Need to pay to use the word "Linux" in commercial products/services!

Need to pay to use the word "Linux" in commercial products/services!

[andy]

Hi

I found it a bit strange that the word "Linux" has to be licensed!
The "word" is protected under GPL v2, as it is appear first in 1991
in GPL code.  Trademarks and Patents are not allowed in GPL!
The registration of the name at later point of time, and now the
licensing terms are very confusing to me, could someone help
me to understand better please?

Andy

Re: Need to pay to use the word "Linux" in commercial products/services!

[Kok, Auke]

andy wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I found it a bit strange that the word "Linux" has to be licensed!
> The "word" is protected under GPL v2, as it is appear first in 1991
> in GPL code.  Trademarks and Patents are not allowed in GPL!
> The registration of the name at later point of time, and now the
> licensing terms are very confusing to me, could someone help
> me to understand better please?

please talk to a laywer, they can explain everything to you.

Cheers,

Auke

Re: Need to pay to use the word "Linux" in commercial products/services!

[Randy Dunlap]

Kok, Auke wrote:
> andy wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> I found it a bit strange that the word "Linux" has to be licensed!
>> The "word" is protected under GPL v2, as it is appear first in 1991
>> in GPL code.  Trademarks and Patents are not allowed in GPL!
>> The registration of the name at later point of time, and now the
>> licensing terms are very confusing to me, could someone help
>> me to understand better please?
> 
> please talk to a laywer, they can explain everything to you.

Yes.  However, there is this:  http://www.linuxmark.org/

~rdd

Re: Need to pay to use the word "Linux" in commercial products/services!

[david]

On Tue, 25 Nov 2008, andy wrote:

> I found it a bit strange that the word "Linux" has to be licensed!
> The "word" is protected under GPL v2, as it is appear first in 1991
> in GPL code.  Trademarks and Patents are not allowed in GPL!
> The registration of the name at later point of time, and now the
> licensing terms are very confusing to me, could someone help
> me to understand better please?

1. Trademarks are definantly allowed with GPL code.

2. what are you referring to when you say the work Linux has to be 
licensed?

David Lang

Re: Need to pay to use the word "Linux" in commercial products/services!

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:39:27 +0000
andy <rootstrap@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hi
> 
> I found it a bit strange that the word "Linux" has to be licensed!
> The "word" is protected under GPL v2, as it is appear first in 1991
> in GPL code.  Trademarks and Patents are not allowed in GPL!
> The registration of the name at later point of time, and now the
> licensing terms are very confusing to me, could someone help
> me to understand better please?

The GPL protects copyrights not trademarks. The Linux trademarking is an
interesting question and I know a lot of companies take the view that the
mark is unenforcable. On the other hand it stops abuse of the name for
other unrelated software.

A lot of others of course simply omit the 'Linux' from official names of
commercial projects ;) and I've not seen any attempt to charge licensing
fees to anyone else.

Alan

Re: Need to pay to use the word "Linux" in commercial products/services!

[Jon Masters]

On Tue, 2008-11-25 at 22:57 +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:39:27 +0000
> andy <rootstrap@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi
> > 
> > I found it a bit strange that the word "Linux" has to be licensed!
> > The "word" is protected under GPL v2, as it is appear first in 1991
> > in GPL code.  Trademarks and Patents are not allowed in GPL!
> > The registration of the name at later point of time, and now the
> > licensing terms are very confusing to me, could someone help
> > me to understand better please?
> 
> The GPL protects copyrights not trademarks. The Linux trademarking is an
> interesting question and I know a lot of companies take the view that the
> mark is unenforcable. On the other hand it stops abuse of the name for
> other unrelated software.

Personally, I love washing my clothes with Linux detergent :)

They tell me it's also a popular Operating System kernel.

Jon.

Re: Need to pay to use the word "Linux" in commercial products/services!

[Theodore Tso]

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 07:24:42PM -0500, Jon Masters wrote:
> > 
> > The GPL protects copyrights not trademarks. The Linux trademarking is an
> > interesting question and I know a lot of companies take the view that the
> > mark is unenforcable. On the other hand it stops abuse of the name for
> > other unrelated software.
> 

In addition, the Linux Mark Institute will give sublicenses free of
charge for pretty much any reasonable uses where the Linux Kernel is
used.  (i.e., if someone wrote a Microsoft .NET application that whose
only use was to send scary legal letters to Linux users, and some
software company wanted to market this "Linux Blackmail Generator" as
a program marketed to companies which held Patents but produced no
useful products or services --- i.e., Patent Trolls --- I might well
imagine that someone from LMI might cough, and say, "I don't think
we'll give you a sublicense to use Linux in such a way).

> Personally, I love washing my clothes with Linux detergent :)
> 
> They tell me it's also a popular Operating System kernel.

Trademarks are specific to a specific area.  My favorite example was
the British advertisements for vacuum cleaners, "Nothing sucks like a
Vax" back when I was hacking BSD 4.3 systems on a Digital Vax/750.  Of
course there can be problems when companies expand beyond their
original areas of their trademark registration --- hence the conflict
between Apple Computers, Inc., and Apple Corps (a holding company
which owned Apple Records and the copyrights to Beatle's music) when
Apple started expanding into their iPod and iTunes store business.

      	      		     	   	    	   - Ted

Re: Need to pay to use the word "Linux" in commercial products/services!

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 09:21:50PM -0500, Theodore Tso wrote:
> Trademarks are specific to a specific area.  My favorite example was
> the British advertisements for vacuum cleaners, "Nothing sucks like a
> Vax" back when I was hacking BSD 4.3 systems on a Digital Vax/750.  Of
> course there can be problems when companies expand beyond their
> original areas of their trademark registration --- hence the conflict
> between Apple Computers, Inc., and Apple Corps (a holding company
> which owned Apple Records and the copyrights to Beatle's music) when
> Apple started expanding into their iPod and iTunes store business.

Or when they added speakers to even allow any music to be played.

-- 
Len Sorensen