Re: Firefox/Thunderbird trademarks: a proposal

[Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Gervase Markham <gerv@mozilla.org> wrote:
> I must admit I'm finding this a bit frustrating. I came to debian-legal, 
> listened to what people (including, I believe, the Thunderbird package 
> maintainer) were saying, and drew up a document[0] which I hoped would 
> meet Debian's requirements, further modifying it based on feedback[1]. 
> This modified version has been approved of by at least one list 
> member[2]. However, I am now hearing a completely different viewpoint 
> from Eric about what sort of things are acceptable and considered 
> DFSG-free.

There is no way to compel a package maintainer to include code or
functionality under a license that they don't like. As a community of
volunteers, Debian can set a minimum standard ("Your work doesn't get in
unless it's at least this free"), but individual members can hold
different ones. 

I believe that the policy you've come up with is likely to be acceptable
to Debian as a whole, but I'm afraid that you do need to convince the
package maintainer as well. There's a limited amount of social pressure
the project can put on someone in this sort of situation.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.legal@srcf.ucam.org