Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 15:06:26 -0800 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: sos@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith), koshy@india.hp.com, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: General policy on trademark violations Message-ID: <199802132306.PAA04969@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 13 Feb 1998 08:37:53 %2B0100." <199802130737.IAA01675@sos.freebsd.dk>
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> In reply to Mike Smith who wrote: > > > > > Q1: How far is FreeBSD willing to go in the direction of ripping out > > > portions of its source base? Is it willing to remove files in > > > non-games directories? > > > > If such files reasonably constitute trademark violations, and there is > > a real threat of action, then *something* will have to be done, yes. > > Well, somethings has to be done yes, but we are not in agreement on > what should be done, that's life. Typical. 8) > I think the requests so far has been outright stupid, those games has > been in the *BSD tree for years, why are they suddenly so important ? Because of the way trademark law works. You don't appear to have understood this yet. > I think that one of our biggest problems here is the "affiliation" > with Walnut Creek, the legalese people see a company that they can > sue for real money. No. What Hasbro care about is being able to sell Boggle on the strength of its name. If they don't pursue *everyone* violating the trademark, they lose it. As soon as they lose it, there are dozens of offshore companies that will start marketting Boggle clones, eating Hasbro's market, and hitting their bottom line. _That_ is the issue here. > Remember the requests to remove parts of our > sources allways came via WC. If we where just a "free" project > (which we are, but the world doesn't allways see it right), there > would be NO idea in sueing (read NO MONEY to winn). I can't heap enough scorn on this perspective, so I won't. Suffice to say that you're completely wrong. > > > Q3: Are the sources for the "extracted" parts available as a package > > > from anywhere else in the world? > > > > Obviously, no. You can get them off an old FreeBSD CDROM though. > > Or you can go to NetBSD and OpenBSD they still have the bits around, > they havn't given in (power to them on that account). There are a couple of ways you can explain this: - Neither OpenBSD nor NetBSD have reached the 'visibility threshold' where it becomes a legal necessity to pursue the issue. - The aforementioned camps think that there is some moral value in "being tough". It's not my place to judge them publically. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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