[Gllug] Linuxemporium - Pink Tie

[Alain Williams]

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

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

But I thought that LinuxEmporium didn't sell the software on these copied CDs anyway.
John Winters is chargeing you the reasonable costs of making a copy of the CD, but is
not selling the software.

The fact that John also sells 'kosher' RedHat boxed sets & so does not want to wind
them up is another matter.

I do not have any objection to what RedHat is doing/saying, but am interested in probing
the dark & obscure corners of the legal aspects of this.

-- 
Alain Williams

#include <std_disclaimer.h>

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