[olug] Red Hat bulletin

[CM Miller]

--- David Walker <linux_user at grax.com> wrote:
> I agree that the principle is reasonable.  Has
> anyone looked at what it takes 
> to remove the Red Hat logos? 

A superstar lawyer. 

Looks like the mighty RH went after
http://linuxiso.org/ as well. 

http://linuxiso.org/news.php#87

Or is yr too lazy to click, read below...


Thursday, June 26th - Red Hat has lawyers:
Red Hat sent us a cease-and-desist letter complaining
about our sale of replicated Red Hat CDs and use of
Red Hat's trademark (their name and logo). That they
call us a "commercial website" annoys us a bit, since
it makes it clear that they didn't do more than look
for "buy" and "Red Hat" together in a search engine.
We don't sell CDs (though we did have links to another
site that sold the CDs without using Red Hat's name,
and have removed those links), and we'll work with Red
Hat on the trademark infringement accusations (which
may have depended on the mistaken belief that we are a
commercial website). For the interested, the text of
the letter and a discussion are in our forums.

We'll see how this pans out when we reply to Red Hat.
Our (Lance, Rick, and Jered) personal feelings are
that it's a shame that they sent us a form letter that
demonstrates a lazy RIAA-like approach to trademark
protection. Our opinion of Red Hat might not have
suffered had they displayed a modicum of diligence by
examining how accurately their accusations applied to
the target of their mailing. Instead they filled in
blanks in a form letter and let 'er rip. But hey, what
do we know. We're no lawyers - just customers with a
big soapbox.


Friday, June 27th - Red Hat has reasonable lawyers:
Red Hat seems satisfied with our explanation and
removal of the "buy" links, and have asked that we
remove their logo from the site as well. Their
response is reprinted in the forum link in the last
news posting, for the curious. We don't have a problem
with removing their logo, just as we wouldn't have had
a problem if they'd just asked politely to begin with.




=====
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."

-Edsger W. Dijkstra

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