* Michael K. Edwards (m.k.edwards@gmail.com) wrote: > On 6/19/05, Eric Dorland <eric.dorland@mail.mcgill.ca> wrote: > > * Michael K. Edwards (m.k.edwards@gmail.com) wrote: > > > I wouldn't say "accept" it, I would say "acknowledge" the safety zone > > > offered unilaterally by the Mozilla Foundation, and as a courtesy to > > > them make some effort to stay comfortably within it while continuing > > > to ship under the Mozilla names. Their trademark policy is surely > > > less draconian than, say, Red Hat's, and we aren't going around > > > purging the RedHat Package Manager from Debian. > > > > I think you're playing word games now. Even if this is a unilateral > > "gift" we still need to decide if we want it or not. > > Of course; and as the maintainer, you are going to be the one making > that call. I'm just chary of using words like "offer" and "accept" > because they suggest that we are in the contract zone. I think (I > could be wrong; IANAL) that, in the free software arena, it's actually > better for both sides for the trademark holder to say: > > "We aren't exactly licensing all and sundry to manufacture products > under our brand. Our product line includes both the source code and > the 'official' binaries; we are of the opinion that third parties who > follow these guidelines when building and distributing their own > binaries are merely re-packaging our source code product (under > standards like Coty v. Prestonettes in the US and X, Y, and Z > elsewhere) and using our trademarks descriptively. > > "We reserve the right to decide unilaterally that someone either has > created a product of their own (to which our trademark can't be > applied without license) or isn't doing an adequate job of QA in the > course of re-packaging. But if and when that happens, we're going to > follow the steps outlined here to try to bring them into voluntary > compliance before we demand that they either accept a formal license > and traditional oversight procedures or cease to apply our trademarks > to their modified version of our product." > > >From what I've read, that's as open a policy as a trademark holder can > offer and still retain control of the trademark in the long run. I > may be overstating here how far the Mozilla Foundation is willing to > go; but if a modus vivendi can be reached in which the only thing > special about Debian is that the guidelines more or less reflect the > maintainer's actual practice, I think that sits more comfortably with > DFSG #8 than a license per se. If the mozilla foundation come up with something like that I would be satisfied, as long as the guidelines as reasonable and allow me to do things I need to do as a maintainer. > > > If the offer from six months ago still stands (which, to my > > > recollection and in my non-lawyer view, read like a unilateral "safety > > > zone" rather than a trademark license as such), that's extraordinarily > > > accommodating on MoFo's part. It's a square deal from people with a > > > pretty good reputation for square deals. They deserve better from > > > Debian than to have their flagship products obscured by a rename when > > > they haven't done anything nasty to anyone yet. > > > > What reputation are you referring to? Not that I necessarily disagree, > > but what are you basing that assessment on? > > Their rebranding isn't special for Netscape/AOL and other corporate > partners; they've worked very hard to make it accessible to third > parties without any need for explicit cooperation with them. They're > going through the agony of relicensing their entire code base under > MPL/LGPL/GPL so that GPL projects can cherry-pick at source code > level. They're good citizens in W3C standards space even when the > committee decisions go against them (e. g., XUL vs. XForms). I don't > know the details of their CA certificate handling, but at least they > _have_ a policy and respond constructively to criticism of it. And > Mitch Kapor and the rest of the MoFo board have a lot of street cred > as individuals. Point taken. But I'm not sure what you mean by their Netscape rebranding isn't special. Netscape doesn't claim their browser is Firefox, so there isn't a problem from that perspective. > > > The FSF has, at best, completely failed to offer leadership with > > > respect to free software and trademarks, as the MySQL case and the Red > > > Hat / UnixCD mess have shown. I think it would be rather gratifying > > > if Debian could step in to fill the void. And it would be kind of > > > nice to have a workable modus vivendi to exhibit if and when the Linux > > > Mark Institute (or the OpenSSL team or the PHP folks or Red Hat or > > > MySQL) comes knocking. > > > > I do have to agree that guidance when it comes to trademark situations > > is sorely lacking. There doesn't seem to be that consistent a > > viewpoint with Debian either unfortunately. > > It's a sticky wicket. Free software enthusiasts (among whom I count > myself) don't like systems that exacerbate second-class-citizenship > among those whose motivations aren't principally commercial. Nowadays > everyone's a publisher, and the paperwork overhead of copyright has > dropped near to zero (until you try to enforce it); but not everyone > is a marketer, and that's what trademarks are about. I think it's > possible to have a personal-freedom-compatible trademark policy, but > it's not trivial, and the first few tries are bound to have their > discontents. Doesn't mean it's not worth trying, though. I'd certainly -- 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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