Here is an article from Sourceforge regarding the status of the LINUX trademark.  What is doesn’t make clear enough is that Linus Torvarlds, author of the LINUX operating system, owns a registered trademark 1916230 for LINUX, and all other things being eqaul, third parties cannot own trademarks incorproating that term for goods and services realted to operating systems.  Do a metasearch of the term LINUX to see how many applications will be rejected.