Howdie,
Since I posted some info on the subject in the past, and since this generated a lot of off list interest and because was looking for info about the subject myself because of this and couldn't find any until now, you might be interesting in the following:
http://www.redhat.com/about/corporate/trademark/
It supplies RedHat's guidelines for use it's trademarks and logos.
It basically says: unless you asked us for premission, you're not supposed to use our trademarks and logos in stuff you distribute.
This means, if you accept their terms, that while you are compeltly free to distribute the software they distribute, you need to not use their trademarks.
This includes their logo and name used on the software on their CDs. If you want to distribute the software, you need to remove their trademark from it.
It also means that if you distribute redhat distro, but didn';t get their blessing you are not entitled to say it contains RedHat software or it is based on RedHat software.
Again, just to make sure - you can and are allowed to distribute the software. You are not allowed to use their name without asking for premission. You can take the software they package and install it on a zillion machines and sell it to a million clients, you are just not allowed to claim it's a RedHat distro you're using and must make sure you don't put their logo and name on what you install.
Now, the big 9,000,000$ question is:
Does this violate the principles of Free Software (note that I didn't say anything about the GPL license - IANAL, I'm asking if you think it hurts violates the philosophy of Free Software):
My *personal* opinion thus far is that it isn't a violation. At least it seems to me to pass the Stallman printer driver test.
It does pose some very interesting practical questions - for example, can we install a non modified RedHat logo carrying distro on the next install party? the answer seems to be no, unless we ask for premission to use their logos.
Let the flame wars begin.
Gilad
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