Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 12:39:18 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: "Matthew N. Dodd" <winter@jurai.net> Cc: Brad Knowles <blk@skynet.be>, Doug Barton <Doug@gorean.org>, Paul Richards <paul@originative.co.uk>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The Merger, and what will its effects be on committers? Message-ID: <4.2.2.20000313122015.041d5e90@localhost> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0003131322080.94516-100000@sasami.jurai.net> References: <4.2.2.20000313110822.03d71ee0@localhost>
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At 11:35 AM 3/13/2000 , Matthew N. Dodd wrote: >On Mon, 13 Mar 2000, Brett Glass wrote: > > In that case, Walnut Creek's "FreeBSD Power Pak," which IS FreeBSD > > plus all sorts of goodies, should be required to be renamed for the > > sake of fairness. In fact, even the Walnut Creek 4-CD FreeBSD set > > should be required to be named differently, because it contains > > hundreds of third party products. Sound fair? > >Is it shipping with an official FreeBSD Project RELEASE? "With," yes. But also with lots of other things which, to the consumer, appear to be part of FreeBSD even though they are not the output of the project A version with an enhanced installer, for example, could certainly INCLUDE the original one, though the enhanced one would obviously be the one to use. By the way, Walnut Creek also sells packages with versions of FreeBSD which are not official releases. They still bear the name "FreeBSD." >If you wanted to do something similar like "FreeBSD for Dummies" Someone is in fact doing that. >I can't >see how they'd (The FreeBSD Project) have a problem. Doesn't CheapBytes >sell a product that uses 'FreeBSD' in the name? Yes, but it is unenhanced. Its selling point is primarily that it is cheaper than Walnut Creek's. >I guess that kind of shoots you down. Not at all. > You'd think you'd recognize an example for what it was >and not take it as an invitation to find something from WC that doesn't >exactly match the pattern. Unless they're producing bargain basement knockoffs -- which does nothing to advance the state of the art or promote the use of FreeBSD -- creators of new distributions will want to add value. WC's products illustrate one desirable enhancement. > > Part of the BSD philosophy is that anyone should be able to take the > > project's IP and use it for any purpose. > >Fine, the PR and Brand are totally different from 'IP'. I note that >Microsoft took some BSD IP and used it for any purpose. More power to >'em. It is true that they are different categories of intellectual property. However, the example of Linux has shown that if they are treated in similar ways the results are very positive. > > In that case, isn't Walnut Creek doing exactly that by selling its > > "FreeBSD Power Pak" and other products which > >Nope. If the FreeBSD Project didn't prevent the product from using the >brand so I assume that it meet their standards of quality. (Or maybe >there -is- some under the table funny business!! Oh no!) Well, the fact is that Walnut Creek CD-ROM owned the trademark, so it could use it if it wanted to. This is not going to be the case in the future, as is proper. > > I don't want to hurt FreeBSD. If I ship a product which doesn't have > > the FreeBSD name on it, it will hurt FreeBSD and in fact all of the > > BSDs by giving the Linux zealots the opportunity to claim that the > > BSDs are fragmenting rather than consolidating. > >Yes, but until we see your vapor we can't judge if it will have a positive >or negative impact on FreeBSD. Prior restraint on products and projects is inappropriate. When a product is announced or disclosed under anything but an airtight NDA, discs should already have been manufactured. To ask a newcomer to submit a proposal to a group which consists of representatives of her competitors (meaning that they'd know her product plans), with no guarantee of a timely reply and no firm, objective criteria for approval or disapproval, presents an unacceptable barrier to entry. It may even prevent the newcomer from securing funding to create the product in the first place. > Again, if you are value adding an official >FreeBSD RELEASE I can't see how anyone would have a problem with it >(unless of course it was something in poor taste like shipping with goat >porn or using satanic rituals in concert with the install or something >silly.) Where is this policy stated? How does one know what criteria might be used, given that there are no written conditions for the use of the trademark? One can't exactly order 10,000 discs from the replicator without knowing. And given that fulfillment times are long for that many discs (especially if you want a reasonable price), asking for prior approval means, in effect, preannouncing to one's competitors. Not acceptable. >You've thundered on about this and still haven't told us exactly what you >want to do. See above. A policy implementing prior restraint, or requiring advance disclosure of product plans, is an unacceptable barrier to entry. > You're getting something for nothing here and it still isn't >good enough for you. BSD is all about getting, and then giving back, something for nothing -- casting one's bread upon the water, as it were. In the end, it all works out to everyone's benefit. > > There's also a fundamental issue of fairness which needs to be > > resolved here. If Walnut Creek is allowed to ship products and > > packages which bear the name FreeBSD and which include enhancements > > and additions to the FreeBSD project's output (including whole CD-ROMs > > of third party software!), I (or anyone else) should be able to do so > > as well. > >So long as you are shipping an official FreeBSD RELEASE (and even then WC >ships snapshots). I think the problem is that people are worried that you >will misrepresent FreeBSD in some way. What motivation would I ever have to misrepresent FreeBSD? >It seem easier to believe that >given your track record on the various mailing lists, deserved or no. Please show a specific example of a message in which you believe I have misrepresented FreeBSD in any way, shape, or form -- ever. In any event, you're arguing ad hominem here. Policies for the use of the FreeBSD trademark should be administered impartially regardless of your personal opinion of the person using it. If someone whom I absolutely loathed and despised wanted to use the mark, I would still want him or her to be able to use it on the same terms. That's fair. --Brett Glass To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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