No trademarks in upstream source [LWN.net]

No trademarks in upstream source

Posted Mar 4, 2025 18:10 UTC (Tue) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)
In reply to: No trademarks in upstream source by Wol
Parent article: Fedora discusses Flatpak priorities

> But why is everybody so obsessed with defrauding their own downstream? Why is everybody so obsessed (in the name of freedom) with violating the GPL?

Quite the contrary. I do not want to defraud anyone. If upstream does not want that I distribute modified versions, I will not do it. But then I will not consider the software FOSS. That is as simple as that.

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No trademarks in upstream source

Posted Mar 4, 2025 19:50 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> Quite the contrary. I do not want to defraud anyone.

So why don't you care that *your* *downstream* has no idea of the true origin of the software in question? It's morally indefensible (and quite likely illegal) to misrepresent someone else's software as your own; so why do you consider it perfectly acceptable to misrepresent your software as someone else's? That's what I mean about defrauding your own downstream.

(And that's why trademarks got dragged into this, that is exactly what trademarks are for.)

Cheers,
Wol