[Gllug] Linuxemporium - Pink Tie

[John Winters]

Due to volume of e-mail I'm not currently subscribed to the GLLUG list
but Alain copied me on this.

On Wed, 2002-11-20 at 16:16, Alain Williams wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 04:03:11PM +0000, Dave Cridland [Home] wrote:
> > On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 14:39:12 +0000
> > Gordon Joly <gordon.joly at pobox.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > At 12:16 +0000 2002-11-20, Andrew Halliwell wrote:
> > > >  > What has happened to the 10 quid "Red Hat" Linux sets from Linuxemporium?
> > > >
> > > >Pink Tie *IS* Red Hat.

Not quite.

> > > >They just got a bit stroppy recently about third party sellers using their
> > > >tradename, and asked people to use something else. And not use any of the
> > > >Red Hat logos in the distro (so they needed a bit of a search and destroy
> > > >before being sellable).
> > > 
> > > I email John Winters (Linuxemporium), who said that Pink Tie is fully 
> > > Open Source Red Hat.

Not quite.

> > > 
> > > In other words, Red Hat cannot be copied.

True - or at least, you can't sell copies.

> > 
> > No, it can. However, even though it's permissable under the GPL, it's
> > not permissable under trademark law to *sell* that copy. There's other
> > software with similar restrictions, and even though it somewhat confused
> > me at first, it's fair enough really. So the software can be copied, but
> > the name cannot. That would become passing off, which could leave RedHat
> > wide open to serious abuse.

There's been a lot of talk in this kind of vein but having investigated
it I don't believe it's correct.  An important point to note is that as
of 8.0, RH is *not* licensed under the GPL.  (Actually, it never was,
but in the past all the components provided by RH were GPL.  This is no
longer the case.)

> So, from what I understand, it would be quite OK if I copied it & gave it away to my mates.

Yes, it would.


The state of affairs is quite complicated but in summary.

1) Up until RH 7.2, the RH distribution was completely Open Source and
Red Hat themselves were quite happy about copies as long as it was made
clear that the copies were just that - copies.  The term Bob Young
suggested as appropriate was "Contains Red Hat Linux".


2) With the release of RH 7.3, RH changed their guidance and claimed
that using the term "Red Hat Linux" anywhere in a product description
would be a breach of trademark law.  Having investigated this I don't
believe they're correct (and their further actions tend to suggest they
agree with me, of which more below).  Trademark law controls what a
label may be applied to but once the trademark owner has applied the
label they can't then control who may refer to it by that label.

If one were to produce one's own Linux distribution and call it "Red Hat
Linux" then one would be in breach of trademark law.  If one produces
CDs from Red Hat's download images and says they "Contain Red Hat Linux
7.3 download images" then one is not in breach of trademark law because
the trademark holders were the ones who christened the download images. 
If one produced CDs which said, they "Contain Red Hat Linux 8.0 download
images" one would still not be in breach of trademark law but one would
be in breach of copyright because Red Hat 8.0 is not entirely Open
Source (unlike its predecessors).

At the same time as they changed their guidance on copy CDs, Red Hat
also had solicitors send out some quite remarkable threatening letters. 
We had one which accused us of all sorts of things *for selling their
official boxed sets*.  We replied pointing out that the accusations were
nonsense and they sort of accepted this but no apology has been
forthcoming.  For this reason I tend to treat anything involving RH very
carefully at present.


3) With the release of RH 8.0, RH changed their position again.  There
are now components of the distribution which are *not* fully open source
and these components need to be removed before you have a freely
copyable distribution again.  I believe RH did this because they
realised their previous claims about trademarks had no basis in law. Of
course, once you've amended the distribution it isn't Red Hat any more
so you can't call it Red Hat either.


I've had long discussions with RH and they seem very confused about what
they're trying to achieve.  The man I met had come from Germany for our
meeting but didn't even know the licence had been changed.  I've been
given various reasons for the changes:

1) Protection of trademark.

   This doesn't hold up for a minute.  As long as Red Hat prevent anyone
   christening a *different* distribution Red Hat then they're
   protecting their trademark.

2) Protection of image

   Their current steps are doing the opposite of this.  By insisting
   that all sorts of third parties modify the software before
   distributing it they've caused the creation of a raft of near-clones
   of RH Linux.  People expect them to be "as good as RH" but there's
   no control over what changes have been incorporated.  The previous
   position was much better for RH from in this aspect.

3) Protection of market share

   Again, the latest changes are fragmenting the market.  A lot of
   people have moved away from Red Hat simply because they can't
   get hold of it cheaply any more.  It's fine if you're a student
   or have broadband but otherwise you're stuffed.  From the
   marketing point of view - given that Red Hat make their product
   available for free download it's very strange to then prevent
   further distribution.

4) Support

   People phone up Red Hat wanting support when they haven't purchased
   a boxed set.  This seems to be the area where RH are most
   confused.  People are just as likely to do this if they've downloaded
   the CD images themselves as if they've had somebody do it for them.
   What's more, this is an *opportunity*, not a problem.  The whole
   essence of sustainable open source business is to sell a service so
   the first thing to do is sell them some support, either by way of
   a credit card or a premium rate phone line.

   Mitel are a fine example of how to do this.  They let people get
   SME Server for free and then say in large letters, "Unless you bought
   this as a package from us then support is not included.  Dial this
   number to buy support."

All in all, RH seem to have seriously shot themselves in the foot with
this.  Talking to them there are really *serious* failures of
communication internally and the whole thing makes me very worried about
where they're heading.

John

-- 
The Linux Emporium - the source for Linux in the UK
See http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/

We had a woodhenge here once but it rotted.


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