Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 18:28:02 +0000 From: Paul Richards <paul@originative.co.uk> To: John Daniels <jmd526@hotmail.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The Merger, and ... Message-ID: <38CE84B2.1CC12D42@originative.co.uk> References: <20000314180652.44770.qmail@hotmail.com>
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John Daniels wrote: > much snipped > In sum, under the BSD license, FreeBSD cannot protect the code, but should > be able to protect product level implementations that rely on the FreeBSD > effort. If someone wants to incorporate the kernel in a product, relying > not only on that instance of code but also on the existance of the FreeBSD > project for future upgrades, they should make an outward attribution. Now, > using only the kernel should not obligate a company to call thier product > "FreeBSD," and FreeBSD would not want them to, since "FreeBSD" refers to the > project and the efforts of the group as a whole, the kernel is just a part > of that, so there should be some other trademark that can (must!) be refered > to. This isn't what trademarks are all about, or even what the argument is about. There is nothing that can be done to make companies acknowledge their use of FreeBSD because that is a licensing issue and the FreeBSD license has "no strings attached" to the use of the code. People acknowledge their use of FreeBSD code if they feel they want to. The trademark prevents other people from using the term FreeBSD, it does not encourage it. If you went and trademarked the phrase "FreeBSD kernel" then nobody would be able to say that their product was based upon the FreeBSD kernel without getting permission from the trademark holder! Paul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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