On Fri, 2005-08-19 at 10:55 -0400, William Warren wrote:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25529
what's everyone's thoughts on this one?
Trademarks must be enforced or they disappear. If the trademark on "Linux" were to disappear, Linus would not be able to stop anyone from calling anything Linux. For example, without the trademark Microsoft could rename Vista to "MS Linux" and there wouldn't be a thing anyone could do.
Someone must enforce the trademark on Linux. Linus has appointed the Linux Mark Institute (LMI) as his trademark enforcement agent. Linus can change this later if he wants.
I trust Linus' intentions.
As long as neither of these two point change, I will trust LMI.
Trademark lawsuits can be expensive. As I understand it, LMI is supposed to be a self-funding non-profit whose sole purpose is to enforce the trademark.
-David