Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 14:56:02 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: Doug Barton <Doug@gorean.org> Cc: Paul Richards <paul@originative.co.uk>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The Merger, and what will its effects be on committers? Message-ID: <4.2.2.20000312144558.04190e80@localhost> In-Reply-To: <38CC0DA9.F91EF779@gorean.org> References: <Pine.LNX.4.20.0003112034290.431-100000@theory8.physics.iisc.ernet.in> <4.2.2.20000312122651.00b1e880@localhost>
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At 02:35 PM 3/12/2000 , Doug Barton wrote: > You guys are comparing apples and oranges and calling it mincemeat. >There is absolutely nothing preventing anyone at all from taking every >bit of the FreeBSD code, slapping a new installer on it, and selling it >to their heart's content, as long as they don't try to call it FreeBSD. >That's true now, and it will continue to be true after the merger. Yes, but requiring them not to call it FreeBSD would be a very, very bad thing. First of all, Linux advocates (who aren't forced to do this) would take advantage of the new name to call it a "fork," even if there were no fork in development of the base OS, and point to it as a sign that the BSDs were fragmenting. This would be horrible PR. Second, it would throw a great barrier to entry in front of the creator(s) of the new distribution: a requirement to establish name recognition ex nihilo. Walnut Creek has not faced similar barriers when creating its "FreeBSD Power Pak" and other packages which bundle FreeBSD with other products. The policy would thus be discriminatory, IMHO. Finally, it would create an impediment not faced by would-be distributors of Linux. One of the selling points of the BSDs are that they are more free than Linux. This would turn that around. > Now, where you run into difficulty is when you want to take the FreeBSD >code, add bits to it and CALL IT FREEBSD. Now you're running into >trademark issues. The owner of a trademark has a legal responsibility to >protect its property. If the trademark owner lets every Tom, Dick and >Harry use their trademark on other products their legal (civil) >protections for that trademark get watered down. Not so. This has not happened with Linux, and in fact the variety of distributions of Linux which are CALLED Linux has helped to create a critical mass for it. Had Caldera, Red Hat, etc. all had to call their distributions something other than Linux, the Linux phenomenon would not have happened. > Therefore, I (as a proud freebsd contributor) WANT the core >team/foundation/whoever to jealously guard the freebsd name. Frankly, I >am ambivalent about whether or not anyone else should be allowed to make >what amounts to a "linux-like distribution" of FreeBSD. If this were the case, Walnut Creek should not be allowed to do it either. It would have to be required to take the "FreeBSD Power Pak," for example, off the market or rename it. After all, this is exactly what the product does: "add bits to it and call it FreeBSD." Fair is fair. But I would not advocate this. Rather, I would encourage broad use of the mark. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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