legal Digest, Vol 22, Issue 4

[Ingbert Grimpe]

Personally I see the biggest problem in this case in the fact that 
trademarks and GPL rights get mixed up.
 From their website:
"Die Verwendung des Namens xt:Commerce und/oder Logos für Werbezwecke 
ist nur mit ausdrücklicher Genehmigung seitens xt:Commerce gestattet."
This translates to: "The use of the name xt:Commerce and/or the logos 
for advertisement is only allowed with explicit approval by xt:Commerce"
If I do make the package publicable available I obviously do need to 
name it somehow. If I name it xt:Commerce, am I advertising it already? 
If I only change the name (and this means everywhere in the source), 
would this be a solution.
Because of the legal implications I rather choose NOT to distribute the 
package (other than to my customers directly via CD/DVD or to make 
enhancements available. Probably not really what the GPL was made for, 
but better than to go to court ...

> Right.  I'm familiar with that trademark concept, and it's the basis 
> Red Hat uses 
> (http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/guidelines/page6.html). 
> They say that you should not use the name Red Hat (for unmodified Red 
> Hat software) so you "will not indicate or imply that your product 
> originates from [Red Hat]".  To me, though, this implication is 
> reasonable, as the software was created by Red Hat, and verbatim 
> copies can still be said to be originate from Red Hat.  Thus, I 
> thinking they are overstating their Lantham rights.
>
> Red Hat also deliberately uses non-free image licenses to prevent 
> intact redistribution.
>
> Matthew Flaschen
>
> David A. Desrosiers wrote:
>> On Tue, 2006-09-12 at 10:12 -0400, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
>>
>>>> It would be peculiar if they forbade distribution of their
>>>> *unmodified* software unless the name was changed first. Is that 
>>>> what you are describing? 
>>
>>> I know that's what RedHat does.
>>
>> This is often called a "Lanham Act" violation, iirc. or "False
>> designation of origin".
>>