Ubuntu Lays Down the Trademark Law

And SJVN's love of non-free Linuxes continues. When Debian and Mozilla had the Firefox trademark dispute, he reamed the Debian team several new ones. But now Canonical is teh cool for formalizing a trademark policy. The lad is going to give himself a severe whiplash trying to reconcile opposing viewpoints. Remember his rant:

"I want to take some free software developers and shake them until their teeth rattle. At the moment, I'm ticked off because the Debian community's recent hissy-fit over the Mozilla Corp.'s trademarked Firefox logo..." http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9068065177.html

Who had the hissy? Ahem.

After reading the full article twice I'm not sure what your point is here TC. Yes he has a decided love for corp-rat Linux, and previous articles he has written such as the one you reference really drive that point home. This article on the other hand ... Steve presents it fairly neutrally from his side. Shuttleworth is the one who made the comments that would seem to be stirring your pot.

It really appears like your shooting the messenger. Nor do I see any opposing viewpoints.

As you say, it's all a reflection of the fact that Debian is free software, so he hates it. He had a pretty childish post about Debian the day it was released. I was happy that it was largely ignored. He's anti-Microsoft and nothing more. Free software is all blah, blah, blah to him.

> trying to reconcile opposing viewpoints

There's nothing to reconcile if a free software distribution is always wrong on every issue by definition.

azerthoth, that's exactly what I'm griping about- this article is neutral and factual. Anything to do with Debian, he turns into Enderlyonso'gara. If he treated Debian with the same level of professionalism, that would be a good thing. But he doesn't- he always slams them, and hardly ever for anything deserving of being slammed.

Ah I see, my apology then. When looked at from that perspective it does put the proper context to your post.

No problem, and I got a new fun phrase to use: "corp-rat" :)

Quoting:"corp-rat"

Carla, May I use that on occasion?

Carla, May I use that on occasion?

She's not ignoring you, she's working out the licensing details with her attorney.

OH It's a JOKE...

I think...

h

> OH It's a JOKE...

Or not... "corp-rat©tc"

Actually, SJVN is being very consistent -

His bone of contention with Debian people was their "hissy fit" over not being able to steal Mozilla's trademark. They weren't trying to defend any trademark that they owned. They were trying to use the Firefox trademark on something that was not controlled by the owners of the trademark.

Here in this article he's presenting Canonical's policy towards their own trademarks - and conditions for proper use. If Canonical does not aggressively defend their trademarks, then they lose it. Same with Red Hat - which is why CentOS can use the RH code but not the RH trademarks. The CentOS project is in no way affiliated with Redhat, and therefore they must get permission to use any Redhat trademarks.

Dino could explain it better than I ...

But this is NOT a case of SJVN persecuting Debian from behind his keyboard.

>Dino could explain it better than I ...

Nope. Sounds like you did it pretty well.

And, folks, let's not forget that the FSF protects their trademarks, Linux protects his trademarks, yada, yada, yada.

In fact, RMS himself distinguishes trademark from other forms of IP. It's the one form he has no problem with, making the Debian hissy-fit all the more ridiculous.

Scott, that's azerthoth's word. But I will gladly license it to you for a reasonable fee.

I just registered a trademark for the word dinotrac.

all your trademark are belong to us ;)

SJVN's anti-Debian bias shines out of nearly every article he writes that has anything to do with them. Did he say Debian and Mozilla worked out a trademark and license conflict? No, he said Debian pitched a hissy fit. To be consistent, instead of saying "Ubuntu has decided to address possible trademark issues by creating its own trademark policy" he should use wording like "Canonical, in a crafty ideologically-charged maneuver, exploits Free Software further by harnessing it for profit and locking up their intellectual property."

The S in SJVN should stand for slant.

I've got to agree with TC. When he's writing about Debian, they're wrong. Doesn't matter what the issue.

Remember that he criticized Debian for having stupid rules, i.e., changing the name to IceWeasel. He didn't say Debian is violating Mozilla's trademark.

His criticism was centered entirely on Debian's policy. The problem was exclusively one of Debian's policy being unreasonable (which is the same as his criticism about not including proprietary drivers). Mozilla, of course, was not at fault in any way. It was just a bunch of whining by Debian devs who are too naive to understand how the business world works.

What is his opinion about Ubuntu's policy? Where is the deep analysis of things that are too stupid for words? His silence speaks volumes.