Re: Linux mark extortion
On 6/17/05, Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote:
> > I'm not entirely sure that what Debian does wouldn't fall under the
> > "descriptive use" concept. "Debian GNU/Linux" is more like "Debian for
> > GNU/Linux" than "DebianLinux".
>
> I don't think anybody knows how trademark law applies in the context
> of goods which are expected to be shared freely. What is descriptive
> and what is not is extremely murky.
No more so in the case of the GPL than in any other use in commerce.
See Planetary Motion v. Techplosion. BSD/MIT "licenses" may be
another story, since they aren't proper offers of bilateral contract;
but the products to which they apply tend to provide other grounds for
findings of "use in commerce".
Cheers,
- Michael
(IANAL, TINLA)
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