[Centos] Re: Red Hat Legal Targets www.centos.org website content

Tue Feb 15 08:26:26 UTC 2005
Rick Graves <gravesricharde at yahoo.com>

Dag,

I think you are taking what RedHat Legal says too
literally.  Yes, they SAY this is about confusion, but
I do not think it is really about confusion.  This is
about their trademark rights (not covered by the GPL)
and what they can do to enhance their revenue flow --
make it harder for the public to know more about the
advantages of CentOS.  

> It's hard to discuss this without knowing what
happened exactly after 
> the 
> letter was received, but I would have send out a
reply asking for 
> concrete examples and rationale. 

So I think asking for concrete examples and rationale
are not likely to help, as asking for this will not
cause RedHat to back down from enfocing their
trademark rights -- because of the "real reasons".  

Rick




> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 21:12:19 +0100 (CET)
> From: Dag Wieers <dag at wieers.com>
> Subject: Re: [Centos] Red Hat Legal Targets
www.centos.org website
> 	content
> To: CentOS discussion and information list
<centos at caosity.org>
> Message-ID:
<Pine.LNX.4.61.0502142101290.921 at horsea.3ti.be>
> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> 
> I think the issue here might be the fact that Red
Hat is mentioned 
> together with links to the Red Hat site in such a
way people might be 
> misled into thinking CentOS is endorsed by Red Hat
or CentOS is the 
> same 
> as RHEL.
> 
> Now, it would not surprise me if that message got
lost in translation 
> and 
> ended up being written as it is in legalese.
> 
> It's hard to discuss this without knowing what
happened exactly after 
> the 
> letter was received, but I would have send out a
reply asking for 
> concrete 
> examples and rationale. It makes common sense that
if you receive a 
> message that (partly) does not make sense to you,
you ask for 
> clarification.
> 
> It's in everybody's best interest to get rid of any
confusion the 
> website 
> might give. We do not want people to believe that
CentOS is something 
> else.
> 
> Let's not focus on one mistake and let everybody do
their job and clear 
> out the mess. I don't think there were ill
intentions being used here, 
> except maybe the guy who posted this on Slashdot.
> 
> --   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com, 
http://dag.wieers.com/   --
> [all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and
unlimited power]
>