Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 23:36:04 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: unfurl@dub.net (Bill Swingle) Cc: brett@lariat.org, jkh@zippy.cdrom.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Market share and platform support Message-ID: <199909092336.QAA19341@usr06.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <19990909020107.E42659@dub.net> from "Bill Swingle" at Sep 9, 99 02:01:09 am
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> Being an employee of WC and working solely on FreeBSD, I have first hand > knowledge. The relationship is very simple. We give them a release > schedule so that they know when to expect to be able to replicate/sell > new products and in return they support us financially by paying for > things like trips to trade shows, and ethernet cards for Bill Paul :) > That's it. The picture you paint of Walnut Creek CDROM as the looming > business holding Jordan and the FreeBSD project's puppet strings is > absurd and miles from the truth. I think the issue that is sticky is who controls the trademark registration, and who is allowed to use the trademark, and in what way? Historically, things have been pretty lax, since CheapBytes hasn't had any problems. The largest risk they have using the trademark without permission is needing to pay their profits to whoever has the trademark, and then cease and desist. I think that if someone is throwing a lot of money at a FreeBSD distribution without additional means of income, they'd want some form of letter of consent from the trademark holder. CheapBytes might have one of these, unless the trademark holder is content to allow the trademark to fall into "common use", since there is a legal requirement to defend trademarks in order to keep them. I'm not sure whether the trademark holder is Walnut Creek CDROM, or FreeBSD, Inc.; my guess would be the latter. Given the obvious love between Brett and Jordan... 8-). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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