Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 21:00:42 +0530 (IST) From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Darren Henderson <darren@nighttide.net>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The Merger, and what will its effects be on committers? Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.20.0003112034290.431-100000@theory8.physics.iisc.ernet.in> In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20000311035558.0459ae80@localhost>
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> Well, for all intents and purposes, WC realy has "owned" the right to > reproduce FreeBSD. For example, while CheapBytes sells FreeBSD discs > (and has for years), the FreeBSD Web site and the documenation in > the FreeBSD distributions mention WC *exclusively* as a source of > discs. Hmm, that may just be because Cheapbytes is not involved in "developing" or even packaging FreeBSD further. It may be more honest to mention them, but even in the linux world, nobody mentions them as a distributor. It is certainly important that the FreeBSD trademark is controlled, and actively enforced, by *somebody*: it should be a neutral committee of irreproachable people, like the FreeBSD core team. > Remember when, on the lists some months ago, Jordan stated > quite bluntly that anyone who wanted to use the FreeBSD trademark > would have to reveal product plans IN ADVANCE to an employee of > Walnut Creek -- even though the product might compete with something > WC produced? Sorry I don't follow the list regularly, but -- are you saying the plans would have to be revealed to someone who also happens to be an employee of Walnut Creek, or to a particular employee at WC in his capacity as employee? > WC and BSDi have merged. Criteria for the use of the FreeBSD trademark, > for example, should not favor Walnut Creek/BSDi. Other companies > who wish to distribute FreeBSD should NOT be required to reveal future > product plans to any employee of a competitor, The conflict of interest argument may be correct in principle, but in practice there shouldn't be a problem if the employee in question is a genuine FreeBSD core team member: it's in WC's interest to act like "nice guys". (Isn't that the usual argument about the BSD licence and commercial interests?) Likewise, in the linux community there are kernel developers like Alan Cox who work for Red Hat, and others who work for SuSE etc, and they all develop together without worrying about conflict of interest. Anyone who is allowed the word FreeBSD should be under some kind of check, to make sure that it matches with the "official" FreeBSD. Anyone can take the codebase and do something entirely different with it, of course, if they're willing to use another name for it. The sort of question to be answered is not, should the FreeBSD docs cite Cheapbytes as a supplier, but -- if some other company like Red Hat came along and wanted to package FreeBSD in linux style -- GUI install, packages, etc, etc -- performing real "value addition" in commercial words -- should they be allowed to call it FreeBSD, and what should the conditions be for that. And yes, it should not be left to Walnut Creek, but to some committee whose credentials are beyond doubt. But it may be unreasonable to ask that no employees of Walnut Creek be involved in the process at all. Incidentally, I think someone seriously suggested Linux International on this list, as a suitable body to police the trademark. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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