MJ Ray wrote: > Who cares? Why not rename it and avoid the whole debate, if the > maintainer thinks their terms might be unacceptable?
I think it would be helpful if the driver was named after the technology. If the bluetooth driver was named "harold" and the trident driver named "poseidon" it would not be obvious that the kernel supports these technologies. It adds a needless layer of abstraction onto the naming of kernel modules. This is part of the more general problem of trademarks in free software. If we don't solve this problem Debian could become a distribution of euphemisms. The company in question is willing to negotiate terms for a trademark license that is agreeable to all parties. Obviously any advertising or guarantee restrictions are unacceptable to us. Unlimited use of the trademark is unacceptable to them. We want unrestricted modification and redistribution. They want their trademarks stripped from modified code that is essentially different in intent and purpose from the original code. Necessarily the point where they want their trademarks stripped from the code is within the frontier of possible modifications under the GPL. However, code that is essentially different in intent and purpose is also likely to be original work in itself and not a derivative of the original code. This original work may not use the trademarks without permission. This restriction is therefore beyond the frontier of possible derivative works and thus is compatible with the GPL. Perhaps this is where we can find agreement with them. What do you think? Kind regards, Nicholas