Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 13:38:37 -0600 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: "Matthew N. Dodd" <winter@jurai.net> Cc: Jonathan Lemon <jlemon@americantv.com>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, jkh@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Use of the name "FreeBSD" (Was: Market share and platform support) Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.19990910120630.0479db30@localhost> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9909101252300.14497-100000@sasami.jurai.net> References: <4.2.0.58.19990910090822.0479c6a0@localhost>
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At 01:23 PM 9/10/99 -0400, Matthew N. Dodd wrote: >If you're doing something that isn't sanctioned by 'The FreeBSD Project', >why do you think you should have the right to use the 'FreeBSD' trademark? Because playing favorites, and/or picking and choosing who can create a distribution that says "FreeBSD" on it, is every bit as inappropriate as it would be to pick and choose who could use the code. For the project to impose such a restriction would be unwise, as well, because it would make it more difficult for users to identify distributions of FreeBSD as such. This, in turn, will hurt both FreeBSD and new distributions. Right now, the FreeBSD.org Web site already favors Walnut Creek in that it does not mention Cheap Bytes as a source of CD-ROMs (see http://www.freeBSD.org/FAQ/preface.html#AEN26). This is troubling to anyone who might consider doing another distribution. > >From what it sounds like, you want to make a complete departure from the >methods and manner of 'The FreeBSD Project' and produce something based on >the 'FreeBSD Software'. Not so. The policy of the project, in keeping with the philosophy of the BSD license, should be to allow people to do what they will with the project's intellectual property without having to ask explicit permission. The conditions imposed on such use are minor: indemnification against liability for bugs and not claiming it as one's own work. To quote from the FAQ: "The goals of the FreeBSD Project are to provide software that may be used for any purpose and without strings attached." To insist that it not be called FreeBSD at all if it's published by someone other than one or more select publishers -- especially if the content is the same -- is certainly to attach some big strings and also to favor some over others. The one restriction that might be appropriate would be to require that the name "FreeBSD" not be used alone on a product which is sold by a third party. For example, Walnut Creek CD-ROM would be required to call its distribution "Walnut Creek FreeBSD" while Cheap Bytes would call theirs "Cheap Bytes FreeBSD." This is what is customarily done with Linux. To do so for FreeBSD would create a level playing field an protect the "naked" mark name by reserving its use for the project itself. >While the use of the software isn't a problem, >the use of the FreeBSD 'brand' with an effort that isn't 'FreeBSD' is. It wouldn't make sense to use the name "FreeBSD" unless the product had some relation to FreeBSD. But right now, it's even unclear who owns the mark, or if FreeBSD, Inc. has effectively abandoned it by failing to police its use and attribution. (A trademark is abandoned if there's confusion as to who owns it.) Several companies have DIFFERENT products called, simply, FreeBSD X.Y.Z. This creates confusion in the marketplace (the products are different and are made by different companies) and is therefore grounds for a claim of abandonment. The outside of Walnut Creek's FreeBSD CD-ROM package does not attribute the trademark to anyone other than itself. It does not say, "FreeBSD is a registered trademark of <whoever>," leaving someone who reads the shrink-wrapped package to believe that Walnut Creek is the exclusive owner of the mark. And inside the front cover of the booklet that comes with the CD-ROM set, there's something that's more disturbing still. Here, Walnut Creek ACTUALLY CLAIMS OWNERSHIP of the mark: "FreeBSD is a registered trademark (R) of FreeBSD, Inc. AND Walnut Creek CDROM." Cheap Bytes, on the other hand, prints on its CD-ROMs that FreeBSD is "a registered trademark of FreeBSD, Inc." More confusion. The FreeBSD project needs to clean house here -- though it may be too late. It's inappropriate for the name FreeBSD to be owned, or claimed, by the manufacturer of one distribution. If the project allows such a claim to stand, it would be giving away its name to Walnut Creek and giving it the ability to preclude competition. If it requires case-by-case permission, it will have to handle each request individually (an effort which will take precious time away from other pursuits) and will be imposing exactly the sort of restriction which is anathema to the world of open source software. This is why a policy statement is needed. I'll even volunteer to write it as a PR. >I asked my roommate who is a Debian ('Linux') developer and he said that >Debian is pretty much the same with regard to the use of the 'Debian' >brand. You're confusing the issue. Anyone can do a distribution of Linux and call it, for example, "BlobWare Linux." Creators of other distributions can use the name "Linux," but not the name "BlobWare." This is Linus' policy regarding the use of the trademark "Linux," which he owns. The same should be true of FreeBSD. If it is not, it will hurt the entire community by obscuring the fact that the many distributions of the OS are based on a common code base. This is a stumbling block that Linux does not have. If it is placed in the path of the creators of FreeBSD distributions, it will hurt FreeBSD immensely. And, as mentioned earlier, it will demonstrate a partiality toward Walnut Creek. >Why you expect the 'FreeBSD Project' to allow you to do something against >the Project's best interests is beyond me. The development of good distributions is, as I've mentioned before, in the project's best interests. It has done much good for Linux. >If you'd like to produce an official FreeBSD distribution I'm sure that >the release engineers would be more than happy to supply you with the >masters and all the cover art. A requirement that a vendor ship the CD-ROM image "verbatim" would be wasteful in many cases. It would preclude, for example, the creation of a GUI-less distribution intended specifically for servers. Leaving out XFree86 (which isn't even the work of the FreeBSD project) certainly doesn't mean it's not FreeBSD! On the other hand, being forced to include XFree86 would reduce the space available on the CD-ROM for utilities and enhancements. Everyone loses: the publisher, the customer, and (ultimately) the FreeBSD community, because it may lose the sale. > > Also, using the name "FreeBSD" helps to make it clear that the product > > is designed to run native binaries compiled for FreeBSD -- important > > if we want to encourage the development and publication of such > > products. It also ensures that the product's installed base is counted > > in surveys of FreeBSD's installed base. This is important to FreeBSD's > > reputation and, again, to generate market share numbers that encourage > > ports and support. This helps the entire FreeBSD community. > >Correct, but there is a difference b/t using the name 'FreeBSD' and >pretending to be 'The FreeBSD'. A requirement that the vendor prepend its name, as mentioned above, would solve this problem. > > Imagine what would happen to Linux's market share and installed base > > figures if sales of Red Hat, Caldera, SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, etc. > > weren't aggregated. Linux would be going nowhere fast. This would be > > an awful trap for FreeBSD to fall into: it amounts to a forking of PR > > even without a code fork. > >They aren't aggregated. Yes, they are. Market share numbers for "Linux" count all distributions together. --Brett Glass To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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