With the approval of Linus Torvalds, and a pro bono attorney, SSC,
Yggdrasil, Red Hat, and most of the other companies making money out
of Linux started a lawsuit against the parasite, and tried to get
the trademark invalidated.
The outcome was that before the case came to court the opportunist
folded, and the trademark was assigned (by mutual consent) to Linus
Torvalds (who (a) invented Linux, and therefore deserves to hold it
if anyone does, and (b) who has no intention of using it to make
money).
This is an interesting case insofar as it shows commercial entities
_defending_ a common good (free access to the name "Linux"). The Linux
industry, foetal though it might be at present, seems to have
accomodated itself to the "bazaar" model of software development just
when the rest of the computer industry is at the opposite extreme.
Moreover, those companies -- even the most aggressively corporate
ones, like Caldera -- are putting back freeware into the communal
pot (RedHat's RPM system, Caldera's COAS and PPP code). They're treating
their field as a positive-sum game, where cooperation results in greater
growth than defection and it therefore pays dividends to give software
away for free -- because, of course, the more Good Stuff there is in
the free Linux systems, the more people will use it, and the more
the businesses employing them will be inclined to pay for the commercial
support packages aimed at businesses.
-- Charlie