Re: Patch policy

[Jonathan Larmour <jifl@eCosCentric.com>]

Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> 
> The logo *is* since it contains the words ECOS and ECOS is a registered 
> trademark of Red Hat.  I should have been more specific:  Under 
> trademark law, colour, style, font, case, etc all are ignored if the 
> text is trademarked. As such, the logo is just a stylised version of the 
> text and hence is covered by the ECOS trademark.

I wonder why I've never seen them use (R) with the logo. Evidently it's a 
good thing IANAL then ;).

>> believe you that there may well have been handouts with the TM 
>> superscript... in fact I've just looked and the stickers I have here 
>> do have the TM I see. But the laxness in applying the TM as evidenced 
>> by the existing public use of logos by Red Hat makes it very difficult 
>> to enforce.
> 
> *Very* incorrect. Red Hat are *very* serious when it comes to defending 
> their trademarks, and the trademarks do not have to be registered as you 
> pointed out.  Not just the "Red Hat" trademark but other trademarks 
> also. They have put companies out of business defending their trademark, 
> the most recent was last March (IIRC) when they closed down some 
> business that was selling versions of Linux with the same codename as 
> their latest release.

But that's presumably "passing off" which is not what we are doing. It's 
impossible to pass sourceware eCos off as a discontinued product ;-). Not 
that it could be, having been established by Red Hat, etc.etc.

> And BTW, I believe you have to acknowledge trademarks by their owners. I 
> don't think you can get away with "All registered Trade Marks are the 
> property of their owners" anymore.  Std practice though is to be told of 
> the infringement so you have the opportunity to put things right.  Just 
> to be safe and proper, I do suggest you should put in a legal disclaimer.

I've done so by editting the footer, although it appears to be global to 
the site, not just the front page. If you have a better idea please say 
(or just go ahead and do as far as I'm concerned). e.g. if you know how to 
add whole new pages to bugzilla.

Jifl
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