On trademark issues.

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel helixcode com>]

Hello guys,

   Please check this mail.

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Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 06:53:56 -0700 (MST)
X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f
From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
To: miguel@gnu.org
Subject: gdp-trademark.txt
Reply-to: rms@gnu.org

I saw a file gdp-trademark.txt which says this:

    3. If you use any of the trademarks, you should add to <legalnotice>
       section appropriate legal junk, e.g. 

	<legalnotice>
	  <para>
	    This document can be freely redistributed according to the
	    terms of the GNU 
	    General Public License.
	  </para>
	  <para> Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds</para>
	  <para> UNIX is a trademark of X/Open Group</para>
	  <para> Macintosh  is a trademark of Apple, Inc.</para>
	  <para> All other trademarks are property of their owners</para>
	</legalnotice>

Please don't use such notices in any GNU documentation (or software
packages).  There is no legal requirement for them, and they have the
spirit of kowtowing to businesses, so our policy for 16 years has been
not to use them in anything we do.

I wrote a statement about this in the coding standards just now;
here is what I wrote:

    @node Trademarks
    @section Trademarks

    Please do not include any trademark acknowledgements in GNU software
    packages or documentation.

    Trademark acknowledgements are the statements that such-and-such is a
    trademark of so-and-so.  The GNU Project has no objection to the basic
    idea of trademarks, but these acknowledgements feel like kowtowing, so
    we don't use them.  There is no legal requirement for them.

    What is legally required, as regards other people's trademarks, is to
    avoid using them in ways which a reader might read as naming or labeling
    our own programs or activities.  For example, since ``Objective C'' is
    (or at least was) a trademark, we made sure to say that we provide a
    ``compiler for the Objective C language'' rather than an ``Objective C
    compiler''.  The latter is meant to be short for the former, but it does
    not explicitly state the relationship, so it could be misinterpreted as
    using ``Objective C'' as a label for the compiler rather than for the
    language.


Please pass this on to the relevant people.
(Could you tell me who they are?)
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