Hello,
The backgrounds are in the redhat-logo's rpm.
The license for that rpm is "Copyright 1999-2010 Red Hat, Inc. All
rights reserved."
The description of that rpm says
"Licensed only for approved usage, see COPYING for details."
So, is it approved for CentOS or RedHat?
Here is what it says in COPYING
"Red Hat®, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and the Shadowman logo, either
separately or in combination, are hereinafter referred to as "Red Hat
Trademarks" and are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the
United States and other countries.
The redhat-logos package ("Package") contains images that are or include
the Red Hat Trademarks and Red Hat trade dress. You are granted the
right to use the Package only during the normal operation of software
programs that call upon the Package. No other copyright or trademark
license is granted herein.
NO WARRANTY...." And goes on about how it is provided "as is"
So, can we use the background or not?
These backgrounds don't contain any reference to RedHat, or the
Shadowman Logo, so it clearly doesn't fall under the Trademark law.
But the second paragraph talks about "Trade Dress", and I had to look
that up.
http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/tradedress.html
"Under trademark law, the total commercial image of a product is known
by the term "trade dress." Trade dress refers to the manner in which a
product -- or place of business -- is "dressed up" to go to market."
So, in my opinion, I believe the RedHat backgrounds fall under the
"Trade Dress" law. They are the way that RHEL is "dressed up" to go to
market.
So in short. I believe both Scientific Linux and CentOS have to change
the default background.
Troy Dawson
Kenneth Armstrong wrote:
> Thanks all, I knew that I could copy them over myself, I just didn't
> know if CentOS would be importing them as part of the build so as to
> save me that step.
>
> On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 5:15 PM, Douglas McClendon
> <dmc.centos at filteredperception.org> wrote:
>> On 01/02/2011 03:38 PM, Cia Watson wrote:
>>> On Sun, 2 Jan 2011 14:39:57 -0500
>>> Kenneth Armstrong<digimars at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Will CentOS 6 also have the same wallpaper packages that came with
>>>> RHEL 6? The reason that I ask is that I love the new wallpapers in
>>>> RHEL 6, but I'm not sure if they are copyrighted or anything to the
>>>> point that CentOS can't import them in the build.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks, and keep up the good work. I use CentOS alongside RHEL at
>>>> work, and it is a fantastic project.
>>>>
>>>> -Kenny
>>> Hi Kenny,
>>>
>>> I don't know if the wallpaper packages from RHEL 6 will carry over to
>>> CentOS 6 or not, however if they don't you could always copy them
>>> from /usr/share/backgrounds on a RHEL 6 install. I suspect the default
>>> ones outside of the separate folders (i.e. nature, cosmos, etc.) may be
>>> copyrighted images but I just looked at the ones from the beta and
>>> don't see a specific copyright mark so it's hard to say.
>> The one very specific example I'm aware of is the Luis Argerich one of
>> beach/storm/lighting which I've chosen to use initially as the default
>> for my SL6alpha derived LiveDVD/USB distro. On it, there is a specific
>> permissive creative commons license marked on the background itself.
>> I'm actually unsure if it allows removing that mark (for aesthetics) and
>> placing it in an accompanying license text file, but I did take the
>> liberty of moving it somewhere where it isn't covered up by my gnome-panel.
>>
>> In general I'm guessing that RH is pretty good about segregating the
>> stuff that isn't redistributable. I.e. I've watched the evolution
>> across recent fedora releases that was more or less designed to make
>> brandstripping redistributor's lives easier. Not as easy yet as 'rpm -e
>> --nodeps redhat* ; yum -y install generic-*', but getting closer.
>>
>> -dmc
>> http://cloudsession.com/dawg
>>
>>
>>
>> I think the
>>> ones in the folders are pretty standard gnome wallpaper images.
>>>
>>> If you're just going to use it as a personal desktop wallpaper on
>>> CentOS I would think that'd be o.k.; but IANAL. I suspect someone more
>>> familiar with what will be included in CentOS 6 will be able to say for
>>> sure.
>>>
>>> Cia W
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> CentOS-devel at centos.org
>>> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-devel
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
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--
__________________________________________________
Troy Dawson dawson at fnal.gov (630)840-6468
Fermilab ComputingDivision/SCF/FEF/SLSMS Group
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