Hello all,
The Linux Mark Institute, now part of OSDL it seems, is attempting to
charge organisations which use Linux in their name - even non-profits
like linuxaudio.org:
http://www.linuxmark.org/forms/linux_licence_doc.html#Check1
I think we should resist this move on principle. It may only be US
$200 per year at the moment for a non-profit, but I don't think it's
really in the spirit of free software to go round mugging people for
money like this. I thought the name Linux was trademarked to prevent
it from abuse.
Cheers
Daniel
Daniel,
We are still tuning the web site and its verbiage. Your points are well taken.
daniel(a)linuxaudio.org said:
> However, I think the way that this is being handled, with the threat of
> legal action against legitmate non-profit Linux groups who don't pay up, is
> wrong.
....
> "If you know of entities or persons using the Linux mark without a license
> and without the required legend, please notify us with the details. We will
> then contact that entity or person and attempt to negotiate a license
> agreement with them, or will take such other further legal action as might
> be necessary."
As in most Legal things, every word is important. You missed the word
"negotiate". What is most important to us is that the Mark be sublicensed
properly. If people are not willing to help us do this, both for LMI's interest
and for their own, then maybe they should not be using the Mark. On the other
hand, we DO listen.
> That would be a good idea. Have you asked Bruce Perens? It was his concern
> about the Debian-compatibility of the LMI sublicence that brought this
> matter to our attention.
We are currently working with Bruce to meet his concerns. We do not anticipate
any changes to the license itself. We believe that Bruce misinterpreted the
license. We would have preferred Bruce coming to us with questions and issues
before going to the Debian community. If he had, we probably would have been
able to get much further than we are right now, but that is water over the dam.
We plan on creating a FAQ that explains some of the harder points of law in
more understandable terms. The tricky part of that is not to compromise what
is needed by the legalese to protect the Mark by having an interpretation in
English that does not accurately reflect the legalese.
> However, the actual licence text, by setting an annual fee for non-profits,
> seems to contradict it's own fair use provisions.
The term "fair use" is a very legal term, and has very specific needs. I can
not just say that your use of the term "Linux" is "fair use" just because it
fits the definition of what you and I might consider "fair".
>As far as linuxaudio.org is concerned, we could help that effort by
>putting 'LINUX® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds'
This would be a wonderful thing, and would help to protect the Mark in any
case.
All I can do is say that LMI is doing its best to protect the Mark, and none of
the members of LMI or OSDL wants to make the use of the Mark any harder than
we absolutely must.
Of all the things I do, this is the least enjoyable, but I am well aware of the
dynamics of the FOSS community, and LMI is working to both protect the Mark
and make it available, something extremely tricky under Trademark law.
Having said all this, I beg to be quiet about this at this point so I can
prepare for a board meeting where I will discuss your concerns and feedback
with the attornies and other board members.
md
--
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director Linux International(R)
email: maddog(a)li.org 80 Amherst St.
Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org
Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association
(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant
to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
countries.
Daniel,
daniel(a)linuxaudio.org said:
> If this is the case, could you ask LMI and/or OSDL to reconsider this move?
> It could be seen as a tax by OSDL's corporate founders on Linux-related
> groups around the world.
LMI is constantly looking at this, and we will consider any reasonable path
that can be done. But please understand that I (Jon "maddog" Hall), have
spent close to 100,000 USD of my personal funds, as well as another 200,000 USD
of Linux International's money, defending the Linux Trademark around the world
so that user groups like yours can use it. LI is broke, and so am I.
OSDL and its corporate sponsors are not "taxing" the use of the word Linux.
OSDL has loaned LMI (a non-profit corporation, with NO paid board members or
staff other than a paralegal, who has to eat) money to try and make the
protection of the word "Linux" self-funding. There is one OSDL representative
on the board, which is reasonable since they want to make sure their money is
being spent wisely and that we are proceeding to do 'the right thing', whatever
that is. The rest of the board members are either legal or community. Linus
gets copied on every decision, and can revoke LMI's authority to do this if
he wishes. We are looking to expand the board, taking more people from
the community, not from OSDL, and trying to get some non-USA input into this
also.
Again, we are constantly looking at trying to make this as low cost as possible,
but when it costs 100,000 USD to file a trademark in the EU, the money has to
come from someplace.
> Perhaps there should be a turnover cut-off, eg organisations with less than
> US $100,000 annual turnover don't have to pay.
I think there has to be some payment, as it costs money to administer the MARK,
which is part of what the law says you have to do to protect it. If there was
no charge whatsoever, then tens of thousands of people might try to register
names "just in case"...sort of like URL cybersquatting. Part of protecting
the name is keeping the namespace open so that legitimate groups (like yours)
can use it.
As I said, we are constantly reviewing this policy, and I will take your
concern to the board (which, by the way, has only one OSDL employee on it).
Warmest regards,
md
--
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director Linux International(R)
email: maddog(a)li.org 80 Amherst St.
Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org
Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association
(R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries.
(R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant
to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus
Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis
(R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other
countries.
Hi Jon,
Is it true that the Linux Mark Institute wants to charge non-profits
US $200 per year to use the word Linux in their names? That's the
impression I get from the form here:
http://www.linuxmark.org/forms/linux_licence_doc.html#Check1
If this is the case, could you ask LMI and/or OSDL to reconsider this
move? It could be seen as a tax by OSDL's corporate founders on
Linux-related groups around the world.
Perhaps there should be a turnover cut-off, eg organisations with less
than US $100,000 annual turnover don't have to pay.
Cheers!
Daniel
(on behalf of linuxaudio.org)
Hi Leslie,
> > I think we should resist this move on principle.
>
> I think so, too - they claim to just protect the trademark, but
> they could surely do so without charging fees from non-profit
> organizations. The problem is that they have the legal basis to do
> whatever they want, don't they?
They claim to have the authority of Linus, but I'm not sure if he was
consulted on this tax-raising initiative. The Linux Mark Institute
doesn't explicitly say it is run by OSDL, but it is registered in
Beaverton, Oregon (same town) and its site is hosted on an OSDL
server. OSDL is Linus's employer of course.
The idea that free software developers and users have to pay an
organisation founded by IBM, HP, Intel etc etc to use the Linux name
may prove difficult to defend. It may also be difficult to enforce a
trademark with legal penalties in some countries if it hasn't been
enforced previously.
Cheers!
Daniel
Greetings all,
It is my pleasure to announce 5 new members that have expressed interest in
joining the consortium:
1) jack-rack project
Represented by Leslie Patrick Polzer
http://jack-rack.sourceforge.net/
2) pawfal.org projects (spiral modular, livenoisetools etc.)
Represented by Dave Griffiths
http://www.pawfal.org
3) RTcmix project
Represented by John Gibson
http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/RTcmix-4.0-beta/
(is there a better URL?)
4) Lilypond Software Design
Represented by Han-Wen Nienhuys
http://www.lilypond-design.com/
5) RTMix (this is my project so it's not that big of a deal)
Represented by me :-)
http://meowing.ccm.uc.edu/~ico/RTMix-doc/index.html
Daniel could you please add the aforementioned members to our website? Many
thanks!
There is also Csound project whose membership is currently pending. John
ffitch has expressed interest in joining and representing Csound, but I am
still waiting for the official e-mail from him.
Apart from continuing to seek new members, in the coming weeks I would like
to propose discussing revamping of the logo as well as the issue of forming
a foundation.
In the meantime, have a great summer all!
Best wishes,
Ivica Ico Bukvic, composer & multimedia sculptor
http://meowing.ccm.uc.edu/~ico/
Hi Jody,
> It turns out the reason they haven't provided me with
> documentation on mLAN is that basically, none exists (!).
In English, maybe. There's probably some available in Japanese, but
Jun-ichi has conceded that mLAN as a standard hasn't been finalised
yet.
> The AES
> are standardizing something called "Open Generic Transporter,"
> which is fairly close to the current version of mLAN, and I have
> that document. So, along with some protocol snooping, I should be
> able to figure things out.
Reverse engineering may not be required. I just had a mail from
Richard Foss at Rhodes University in South Africa, indicating that
quite a lot of the groundwork has been done already. I'll forward
that to you.
Cheers!
Daniel
Hello all,
Looks like there has been some progress on mLAN support. I'm currently
writing an article on FireWire audio for LinuxUser & Developer, and
turned up this...
Cheers!
Daniel
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: RE: mLAN on Linux
Date: Wednesday 22 June 2005 19:46
From: "Richard Foss" <R.Foss(a)ru.ac.za>
To: "Daniel James" <danieljames(a)linuxuser.co.uk>, "Shaun Bangay"
<s.bangay(a)ru.ac.za>
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for contacting us.
Yes, we have done a lot of work on mLAN under Linux, and this has
been in association with Yamaha's mLAN project group led by Jun-ichi
Fujimori.
Shaun wrote an mLAN ALSA driver, sponsored by Yamaha, and this is
available at:
http://mlanalsa.sourceforge.net/
We have also written an mLAN Enabler for Linux, and associated
Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) plug-ins. If you need to become
familiar with the Enabler/Transporter concept, I can send you an AES
paper that Jun-ichi Fujimori and I wrote about this.
This Linux Enabler/HAL plug-in work was also sponsored by Yamaha, and
it is this that Jun-ichi Fujimori is talking about when he mentions
that source code for the current connection management system might
be made available in the next few months.
Let me know if you have any further queries.
Regards,
Richard.
Richard Foss
Associate Professor
Computer Science Department
Rhodes University
Grahamstown 6140
South Africa
Tel: +27 46 603 8294
Fax: +27 46 636 1915
Hi David,
> I was wondering if you could clarify/expand
> on the third paragraph, the second sentence in particular
> (beguinning 'At the end of the day, software is just a bunch of
> numbers...')
Sure! Paul was making the comparison between distributing software for
free, and leaving your front door open, inviting people to come in
and take your stuff. The comparison doesn't really work because if I
create a piece of software, I can burn it on to CDs any number of
times for a few pence each, or even more cheaply, put it on a web
server. The people I give the software to can pass it on further,
until between us we've created millions of copies at negligible cost.
Unfortunately, what's true for software binaries is not true for the
atoms in physical property. I can't take my guitar and make thousands
or millions of perfect copies of it using my computer. In fact, each
copy I make could cost at least as much or more than the first one,
assuming I actually had the skills required to copy a guitar. So
while I'm happy to distribute free software, I wouldn't let just
anyone borrow my guitar - and there's nothing illogical about that.
A problem is created when proprietary software companies try to have
it both ways. On the one hand, they want to be able to use CD-ROM and
internet technologies to mass-produce software at a very high profit
margin. On the other hand, they pretend to be upset when other people
use exactly the same technologies to copy the software without paying
for it.
We could draw an analogy with music itself, and say that the real
problem is how to make sure that creativity in the development of
software is rewarded.
Cheers!
Daniel
Hello Paul,
In your July issue editorial, I think you've unintentionally
misrepresented the views of free software developers producing audio
and music applications for Linux and other platforms. There are
people who think software should be free, but they're not demanding
that proprietary software houses give away their creations.
Instead, they are writing their own software, and giving the source
code away - which of course they are perfectly entitled to do. It has
practical benefits because software needs active maintenance to
remain useful, so the more people who have access to the code, the
better.
The argument that software and physical property, such as the stuff in
your house, are equivalent will always fall on its face. At the end
of the day, software is just a bunch of numbers, and what's true for
software creators (marginal or zero cost copying) is just as true for
software users.
Proprietary software companies moan about so-called 'piracy', but in
truth they'd rather have an unpaid-for copy of their own software
running on your machine than a paid-for copy from their competitor.
It's how a particular application becomes a de-facto standard. Every
time someone passes a installer CD to their friend, they are
participating in viral marketing for that company.
Hardware prices have fallen dramatically, but proprietary music
software is as expensive as ever. I mean, £1450 for a single copy of
Nuendo, with known bugs? I'd resent having to pay for bug fix updates
too. Is it any wonder that students and musicians are writing their
own software?
Cheers!
Daniel James
63 School Green Road
Freshwater
Isle of Wight
PO40 9AT
