[gobolinux-users] Firefox & Mozilla

[Jonas Karlsson]

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 22:50:59 +0200, Rayne Van-Dunem  
<raynenamibia at gmail.com> wrote:

> Actually, its not the trademark that is the main issue here, and I'm
> thinking that the Iceweasel debate, in its present form, is 1)  
> restricted to
> Debian-Mozilla relations and 2) being blown *Way* out of proportion by  
> the
> media (both pro- and anti-FOSS).
>
I agree that the debate is out of propotions, but not due the reasons you  
mention.

> For one, consider this: if someone outside of Mozilla *modifies* the  
> Firefox
> source code and redistributes it under the same name (Mozilla Firefox)  
> with
> distro-specific bugs (and even major code flaws), and the public gets  
> ahold
> of it, uses it, and gets turned off, they're going to point the finger
> *directly* at Mozilla.
>
That's probably true but most certainly wrong. One should always turn to  
the distributor as it may have made some changes to the app to make it  
more fit to the system the destributor provides. How has Gnome, KDE and  
similar big projects (which includes trademarks) handle such issues, I  
haven't seen them muck about in the same way MozCo does.

> Therefore, Mozilla's trademark provisions allow for redistribution under
> their name as long as the code remains *unmodified*. Redistribution of
> modified code is also allowed (per the GPL), but the trademarks "Mozilla"
> and "Firefox" (and the adjacent artwork, over which there is a copyright)
> have to be stripped from the code for the above reasons.
>
Or stripped from the binary rather. One interesting note is that the  
executable is called 'firefox' no matter how one tries to strip the binary  
 from that name (by using options to configure, which should be enough  
since there exist an option "--enable-official-branding").

> Now, to Debian.
>
> Debian's devs had submitted requests to the Moz Bugzilla in regards to  
> the
> fixing of code. The requests sat at the Bugzilla unanswered for a long  
> time,
> and Debian decided to recompile Firefox with modifications. Mozilla  
> warned
> Debian that, in order for it to retain the trademark and the art  
> copyright,
> it had to remain unmodified (or at least sanctioned by the Firefox devs);
> otherwise, both had to be stripped from the code. Debian opted for the
> latter (going as far as to strip it of any "unfree" components), and
> released Iceweasel.
>
Yes, MozCo did issue that warning, but that was not the reason Debian went  
for Iceweasel instead of getting a sanctioned version of Firefox. It was  
that the logo was marked as unfree and therefore Debian could not use it,  
at the same time MozCo demanded that the logo and the name Firefox must  
_always_ be used together (I'm not even sure that the community version  
license is valid any more).
Why this issue is blown out of proportion is that Debian devs where quite  
frustrated ver that MozCo would revoke the ageement between MozFo and  
Debian soon before Etch (Debian's next release) would go into "deep  
freeze", leaving no time for negotiations. The agreement was that Debian  
could use the name without using the logo (since the logo was not free),  
but, as stated, this is no longer ok according to MozCo. As the name was  
tied to the logo, which was not free, Debian could use neither, and even  
if they were allowed to use it, they could not do it as that would break  
the dsfg (http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines), #8.

> The only possible implication that I could see for other distributions,
> which mostly use the substitute globe logo with the Firefox name, is the
> titularity of the Firefox name itself. Considering that they all compile  
> the
> official tarballs into their own respective binaries, they are, or should
> be, protected from any legal stink with Mozilla as long as the code is
> distributed unmodified. However, the statement that the name is as  
> protected
> as the logo slightly muddles things.

Yes, and as stated above, the logo and name must be kept together when one  
distributes Firefox. So all distros that make their own compilation of  
Firefox have either to get clearance from MozCo or to drop the logo _and_  
name altoghether. One could always use the official binaries, but then one  
is locked at what MozFo decides.

>
> It could be that the conditions are as follows:
>
> 1. The official logo (with the fox) is tied to Firefox in *binary* form.
>
> 2. The name (Firefox) is tied to Firefox in *source* form.
>
> So that may explain why Mac users can get both the logo and name from
> Mozilla - Mozilla personally compiles Firefox for Mac in binary form -  
> while
> Debian or Fedora can only get the name - Mozilla compiles Firefox for the
> various *nixes in source form, while those OSes have to then recompile
> Firefox in binary form for themselves.
The logo and the name are both tied to the binary version and they are  
both tied together. Any official sanctioned build can use them, but only  
if they're used together.
One does not have to recompile Firefox, just that the binary distributed  
by MozFo is very general, to suit as many flavors as possible.

>
> So Gobolinux could just retain Firefox with the name sans the logo  
> (which is
> sanctioned by Mozilla), or it could go whole turkey and dump them both -
> thus, Firefox - in favor of Debian's IceWeasel.
>
If MozCo turns this way I think they would tell us that it's not ok to use  
the name without the logo, even if we do a community version.

My view is that, if we want to redistribute Firefox as Firefox, we should  
stick to the official binary until we get clearance to use our own  
compiled version. Anyhow, I do think we should make Iceweasel available no  
matter what the decission on Firefox is.

I'm actually for dropping Firefox in favour for Iceweasel, but that's  
perhaps too much. :)

-- 
/Jonas

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