Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 02:33:26 -0400 From: Andrew J Caines <A.J.Caines@altavista.net> To: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: FreeBSD 4.3 is UNIX? Message-ID: <20010605023325.T49449@hal9000.servehttp.com> In-Reply-To: <000e01c0ed7f$e711b220$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>; from tedm@toybox.placo.com on Mon, Jun 04, 2001 at 10:25:15PM -0700 References: <20010604204601.S49449@hal9000.servehttp.com> <000e01c0ed7f$e711b220$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
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Ted, > Before I say anything let me point out [my sig] Yes, I have chosen to use a trademarked word and use it in a way which derives from common usage and not the Open Group's requirement. A few might even appreciate the irony of "Unix Systems".. a very few, that is. > Also, your not correct when you say the (R) is required, It may have been slightly overstated. > http://www.opengroup.org/trademarks.htm According to the second bullet under "Trademark Acknowledgment [sic]", An acknowledgment is required whenever a trademark of The Open Group is used. * You should always mark the first or most significant occurrence of the Trademark as appropriate and must place the required attribution as a footnote. The attribution should use the ® symbol for a registered Trademark and the ä [sic] symbol for an unregistered Trademark. One might ask why an umlaut-a should be used for an unregistered trademark, however asking difficult questions of Frontpage users who wouldn't know a character set from an HTML character entity is seldom a rewarding experience. > Wind River could have well paid or gotten permission from > TOG for all we know. But, I seriously don't think they have. FreeBSD would not satisfy the certification requirements and I very much doubt if anyone is insane enough to try and dress it up in a UNIX skirt to get it certified. > However, a trademark is only as good as the organization that owns > it is willing to defend. You are essentially correct, but I believe that you will find that the Open Group defend their trademarks very well since licensing their trademarks accounts for most of their income. This was the cause of my surprise seeing "UNIX" on the CD case. > Now, in my personal opinion, a very strong case that UNIX has passed > into the vernacular could be made today While most unix systems are UNIX(R) systems, I don't think referring to FreeBSD, Linux and the others is sufficient to win the common usage argument. That said, I don't think anyone is going to not use "unix" to refer to the many flavours, UNIX and other. > the ACTUAL branding is either "UNIX 95" or UNIX 98" it's NOT just plain > UNIX. These are different things. "UNIX" is a trademark, "UNIX 95" and co. are certifiable standards. If yout software passes the "UNIX 95" (or other) tests, then you may license the "UNIX" trademark. > Wind River is probably sensing the way the wind blows and has decided that > TOG is too afraid of a ruling against them in a trademark dispute case, > to worry that TOG will make a stink over usage of UNIX. Someone clearly made an active choice to make the change, so I'll be interested to see a response from the powers that be on this. > As long as Wind River isn't throwing a rad flag down and slapping "UNIX > 95" on there then technically they are just violating trademark, they are > not in violation of the branding requirements. Oh yes they are! FreeBSD isn't a soap powder, diaper or any of the other commercial products called "UNIX", it's an OS. This as a big red flag. > I'm actually very pleased to see this because I would love to see > TOG file a trademark dispute case over the use of the term UNIX, so > that we could have some clarification here. I'd love it even more > if they lost because I feel that by denying the industry common usage > of what I feel is a word today, TOG is harming the Unix industry's > ability to fight against Microsoft. It would certainly be interesting, although I wouldn't like to think my subscription money is going to this cause instead of advancing FreeBSD technologically and keeping the developers fed and warm. As for the "Unix industry", history has shown that the chance of a common flag under which to unite against a common enemy is vanishingly small. However, since this is just a symptom of the variety and competition which has made unix platforms what they are today, I wouldn't say it's a bad thing. Today's more powerful brands in the arena are "Linux", "Solaris" and even "Gnome" rather than "UNIX" and the other Open Group trademarks. Of course the common confusion over the various names makes the distinctions less practically significant. -Andrew- -- _______________________________________________________________________ | -Andrew J. Caines- Unix Systems Engineer A.J.Caines@altavista.net | To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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