Re: Red Hat Weasels (fwd)
Ok, this is the "skinny" ... so to speak. From out local lug mailing
list.
> On Thu, 20 May 1999, George Bonser wrote:
>
> > What did the article(s) say???
>
> Sorry, as three people I know from outside the bay area Linux community
> asked me about it prior to my actually *reaching* the /. article in
> question, I guess I assumed it was better propagated than it was.
>
> Per /., RH is threatening to sue Linuxcare over posters they are
> displaying at the LinuxExpo in Raleigh.
>
I'm actually at LinuxExpo (where ./ sill appears to be down).
LinuxCare got the model who appears in the 3Com "Simply Palm" ads to do an
ad for them. She's kneeling, largely unclothed, much as in the Palm ad,
with back to the camera. She's holding up a shrinkwrapped Red Hat 6.0 box
behind her to "cover her ass", and the ad says "Simply Supported. Now Red
Hat 6.0 is available with Enterprise class support from LinuxCare." That
may not be verbatim, but it's close.
Red Hat is obviously unhappy about the implication that RH6 didn't already
have enterprise class support. But I don't see how they can sue over a
subtle insinuation. The ad does use the Red Hat logo (it's on the box),
and without explicit permission from Red Hat. Red Hat has been very picky
on this point for a while now; we've had this problem at O'Reilly for
example.
But a couple of points: LinuxCare did make a good faith effort to alert
Red Hat of the ad, and apparently Red Hat just never got back to them.
Second, Red Hat can't legally stop anyone from mentioning the name "Red
Hat" any more than Microsoft can stop mentions of Microsoft. And it is
unclear that this would count as a use of the logo: LinuxCare didn't
reproduce the logo, they simply showed a Red Hat produced box with the
logo on it.
Anyway, I doubt that LinuxCare will suffer legally at the hands of Red
Hat. All Red Hat's suit will do is get some good free publicity for
LinuxCare.
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