To be honest, it didn't really matter to me about using the trademark. My only desire had been to make the site familiar for Ubuntu users. But the whole episode was a strong reminder that trademarks dominate all commercial activity in America. Like patents and copyright, trademarks are a weapon that companies can use to battle each other and ultimately restrict the freedom of their customers. As such, I find it odd that while many people in the world of open source are campaigning for reforms in copyright and patents, most ignore trademarking. Trademarking is just as dangerous as its two intellectual property brothers.

There's history here, of course. Back in 1994 a lawyer spotted that "Linux" wasn't trademarked, so decided to trademark it himself. In a move that only a lawyer could dream-up, he then attempted to sue companies involved with Linux for using "his" trademark without permission. To cut a long story short, the trademark assignation was eventually overturned and the trademark assigned to Linus Torvalds. The was subsequently setup and, after a little turbulence, presently hands-out free licenses for the word "Linux" upon request.

However, make no mistake: If you want to use the word "Linux" in any commercial way related to computers, such as including the word in your organization's title, you need to get a license. The word "Linux" is nowhere near as free as the software it represents. In fact, it isn't free. For this we have to thank the system of trademarks.

Even within the Linux community, trademarking can be used as obstructively as copyright and patenting to further business ends. Red Hat prohibit redistribution of binary packages of their Enterprise distro by claiming doing so would mean the reproduction of their trademark (see ). Never mind that the free and unrestricted redistribution of the software is pretty much the core value of Linux.