Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 11:37:06 -0500 From: Yarema <yds@dppl.com> To: FreeBSD Chat <FreeBSD-Chat@FreeBSD.org> Subject: BSD, BSD/OS, and BSDI are trademarks of Berkeley Software Design, Inc. Message-ID: <38C7D332.8760088E@dppl.com> References: <4.2.2.20000308143045.04030e70@localhost> <4.2.2.20000308143045.04030e70@localhost> <4.2.2.20000308161012.0403adb0@localhost> <v04220807b4ec8ee2e8b5@[195.238.27.128]>
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Brad Knowles wrote: > > At 4:11 PM -0700 2000/3/8, Brett Glass wrote: > > > I'm talking about the TRADEMARK. That's different. Will BSD, Inc. now > > insist, for example, that no one else can use BSD in a product name? > > Well, I guess you'd have to talk to -core, but I think you'd get > some extremely violent disagreements from certain people who used to > be at CSRG (Kirk McKusick?) if they were so stupid as to try to do > this. This has been covered in the past. And why would Kirk be upset? Isn't he (at least sometimes) employed by BSDI. For instance the last paragraph at http://www.bsdi.com/press/19991213a.mhtml states "BSD, BSD/OS, and BSDI are trademarks of Berkeley Software Design, Inc." Search the freebsd-chat for 'BSD and trademark' and specifically look at: On 13 Apr 1998, David Greenman wrote: > >At 09:42 PM 4/12/98 -0700, Sean Eric Fagan wrote: > > > >>Don't forget that "BSD" is a registered trademark of BSD, Inc. > > > >I was under the impression that without the "I" or "Inc." immediately > >following the letters "BSD," it was NOT their trademark. > > That would be a bad impression, then. "BSD" is a registered trademark > of Berkeley Software Design, Inc. "FreeBSD", "NetBSD", and "OpenBSD" are > also seperately trademarked by various entities - these were all given > away to each of these groups by BSDI. Creating another "BSD", even if > it were just a name change, would be a significant legal problem, not > mention a major marketing mistake. It's taken us five years to get the > name recognition that we have now, and changing the name now would be > suicide. > > -DG > > David Greenman > Core-team/Principal Architect, The FreeBSD Project http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=142858+144948+/usr/local/www/db/text/1998/freebsd-chat/19980412.freebsd-chat Brad Knowles wrote: > > So, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc... are perfectly safe. > According to the above, yes. They were all given permission by BSDI to use BSD in their names. And that includes FreeBSD. If BSDI does not show due dilligence in protecting their trademarks they may lose them. Which would be a Bad Thing since Microsoft or the FSF or Sun would be able to misuse the name any way they like. On the other hand BSDI's ownership of the BSD trademark has done no harm all these years, so why worry now? Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with any BSDs. The above is just my opinion based on my ability to read the material I quoted. -- Yarema To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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