From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Mar 13 16:26:11 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from trinity.skynet.be (trinity.skynet.be [195.238.2.38]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40E0A37B66B for ; Mon, 13 Mar 2000 16:26:04 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from blk@skynet.be) Received: from [195.238.24.123] (dialup1204.brussels.skynet.be [194.78.232.180]) by trinity.skynet.be (Postfix) with ESMTP id 728CA12222; Tue, 14 Mar 2000 01:25:36 +0100 (MET) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: blk@pop.skynet.be Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20000314000623.50393.qmail@hotmail.com> References: <20000314000623.50393.qmail@hotmail.com> Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 01:14:54 +0100 To: "John Daniels" , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG From: Brad Knowles Subject: Re: The merger, and ... Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 7:06 PM -0500 2000/3/13, John Daniels wrote: > But what if XYZ company uses the kernel as a whole? Should that > require more noticeable recognition or attribution? What if I use > everything but ports? what if I use an exact copy of the first CD? > etc. If the Trademark pertains to physical CD's only, then what > if a company includes _everything_ but rearranges the contents. > Can (should?) they be allowed to sell this as "XYZ OS," without > any outward attribution to FreeBSD? The beauty of the BSD license is that you can take any piece of code you want, use it any way you want, and you can call it anything you want (except where this might infringe on other established trademarks), and as I recall the latest versions of the BSD license don't even require that you acknowledge the copyright holders in your advertisements -- only in the place(s) where you put your own trademark/copyright notices. The key here is that if you want to take advantage of the "FreeBSD" brand, you've got a much higher standard that you will be held to, because now you're taking not only the code, but you're also trying to market it with the same brand. -- These are my opinions -- not to be taken as official Skynet policy ====================================================================== Brad Knowles, || Belgacom Skynet SA/NV Systems Architect, Mail/News/FTP/Proxy Admin || Rue Colonel Bourg, 124 Phone/Fax: +32-2-706.13.11/12.49 || B-1140 Brussels http://www.skynet.be || Belgium To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message