On Sun, 22 Dec 2002, Brian wrote: > You're making this out to be far more complicated than it is. > > For many years, places like CheapBytes sold CD's that contained Redhat's > Linux distribution and was labeled as such. The problem was twofold. > One, people would buy this product from CheapBytes and expect technical > support from Redhat itself since, in their minds, they had bought Redhat > Linux. Obviously, they couldn't afford to provide one-on-one tech support > to such people. Second, Redhat linux is a trademark and the way trademark > laws work is that you have to vigorously fight to defend it or you lose > it. If they knew that CheapBytes, for example, sold CD's called Redhat > Linux for years and years and did nothing about it and then suddenly some > other software company sold a product called Redhat linux, if Redhat sued > then the offending party could just say "Look, people have been > downloading their product forever and reselling it as if it was theirs and > they never sued them!" and this would undermine their brand. > > And that's what it's all about. People identify with brands. Does > Coca-Cola's sugar water really taste that much better than Pepsi's? Does > it matter? It's all about branding. They're trying to carve out a > distinctive niche in the Linux world. There's nothing wrong with that. > They've created exceptions to the rule (which they don't have to do, btw) > that protect the people who are usually their biggest cheerleaders, so > what's the fuss all about? > > Lest anyone doubt Redhat's commitment to being free, take a look at SuSE, > Xandros, or LindowsOS. Redhat has worked hard to reach a compromise > without being a proprietary distribution. I know about Cheapbytes, I have their Hurricane CD. I also have unregistered official RHL packages before and after. I also know Red Hat has to defend its trademarks or lose them. What Cheapbytes did is precisely what the GPL guarantees Cheapbytes can do. I think Red Hat's gone too far; it could have produced a package that competes with the likes of CheapBytes, and they could grant permission to sell "Red Hat Linux" provided it's clearly labelled as "unsupported by Red Hat, unofficial." It could also offer a support package for those who download Red Hat Linux or get RHL in other ways than an official boxed set. Just how large that fee is is a tricky question because those who need to pay the fee would be those who've already decided they need to support. I wish to make a business of supporting Linux. From what I see, if I do that wrt Red Hat Linux I risk discussing the matter in court unless I include official RHL packages for every client, and that becomes like selling Windows. My clients would be paying for something they don't want. In contrast, Debian has (at least) one logo for official Debian products (which includes CDs created from official images downloaded from Debian download sites and their mirrors) and another for derived products such as Gibraltar. -- Please, reply only to the list.
