Copyright, trademark, and GPL violations by a Sams book (including CD/DVD)

[Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu]

Please note that the Sams title

"Red Hat Fedora 3 Unleashed" (Billy Ball, Hoyt Duff)

ISBN: 0672327082
Format: Paperback, 950pp
Pub. Date: December 2004
Publisher: Sams
Edition Description: Book with 2 CD's

includes 2 CDs and a DVD containing GPL'ed software, but the licensing agreement
on the packaging is incompatible with the GPL (particularly the "no further
restrictions" requirement of clause 6 of the GPL Version 2):

  "By opening this sealed package, you accept and agree to the terms and
  conditions printed below.  If you do not agree, DO NOT OPEN THIS PACKAGE and
  immediately return the sealed package with a copy of your receipt for a full
  refund.

  This Software is protected by copyright and is being licenced to you to use
  and display solely for your personal use, unless the software was expressly sold
  to you for networking. You may *NOT* transfer or distribute the Software to
  anyone else by any means, including by posting it on the Internet. Except for
  one backup copy, you may *not* copy the Software or documentaion. You may *not*
  reverse engineer, disassemble, decompile, modify, adapt, translate, or create
  derivative works of the Software or documentation. You may be held legally
  responsible for any unlawful copying or documentaion.

  The Software media is distributed on an "AS IS"  basis,  without warranty.
  Neither the authors, licensors nor Pearson Education Inc. makes any
  representation, either expressed or implied, with respect to the Software, its
  quality, accuracy, fitness for a specific purpose or merchantability. Neither
  the authors, licensors, nor Pearson Education, Inc. has any liability to you or
  any other person with respect to any loss or damage caused by or alledged to
  have been caused by the Software including, but not limited to, direct,
  indirect, incidental and consequential damages, personal injury, wrongful
  death, lost profits, or damages resulting from lost data, loss of service, or
  business interruption.  This limitation may not be binding in your state.  If
  the media is defective, you may return it for replacement."

By failing to adhere to the requirements of the GPL (of which you received at
least 474 copies contained in a full Fedora Core 3 distribution, not counting
those copies contained within *.src.rpm files), you are in violation of clause
5 of the GPL:

    5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
  signed it.  However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
  distribute the Program or its derivative works.  These actions are
  prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.  Therefore, by
  modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
  Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
  all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
  the Program or works based on it.

Additionally, it's unclear if shipping a Fedora stripped down to fit on 2 disks
is permissible under RedHat's trademark guidelines: http://fedora.redhat.com/about/trademarks/
(in particular, note the "without modification" in clause 1 on this page:
http://fedora.redhat.com/about/trademarks/guidelines/page4.html)

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