Fedora Dispute

[Thomas Cameron]

> Thomas
> We are spending too much time on this but your quoting of Webbink (the
> name alone makes me suspicious) flies in the face of reality.

For Heaven's sake, why?  This is Red Hat, people, not Microsoft.  You 
remember, the company that has *given* away operating systems since, what, 
1994?  Webbink is Red Hat's counsel.  He represents Red Hat.  He has said 
publicly that Red Hat has no intention of bothering the Cornell/UVA people. 
There is absolutely no reason to do so - the product lines could not be 
confused in any meaningful way.  It would do Red Hat serious harm in the 
eyes of the community if they did, and there is really no way that the 
Cornell/UVA people could do anything to cause Red Hat to even look at them 
funny unless they started up a Linux distro.

> Fairely
> often a large corporation sues a smaller store or company for using
> not only the exactly same name that they have trademarked but for a
> name that is a pun on their name.

If they are competitors, yes I can see that.  I remember the whole Mike Rowe 
lawsuit (mikerowesoft.com), too.  But in that case, it was 1) Microsoft and 
2) pretty obvious that it was an intentional play on Microsoft and Mike Rowe 
was actually competing - he was selling development services and Microsoft 
sells development services.  In this case (Cornell/UVA's F.E.D.O.R.A. 
project versus Red Hat's Fedora Project), there is no such competition.

> If Cornell/UVA were not also
> marketing software I would be more sympathetic that the trademarking
> could not affect Cornell/UVA.

I can certainly understand your point of view, but seriously - what on Earth 
would Red Hat gain by jacking with the Cornell/UVA project?  There is no 
competition, they are in different areas of technology.

Thomas