Mozilla Firefox's icon and trademark
Hello all,
I received a rather disturbing email from Andre Dahlqvist (quoted
below with URLs) today that I'm having trouble with, and I'd like
opinions and advice on how to proceed. debian-legal might be a better
forum for this, but I think it has some deep ramifications for not
just firefox.
I included the official icons in my latest mozilla-firefox package,
thinking that the developers had perhaps rushed to get the release
done forgot to include it. Unfortunately it seems these icons and even
the name "Firefox" (and Mozilla even) are trademarked and can't be
used except with the official builds or permission of the Mozilla
Foundation (see http://mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html and
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=50876). Now I feel
confident I could get said permission, but it would be pointless since
it would likely violate point 8 of the DFSG.
Now not being able to use the artwork is annoying, but not the end of
the world (people will whine as to why we don't have the pretty
icon). However, not being able to use the name would really be a
shame, not to mention confusing.
So, how should I approach the Firefox developers (or branding team)?
or should I merely rename the browser in Debian to something like
Icerabbit (you get the idea) to skirt these thorny legal issues. It
seems OpenOffice.org has similar restrictions on their logo
(http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/summary.html), how were they
handled?
* André Dahlqvist (anedah-9@student.ltu.se) wrote:
> Hi Eric
>
> In the latest Firefox I noticed that you have included the official
> Firefox icon. Have you investigated wether this is allowed? According to
> Ben Goodger, it sounds like it's not:
>
> http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=50876
>
> Another, heated, thread on this is found here:
>
> http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=50907
>
> It seams like they only want official builds to use their trademarked
> artwork. Maybe you can mail them and ask?
--
Eric Dorland <eric.dorland@mail.mcgill.ca>
ICQ: #61138586, Jabber: hooty@jabber.com
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