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[Gary W. Swearingen]

Rich Morin <rdm at cfcl.com> writes:

> At 8:14 PM +0200 7/23/03, <Nasier at cbhs.wcape.school.za> wrote:
>>I would like to use the freeBSD [sic] logo on a advert that I am
>>developing.
[snip]
> http://www.mckusick.com/beastie/mainpage/copyright.html) for more info.

Folks should note that MKM only claims copyrights at that page.  (It
has statements which make me wonder if he had copyrights and trademark
rights confused, but it's hard to believe that he didn't know the
difference.)

It's conceivable that someone also has exclusive rights on the use
of a demon (in the context of an OS) as a trademark.  And it seems
likely that it isn't MKM.  I'm guessing that it's not a protected
trademark, but I would want to check with Wind River, FreeBSD Mall,
and MKM, at least, maybe asking for some evidence, before using it.

If anyone knows who has ever claimed to be using a demon as a
protected trademark, please name them.

If there is no trademarked demon, then it should be legal to use a
demon in one's advertising as long as the demon is a derivative of
public domain demons and not of MKM's demons.  But there are (at
least) two other considerations: 1) One might prefer to avoid the risk
of getting into a dispute with MKM (and/or other FreeBSD people) about
whether one's demon is a derivative of MKM's.  2) One might prefer to
honor MKM with some rights that the law might not give him just
because (I'm guessing here) he probably didn't follow trademark rules.