{"id":284991,"date":"2026-07-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/the-trademark-scam-that-could-have-handed-linux-to-a-stranger-demanding-10-royalties\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T12:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T16:50:08","slug":"the-trademark-scam-that-could-have-handed-linux-to-a-stranger-demanding-10-royalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/the-trademark-scam-that-could-have-handed-linux-to-a-stranger-demanding-10-royalties\/","title":{"rendered":"The trademark scam that could have handed Linux to a stranger demanding 10% royalties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.makeuseof.com\/someone-trademarked-linux-and-demanded-10-in-royalties\/\">The trademark scam that could have handed Linux to a stranger demanding 10% royalties<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.makeuseof.com\/someone-trademarked-linux-and-demanded-10-in-royalties\/\">https:\/\/www.makeuseof.com\/someone-trademarked-linux-and-demanded-10-in-royalties\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-07-02 12:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.makeuseof.com\">www.makeuseof.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>When Linus Torvalds built the Linux kernel as a hobby project and announced it on Usenet with his typical understatement in 1991, he licensed it in a way that let anyone use and modify the code. What he didn&#8217;t do was trademark the name. That oversight nearly handed the entire Linux ecosystem to an unscrupulous Boston attorney that no one had ever heard of.<\/p>\n<p>                    <span data-field=\"label\" class=\"article-card-label\">Related<\/span><\/p>\n<h5 class=\"display-card-title \">\n<p>\t\t\tA Linux distro once got too close to Windows, and Microsoft came for it<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p class=\"display-card-excerpt\">Microsoft spent two and a half years trying to kill the name Lindows \u2014 and ended up paying $20 million for it<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"who-was-william-r-della-croce-jr\">\n                        Who was William R. Della Croce Jr.?<br \/>\n               <\/h2>\n<h3 id=\"a-trademark-filed-on-false-pretenses\">\n            A trademark filed on false pretenses<br \/>\n    <\/h3>\n<p>                                          &#8230;<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.makeuseof.com\/someone-trademarked-linux-and-demanded-10-in-royalties\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The trademark scam that could have handed Linux to a stranger demanding 10% royalties https:\/\/www.makeuseof.com\/someone-trademarked-linux-and-demanded-10-in-royalties\/&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":284992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static0.makeuseofimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/wm\/2026\/06\/endeavouros-pc.JPG?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-284991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284993,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284991\/revisions\/284993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}