Re: Tetris clones

["Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa redhat com>]

On Mon, 2007-04-30 at 21:50 -0700, Wart wrote:
> It was recently brought to my attention[1] that the bsd-games package 
> contains 'tetris-bsd', a curses-based tetris clone.  This was an 
> oversight on my part, because if I had paid closer attention during the 
> review I would have stripped the name 'tetris' and replaced it with 
> something less objectionable.  Now that I know, I'll do that anyway.
> 
> But the bug report is claiming that all tetris clones are illegal and 
> should be removed, not just the name 'tetris'.  What is the legal status 
> of tetris (and other game) clones?  Can we get some "official" word from 
> a legal department on what is and isn't allowed?

As long as the game doesn't use the "Tetris" trademark to describe
itself, the game is fine.

~spot