Red Hat Tightening Trademarks?

Red Hat may be tightening use of its trademark. Robb Sands, an independent reseller of Linux products who generates many of his sales through Amazon.com's auction site, says, "I received a call from a representative of the fraud/legal department of Amazon named Elyssa Back about 1 p.m. eastern time today who said I would need to modify my product and advertising when used in conjunction with a product that is not the official boxed set."

Sands says that, according to Amazon.com, Red Hat no longer allows their trademarked "Red Hat" name to be used on any product other than their official boxed "Red Hat Linux" sets.

Amazon.com spokesperson Sharon Greenspan says, "Right now we're looking into a possible Intellectual Property violation involving Red Hat Linux software. We are talking to Red Hat and the sellers of such products." Sharon says she'll call Slashdot as soon as knows more; she seemed as surprised by this news as was everyone else.

A well-known Linux products vendor has confirmed to me personally, off the record, that yes, Red Hat is trying to keep outsiders from using the "Red Hat" name when selling anything other than official Red Hat boxed sets, and that Red Hat no longer wants their trademark used on GPLed or repackaged versions or their products.

Red Hat itself cannot comment on this story at this time. They are in a legally mandated "quiet period" following their recent IPO, which does not end until September 6th. Meanwhile, if you have more information about this matter, please psot it below or e-mail me privately: [e-mail]

Red Hat Denies this.....

http://lwn.net/daily/sands.html [lwn.net]

Look at the note at the top of the form...

Retracted -- Hoax

According to linux.com [linux.com], Redhat has repudiated this story.

Sigh.

They better tread lightly here.

They don't want to alienate us too much- it could cost them everything . And, as it was put earlier, what in the hell do they propose that we call the distribution, pray tell?

This is not looking good folks. Guess we're going to find out how much Red Hat's going to push things- and how hard we're going to push back...

BFD

OK, I've seen the bogosity reports, but I thought I'd chip in anyway.

Red Hat (and Linus) must protect their trademarks to some extent. IANAL, but I understand that failure to protect a trademark can result in losing it. It's a shame that Disney has to go around suing daycare centers about the use of a certain mouse's name, but that's just the way it works under some countries' legal systems.

As for the hoax, that (along with the nasty business about the kernel list a couple of weeks back) just goes to show that Linux (TM) really is making inroads into areas that someone else thought they already had a claim on, and is therefore provoking an immune response. It's a rude nuisance, and I'm not aware that even the most undisciplined Linux advocate has been pulling stunts of such low calibre, but in the big picture it's a good sign that want to see quality software everywhere.

In defense of Red Hat

IMHO, Red Hat is both legally and morally justified in restricting others from redistributing Red Hat as Red Hat.

Legally, this is not copyright law; this is trademark law. The GPL doesn't cover this. Red Hat owns the Red Hat name, and it is worth millions of dollars to them. This restriction doesn't effect the software, unless they require that you remove all Red Hat notifications before you ship it (in which case, they are breaking the GPL).

Morally, it makes a lot of sense. If I start my own Red Hat derivative distro (say, mirror their FTP site or pretty much copy the CDs), I have every right to copy and redistribute the software (due to GPL), but no right to any of Red Hat's marketing power. If I say that I have El Cheapo Red Hat disks, I am skimming off of Red Hat's marketing investments, while eating some of their business. That just ain't fittin'.

Worse, what if I derive my own distro from Red Hat? Again, I have every right to do so and to distribute it, but no right to call it Red Hat. After all, I could have easily broken the kernel or whatever with my "improvements". The last thing Red Hat needs are my bugs being attached to their name and destroying their credibility.

That being said, it would make sense to say that a distro was derived from Red Hat n.m. But if Red Hat isn't shipping it, it's not Red Hat. It's Linux.

BTW, isn't this the same board that complains that people equate the names "Red Hat" and "Linux"? Reigning in the Red Hat name makes it harder to forget that there are other distros out there. Accuse Red Hat of one evil or the other, but not both: even a pendulum can't swing both ways at the same time.

Stopping people from packing w/ Red Hat name

Personally I like the idea. My girl friend bought me Red Hat 6.0 as a gift, but it turned out to be one of those over priced nock off versions..

I was even confused looking at the package and ended up returning it to the store for the "Official" version.

(Yes I know they are the same, but it's kind of nice to support the company...)

I just hope they don't try to ban someone saying "Based on Red Hat Linux..."

Name of distro?

If this is the case, then the name of the distribution is no longer "Red Hat." Theoretically, this would mean that Red Hat should start calling its own official boxed set the "Official Red Hat version of the Blah GNU/Linux system," while all others would be merely the Blah GNU/Linux system. As it stands now, they've given everybody the impression that "Red Hat" is the name of the GPL'd, freely redistributable distribution, not the name of their particular boxing of it.

They did the right thing

RedHat is doing the right thing. They've got to protect a number of things: 1) Their trademark, 2) their reputation, 3) stockholder value and 4) their customers. The trademark is a pretty obvious thing, you can't go and start your own distribution and call it RedHat no more than Microsoft can suddenly decide to change the name of their operating system to Linux.

In this case I'm assuming that somebody burned a RedHat 6.X tree. If this is the case from a trademark standpoint they still can't call it the RedHat distribution or at least they've got to be careful that it can't be misconstrued that its the "Official RedHat 6.0" because its not.

RedHat also provides additional services beyond just the actual Linux installation, namely some level of support. The customer needs to know that what they're buying is the real deal and is supported and so on.

These cheap distributions provide a service to customers as long as the customer actually knows what they're getting. I bought a stack of distributions from Cheap*Bytes and I knew I was just getting a dump of a distribution and not the actual distribution.

I'm not saying RedHat is selflessly thinking of only the customers interests. If they don't do this then customers will get upset which isn't good for the companies finances.

Confusion

I can tell you exaclty why they are doing this:

Confusion in the marketplace.

People go out and they buy this product called RedHat Linux so the expect support from RedHat. Unfortuately, most of these people are not buying Official RedHat Linux that comes with support. When they find out that they can't get support, it goes something like this:

Cust: I bought RedHat Linux, your product, why don't you support me!?

RH: You didn't buy our official product, you bought the free version.

Cust: But I paid $10 for it... it wasn't free.

RH: Yes, but that money was not for purchasing an Official RedHat license.

At this point the customer either becomes irate and vows never to run Linux (especially RedHat) again or they figure it out. Keep in mind that most people are idiots and cannot figure this out.

Whiners...

First you all complain that people are starting to think "Red Hat Linux = Linux."

Then Red Hat _might_ make a move to make people qualify thier products as "unoffical Red Hat" which is clearly distinguishing them from the rest of Linux.

Now, after Red Hat makes an effort to make it clear to even clueless newbies that they are mearly _one_ of the distributions of Linux, and that "Offical Red Hat" is diffrent from "Unoffical Red Hat," people are whining again.

I'm starting to think the SlashDot/Linux community just won't be happy with _anything_ Red Hat does now.

This is a great move for them, and for Debian, and for Slackware. They are doing thier best to make it clear that they are a _distribution_ of linux, and that doesn't meant that Linux = Red Hat. They are makeing it clear that "we will allow you to copy and redistribute, to a point, but don't do something that will make users expect to get tech support from us if they buy a copied version from you."

Seems like some of you are reacting to this like you expect Red Hat to provide phone support to every user in the Universe. Worse yet, some are actually starting to say that they shouldn't have the right to regulate the use of thier name. If you say Red Hat can't regulate the use of thier product name, how would you like it if they turned the tables on you, and said the same about the use of the word "Linux" itself, and said "Red Hat _IS_ Linux" ... you wouldn't have a leg to stand on if you told them how they can and can't use thier own name.

Lighten up, this is an issue of a series of schmucks selling $2 CD's in online auctions trying to get $70+ (More than the price of the offical version), and leaving clueless bidders believeing they will get support (which they won't). Red Hat is not only protecting itself, they are protecting Linux by keeping people from getting angry and disappointed during thier first experiance with Linux.

Official Debian vs Debian

You may not use the words "Official" and "Debian" together in a product name unless you are distributing CDs made directly from an IS0-9660 CD master image distributed by the Debian project. You may, however, call it "Debian" without "Official". Debian will give you the CD masters without charge and asks no royalty for their use.

This policy originated after too many manufacturers made non-bootable or otherwise messed up versions of Debian. By allowing them to say they were distributing the official CD, we gave them an incentive to use the one we mastered, which had more quality control behind it.

Thanks

Bruce

Perspective

Look at the situation - we have:

A company which has made great alliances with hardware companies, opening up specs to Linux developers early on. (Remember how Linux beat MS on the Merced?)
A company which *PAYS* some of the best hackers in the world to make Linux better.
A company which seems to fully support the LSB.
A company which releases every bit of code under the GPL.
A company that lets their software proliferate around the world, for free.

Their name is Red Hat. And the only thing that seems to be different from yesterday is that people who aren't Red Hat can't call their product Red Hat. How is this going to affect Linux in any tangible way?

Probably a good idea.

When I bought a boxed copy of the distribution last year, I got fooled by MacMillan's repackaging and bought that instead of the official RH boxed set. Some people might buy a computer with "Red Hat Linux pre-installed" and not realize they're not getting the same support as someone who buys a boxed copy. As long as Red Hat still allows CheapBytes, MacMillan, et al to say they're "copies of" RH (or some other such language), I don't see a problem with them cracking down a little.

The Sands guy's running a scam.

Just look at his site. He's obviously trying to take advantage of folks that don't know Red Hat this from Red Hat that. To the point of *auctioning* off the CDs that cost him, what, 85 cents for media? And cloaking his product self-righteously in "RedHat GPL" ticks me off, too. What he's doing has very very little to do with the GPL, and quite a lot to do with "profiteering".