[gobolinux-users] Re: Firefox up to date

[MJ Ray]

"Michael Homer" <gobo-users-dufus at wotfun.com> wrote:
> On 8/3/06, Jonas Karlsson <jonka750 at student.liu.se> wrote:
[making the recipe build with firefox branding]
> > Hehe, not really sure, but I guess that could be ok. MJ Ray, what do you think?
> 
> I don't think you can - at least, Gentoo had to get permission to
> brand it Firefox (it was "Deer Park" all over until recently), and
> they (of course) have it compiled independently. I'm not sure that
> there's really any legal basis to that, since if you're not
> distributing it you don't actually have to agree to the licence terms
> in any way I can see, but it does appear to be policy.

Not distributing it means that you probably don't have to
worry about the restrictive trademark terms, which is good.

Sadly, distributing it is only a small part of it.  In many
places, copyright law also covers many sorts of copying within
a computer, but in others, the law explicitly permits them.
If I recall correctly, some of the firefox branding is in the
other-licenses folder and there is literally *no* permission
to copy it at all, even into a program.

Firefox branding is a cruel trademark and copyright double whammy.
No wonder its logo is a fox in a washing machine.  ;-)

I suggest making the recipe build it unbranded, keeping the
/bin/firefox (which I don't believe trademarks can prevent), but
using something more meaningful like "Web Browser" in the window
title and so on.  Probably a good idea to point to the trademark
and copyright licences for the branding in the comments, too.

Even so, make it really easy to uncomment a few lines and build
the official one.  I don't think most users will notice or care
and I think it's better to build packages people can share.

Hope that explains,
-- 
MJ Ray - see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
North End, Lynn, Norfolk, England
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