OpenSSH Trademark Infringement

Andrew Hesford ajh3 at hecubus.bsdonline.org
Thu Feb 15 03:11:45 EST 2001


Just thought I'd put my two cents in about the trademark infringement
issue. 

I ran the true SSH for about a month some time back. When I learned of
OpenSSH, I dropped the official product and built OpenSSH. Quite
frankly, OpenSSH is a superior package. It is cleaner, commercially
unencumbered, and with its affiliation to the OpenBSD team, I feel more
secure about the code quality.

When somebody mentions SSH, I don't think about the people behind
ssh.com, I think about OpenSSH, which runs continuously on my
workstation, serving as my only remote entry point. To me, and I imagine
to many others, SSH is not a corporate product, but instead a generic
name, reserving a phrase similar to "the official SSH" for the corporate
product.

I have never confused OpenSSH with the official SSH, and never will.
However, the OpenSSH name may infringe upon copyrights against SSH, but
I believe that SSH Communications Security has already lost control of
the SSH trademark. If the OpenSSH team can show this, there will be no
need for a name change.

Good luck.
-- 
Andrew Hesford - ajh3 at chmod.ath.cx
"355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI,
 but an incredible simulation!"





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