Re: Is there a Linux trademark issue with sun?

Re: Is there a Linux trademark issue with sun?

[Rob Landley]

--- Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> wrote:

> Yup, that's Scooter (all the Sun old timers call him
> Scooter, I dunno where
> it came from, I wasn't enough of an old timer). 
> And, yeah, he does a lot 
> of marketing.  But in many respects, he's the
> perfect CEO.  He's always
> out in public, pushing the message, and he tends to
> leave the day to day
> stuff to the other folks.  I'll take him over Gates
> any day of the week.

I'm not against them, and I wouldn't make too big a
deal out of it.  I'm just recommending that somebody
official ask them politely to stop doing it.

Here's how I see it:

Sun feels that their core product, Solaris, is
threatened by Linux.  They have several options:

A) Jump on board and use Linux on their hardware.
B) Improve Solaris until it can compete on its own
merits.
C) Market Solaris better, to make people want Solaris
instead of Linux.
D) Confuse people into thinking that Linux and Solaris
are the same thing.

He's gone for D, and he's run straight into the Linux
trademark doing so.  If everybody wants to abolish the
Linux trademark, that's fine.  But if we don't defend
it here, I really do think it becomes too weak to be
useful in other situations.

McNealy wants to leverage the growth of Linux to help
his company, which is fine, but he's going about it
the wrong way.  What if IBM had done this sort of
thing with AIX or Monterey instead of miraculously
acquiring a clue?  IBM hasn't, they've respected the
Linux trademark very conscientiously.

> Scott's only big sin was to dump SunOS for Slowaris.

I still dunno WHY that happened (other than gaining
threading), but I suspect that should go to email...

Rob

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[OT] Re: Is there a Linux trademark issue with sun?

[Dana Lacoste]

Rob Landley wrote :
> Sun feels that their core product, Solaris, is
> threatened by Linux.  They have several options:

> A) Jump on board and use Linux on their hardware.
> B) Improve Solaris until it can compete on its own
> merits.
> C) Market Solaris better, to make people want Solaris
> instead of Linux.
> D) Confuse people into thinking that Linux and Solaris
> are the same thing.
> 
> He's gone for D, and he's run straight into the Linux
> trademark doing so.  If everybody wants to abolish the
> Linux trademark, that's fine.  But if we don't defend
> it here, I really do think it becomes too weak to be
> useful in other situations.

I don't think he did that at all :
(Devil's Advocate time :)

What he did was say that, while everyone was looking
at Linux as the solution to modern computing problems,
he didn't need to : he already has Solaris.  So Solaris
is his "Linux".

A matter of grammar, not legal or technical terms : he
didn't say that Solaris IS linux; he used a metaphor :
"[Solaris] is our implementation of Linux".

I'm not saying he's RIGHT : I'm just saying that he
didn't intend to abuse the Linux trademark.  He's
taken a mix of (B) and (C) from above, claiming that
his Solaris product can accomplish the same product
targets that Linux does.

Why should Sun provide anything for Linux if they
already have Solaris providing all of the functionality?

Could I say that Wine is my Windows implementation?  Windows
is a trademark, but everyone knows what I mean, right?
Microsoft's not going to be writing me any letters, right?
(well, none that I'm going to pay attention to, right? :)

All just rhetoric, of course.
Advocacy doesn't belong on linux-kernel :)

--
Dana Lacoste
Linux Developer
Peregrine Systems

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Re: [OT] Re: Is there a Linux trademark issue with sun?

[Rob Landley]

--- Dana Lacoste <dana.lacoste@peregrine.com> wrote:
> I don't think he did that at all :
> (Devil's Advocate time :)

Always a fun occupation. :)

> What he did was say that, while everyone was looking
> at Linux as the solution to modern computing
> problems,
> he didn't need to : he already has Solaris.  So
> Solaris
> is his "Linux".

The question he was responding to was why Sun hadn't
put out a Linux version of some solaris-only piece of
software.  His answer was that Solaris was Sun's
implementation of Linux.

> A matter of grammar, not legal or technical terms :
> he
> didn't say that Solaris IS linux; he used a metaphor
> :
> "[Solaris] is our implementation of Linux".

(I'm going to resort to a sports analogy.  Brace
yourself.  No, I don't know which sport.  Volleyball,
possibly.)

Yeah, it's a borderline foul.  But I still think it
deserves a warning from the referee.

(It's over, you can relax now.)

Point: I really do think somebody official should send
the guy a letter asking him to be careful around the
trademark.

> I'm not saying he's RIGHT : I'm just saying that he
> didn't intend to abuse the Linux trademark.  He's

Somebody asked him a question about why there was no
Linux version of a piece of software, and he attacked
the validity of the question by saying Solaris is
Sun's implementation of Linux.  My reading of it is
that he didn't answer the question, instead he implied
very strongly that the question was invalid, and did
so by implying very strongly that Solaris -IS- Linux
hence no need for a seperate Linux version.

Either he's fundamentally confused, or he's
intentionally trying to be confusing.  The first calls
for clarification, the second calls for defending the
infringed trademark.  I'm not sure which of the two
would be "giving him the benefit of the doubt",
neither's particularly flattering.

> taken a mix of (B) and (C) from above, claiming that
> his Solaris product can accomplish the same product
> targets that Linux does.

But that's not actually what he said, is it?

> Why should Sun provide anything for Linux if they
> already have Solaris providing all of the
> functionality?

He could have said that, true.  Would have been well
within his rights to say it, and a valid commercial
strategy (although not necessarily a winning one).

But that's not what he said.

> Could I say that Wine is my Windows implementation? 

You could say the sky is green.  The more interesting
question is, are you the one putting out Wine?

Winehq.com doesn't claim Wine is a windows
implementation, does it?  It calls it an
implementation of the Windows APIs.

> Windows is a trademark, but everyone knows what I
> mean, right?
> Microsoft's not going to be writing me any letters,
> right?

Actually, I wouldn't be too suprised if they did. 
They have lawyers on salary just waiting for something
to do.  The question is, are you
big/important/noticeable enough to go after?

By the way, have you read the actual "about Wine" page
from Wine's site?

http://www.winehq.com/about.shtml

Trademark acknowledgement is at the bottom (albiet in
a rather vague way), and the "about Wine" section is
quite clear on what Wine is and what it isn't.

> (well, none that I'm going to pay attention to,
> right? :)

But you're not a corporation, are you?

> All just rhetoric, of course.
> Advocacy doesn't belong on linux-kernel :)

I'm not advocacying, I raised a question about the
Linux trademark in the venue I thought most
appropriate (don't know of a better one), and I'm
following up on the replies.  I've trimmed the "cc:"
list on several occasions.

It doesn't noticeably seem to be skewing the overall
signal to noise ratio of l-k so far. :)

> --
> Dana Lacoste
> Linux Developer
> Peregrine Systems
> 

Rob

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