Linux Trademark Issues

For the last few days I have been trying to figure out what the hell was going on with the Linux trademark issues in Australia. The first slashdot article made it look like some sort of scam. The second slashdot post linked to the confusing Inquirer article which not only does not give much useful information, but also calls Linus the Open Sauce king... Ugh...

Fortunately, we have Groklaw to clear it all up for us. So these letters are legit after all.

I guest the gist of it all is that Linus does not want people using Linux in the name of their trademarked product. In other words, if your product is called Foo Linux, and you want to trademark it, and go commercial with it you have to either pay the licensing fee, or drop the Linux from the name and market it as Foo or whatever.

The trademark stuff is handled by non-profit organization, so it's not like they are extorting money from anyone. So I guess, it's all good in the Linux world. For a second there I thought that we will have to re-brand the OS to keep the openness going. Hey, we could have called it gnu/x or ginux... Or gnul :P

Tags: linux, trademark, linux trademark, linus