Message-ID: <20001215194059.10333.qmail@web5202.mail.yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 11:40:59 -0800 (PST)
From: Rob Landley <telomerase@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Is there a Linux trademark issue with sun?
To: Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
Cc: maddog@valinux.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
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Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org

--- Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> wrote:

> Yup, that's Scooter (all the Sun old timers call him
> Scooter, I dunno where
> it came from, I wasn't enough of an old timer). 
> And, yeah, he does a lot 
> of marketing.  But in many respects, he's the
> perfect CEO.  He's always
> out in public, pushing the message, and he tends to
> leave the day to day
> stuff to the other folks.  I'll take him over Gates
> any day of the week.

I'm not against them, and I wouldn't make too big a
deal out of it.  I'm just recommending that somebody
official ask them politely to stop doing it.

Here's how I see it:

Sun feels that their core product, Solaris, is
threatened by Linux.  They have several options:

A) Jump on board and use Linux on their hardware.
B) Improve Solaris until it can compete on its own
merits.
C) Market Solaris better, to make people want Solaris
instead of Linux.
D) Confuse people into thinking that Linux and Solaris
are the same thing.

He's gone for D, and he's run straight into the Linux
trademark doing so.  If everybody wants to abolish the
Linux trademark, that's fine.  But if we don't defend
it here, I really do think it becomes too weak to be
useful in other situations.

McNealy wants to leverage the growth of Linux to help
his company, which is fine, but he's going about it
the wrong way.  What if IBM had done this sort of
thing with AIX or Monterey instead of miraculously
acquiring a clue?  IBM hasn't, they've respected the
Linux trademark very conscientiously.

> Scott's only big sin was to dump SunOS for Slowaris.

I still dunno WHY that happened (other than gaining
threading), but I suspect that should go to email...

Rob

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