat, Inc.'s trademarks. However, if you are charging more than the cost of duplicating the CD and a reasonable handling fee, then you are commercially selling a product. > I do not see how this is any less "Red Hat Linux" than what I might > install for a client, nor what someone would get by buying a set of CDs > from me. In all cases I and my client would have precisely the same > product in any way I can interpret the term. The basic problem is in the definition of "Red Hat Linux". According to Red Hat, who decides what it means, it is a product that contains "service level agreements and other documents" along with the CDs themselves. For Red Hat Linux 8.0, the products on their web site all contain at least 30 days web-based support from Red Hat, Inc, a least a 30-day basic subscription to Red Hat Network, some printed documentation, plus at least 6 CDs. See http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/page6.html for the source of the quote above. If you just duplicate the CDs and sell them as "Red Hat Linux" you are depriving the customers of a large portion of the product. Customers have a reasonable expectation that if they go to store A to buy product X, that it will be the same product X that they could get in store B. > I understand that I am entitled to copy Red Hat Linux CDs as many times > as I like. Since I cannot see any difference between what I get by > downloading the ISOs and burning CDs and what Jo Dow would have if she > bought a set of CDs I created from the same images, I can only see > that Red Hat seeks to use trademarks to limit the rights the GPL > provides. You are entitled to reproduce and distribute the CDs that come with Red Hat Linux. However, as I explained above, the CDs alone are not Red Hat Linux. I don't think that this is in any way restricting the rights you have under the GPL, as Red Hat has granted sufficient permission to allow duplication. You are welcome to duplicate the entire CDs, intact, and distribute them on a non-commercial basis. > The only confusion I see in the market is created by Red Hat. As best I > can see it, if I claimed the CDs do _not_ contain the software called > "Red Hat Linux" then I would be in breach of the Trade Practices Act. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the Trade Practices Act, but I can't see how claiming that something is product 'foo', when in reality is is 50% of 'foo' could be considered to be good trade practices. These are just my personal opinions, not those of Red Hat, Inc or my employer. Thanks. Peter
