List: linux-kernel Subject: Is there a Linux trademark issue with sun? From: Rob Landley <telomerase () yahoo ! com> Date: 2000-12-15 2:27:30 Heads up everybody. Scott McNealy has apparently been calling Solaris Sun's implementation of Linux. Trademark violation time. The article's here: http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-12-14-020-04-NW-CY Quick quote: >When asked by a reporter why Sun's new clustering >software was restricted to Solaris and not available >on Linux, McNealy's aggravation seemed to peak. "You >people just don't get it, do you? All Linux >applications run on Solaris, which is our >implementation of Linux. Now ask the question again," Assuming the quote is accurate (which, being ZD, is iffy), this strikes me as a mondo trademark violation, and exactly the sort of thing the Linux trademark was designed to prevent. Solaris is NOT Linux. That's just my opinion, of course, but I wanted to make sure everybody was aware of the situation... Rob (Yes, it finally happened. The Unix idiots have now "protected" the trademark "Unix" to the point where Linux is now a more valuable name to be associated with. But turnabout IS fair play. And they know the rules if they want to participate. Add in the MS profit warning and IBM's billion dollar pledge to our little PBS station and it's been a good week...)
List: linux-kernel Subject: Re: Is there a Linux trademark issue with sun? From: "Jon 'maddog' Hall, Executive Director, Linux International" Date: 2000-12-15 12:37:41 [Warning: Highly controversial topic ahead. Messenger does not want to be shot] This does bring up an interesting situation. The Linux community keeps saying that "Linux is a re-implementation of Unix." This gets X/Open all pissed off at us, because Linux has not passed the qualification test suites which they use for branding. So we get around that by saying "Unix is a lot like Linux, except it costs a lot of money, comes in binary form, etc. etc." Yet there is no real definition for "Linux". Some people (the FSF for instance) say that Linux is just the kernel, but there are different kernels, with different patches. There was even a Microkernel version of Linux called "MKLinux". Others say that Linux is the whole distribution, but there are lots of distributions, all different (Red Hat, SuSE, etc.) There are different placements of files in the file tree. I know from conversations with Linus that he anticipates having (perhaps) radically different kernels on top of "BIG IRON" machines, where the kernels (and the distributions) come from the "BIG IRON" makers. The licensing of the Linux trademark has basically allowed someone to use the term "Linux" in their own trademark, but has done nothing to prevent someone from comparing their accumulation of code with "Linux", and nothing to define what Linux actually is. If it is true that "all Linux applications work on top of Solaris", what standard prevents them from calling Solaris just another implementation of Linux? And should it? From an ISV perspective, the more distributions of software that run their products binary compatible, the better off we are against Microsoft. If Linux does not handle the very high-end machines (yet), then why not let those applications run on Solaris? If people want to pay for Solaris, take the binary-only distribution from Sun and run it on that large iron, why not? On the other hand, I think we need some type of definition to what is called "Linux". Perhaps this is where the Linux Standard Base might be appropriate. Regards, md -- ============================================================================= Jon "maddog" Hall Executive Director, Linux(R) Intern'l Director of Linux Evangelism Linux International VA Linux Systems 80 Amherst St. 1382 Bordeaux Ave. Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A. Sunnyvale, CA 94089 Internet: maddog@li.org maddog@valinux.com WWW: http://www.li.org WWW: http://www.valinux.com Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association (R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries.