Re: mozilla thunderbird trademark restrictions / still dfsg free?
On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 05:44:08PM -0800, Michael K. Edwards wrote:
> > So the question is: is the right to call a bit of software by a certain
> > name an "important freedom"? That's definitely debatable. The name you
> > use to refer to a bit of software doesn't affect its function.
>
> It can, especially in the case of a web browser; consider web servers
> that verify that the client claims to be a sufficiently new Mozilla or
> IE before sending DHTML.
What a client calls itself to servers (eg. in User-Agent headers) isn't an
issue. That's a very functional use of the name, telling the server how to
handle the client, not telling a user what program he's running. I don't
think trademarks can touch that.
Note that my copy of Explorer calls itself:
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)
and every other browser I have installed either does the same or offers
it as an alternative.
(Anyone who knows more about trademarks than I do is encouraged to tell
me I'm wrong, of course. IANAL.)
--
Glenn Maynard
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