Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:57:08 +0000 | From | Alan Cox <> | Subject | Re: Need to pay to use the word "Linux" in commercial products/services! |
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On Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:39:27 +0000 andy <rootstrap@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi > > I found it a bit strange that the word "Linux" has to be licensed! > The "word" is protected under GPL v2, as it is appear first in 1991 > in GPL code. Trademarks and Patents are not allowed in GPL! > The registration of the name at later point of time, and now the > licensing terms are very confusing to me, could someone help > me to understand better please?
The GPL protects copyrights not trademarks. The Linux trademarking is an interesting question and I know a lot of companies take the view that the mark is unenforcable. On the other hand it stops abuse of the name for other unrelated software.
A lot of others of course simply omit the 'Linux' from official names of commercial projects ;) and I've not seen any attempt to charge licensing fees to anyone else.
Alan
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