Hi, Now that sarge has been released it's time to revisit this problem. Most of the problems revolve around this document: http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy.html From my reading of this, I'm not permitted to do such necessary things such as security patches, and retain the name Firefox. This has been brought up with Gervase Markham (who seems to be the Mozilla point of contact on these issues) before on debian-legal: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/01/msg00006.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/01/msg00023.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/01/msg00503.html Now, the Mozilla Foundation is willing to give us permission to use the marks, but only to Debian specifically. To me, this feels like a violation (at least in spirit) of DFSG #8. It's now nearly six months since the debian-legal threads, sarge is out the door, so it's time to do something about this. As I see it, we have the following options: 1. Completely ignore their Trademark Policy document and let MoFo come to us if they're not happy with our use of the marks. 2. Rename Firefox and strip all trademarks out. 3. Accept MoFo's offer of Debian-specific trademark usage. 4. Try to negotiate some other arrangement with MoFo. I don't believe we can really do #1 in good conscience. I don't believe #3 is acceptable under the DFSG. It's been 6 months with no real progress towards a resolution that I can see, so #4 seems to be stalled, but again I invite Gervase to restart discussions. That lives #2 as an unappealing solution, but perhaps the only way to go. So for hopefully the last time I'd like to get people's opinion on this before I take any action. Am I being too pedantic? I'd also love to hear how Ubuntu is handling this (not to fan the flames, just to get a different perspective). -- Eric Dorland <eric.dorland@mail.mcgill.ca> ICQ: #61138586, Jabber: hooty@jabber.com 1024D/16D970C6 097C 4861 9934 27A0 8E1C 2B0A 61E9 8ECF 16D9 70C6 -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCS d- s++: a-- C+++ UL+++ P++ L++ E++ W++ N+ o K- w+ O? M++ V-- PS+ PE Y+ PGP++ t++ 5++ X+ R tv++ b+++ DI+ D+ G e h! r- y+ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
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