[gobolinux-users] Re: Firefox up to date

[Jonas Karlsson]

On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 16:16:25 +0200, MJ Ray <mjr at phonecoop.coop> wrote:

> "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.
>
If you build a local copy you can build it with any options you want, as  
long as you don't let anyone else have that copy.

> 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.
>
There are guides on how you can download the sources and copy the icons  
into a unbranded version of Firefox, but if what you said is true, these  
aren't allowed copyright-wise.

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

> 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.
>
That's just what I've done, even though I called it "Firefox - Community  
edition", but perhaps I should remove the Firefox part and then I can  
remove the Community edition as well, as that was there only to be able to  
call it Firefox. Then we can have just about anything in the title bar,  
any suggestions? I think we should keep it the way we have it now.
About the name of the binary, I can't remember that I've seen anything  
that it couldn't be called firefox, even if it was a non-official build.

> 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.
>
To have an official build with the recipe I made, all one has to do is  
disable the branding patch (move/remove it) and uncomment one marked line  
in the recipe.

-- 
/Jonas

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