Re: Ongoing Firefox (and Thunderbird) Trademark problems
On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 11:25:14 +0100, Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> said:
> I think this argument is moderately persuasive. DFSG 4 allows a
> license to require a name change on modification. If Debian is
> granted an extra permission to keep the name the same, but that
> freedom is not passed on to downstream recipients, is the license
> free? It could be argued that DFSG 8 forbids that, but if Debian
> isn't granted that freedom then the license /is/ free. I think any
> interpretation of the DFSG that results in a free license becoming
> non-free if extra permissions are granted (even if those permissions
> are only to some people) ought to be incorrect.
While this argument was indeed tempting, I think we also need
to look at how free the resulting package is: Can a derivbative take
any package in main, modify it, and further redistribute it? If yes,
then the package can remain in main, and is free; if not, then the
package is not free.
Freedoms granted to users are what is important, not just
freedoms granted to Debian. If it turns out that we rename the
program (to, say, debian-firefox), and that grants our users the
freedom to modify and further distribute the renamed binary; but not
renaming robs them of this freedom, then our course is clear.
manoj
--
"Survey says..." Richard Dawson, weenie, on "Family Feud"
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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