[Fedora-legal-list] fwsnort vs. snort TM

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 07/07/2009 05:28 AM, Peter Vrabec wrote:
> Dear Fedora Legal,
> 
> 
> I'd like to push fwsnort into Fedora, but I'm afraid there might be
> problem with snort TM.
> 
> 
> http://www.snort.org/legal/snort-licensing/snort-trademark-guidelines
> 
> 
> I have contacted fwsnort upstream and I was told they didn't have any
> approval from Sourcefire Marketing. But there are more projects that use
> term snort on freshmeat.net. Snort is released under GPL. fwsnort
> doesn't use any VRT licensed Snort rules and fwsnort had probably
> existed before snort TM.
> 
> 
> Could you please help me to clean up this issue. thnx.

Well, the existence of others who are violating a registered trademark
doesn't make it acceptable, this is the "everyone else is doing heroin,
so my use is okay" argument.

At a minimum, you'd need to rename it for Fedora so it isn't a clear
derivation of "snort".

~spot