Simon Huggins wrote:
That's unfair. I would have summarised more as "there's no problem doing so as long as Mozilla are reasonable in Debian's eyes". I don't want Eric to accept the agreement if for every change of code he has to run to Gervase and ask nicely. (note that's not quite what's happening here, rather it's the other way around - the code can be changed but if it's changed in a way that they don't like they could withdraw use of the mark) Mozilla however don't have any objective way of saying whether something is or isn't good quality and appear to want to micromanage these things.
I don't think we want to micromanage - in fact, as your previous paragraph states, what we suggested was pretty hands-off.
Gervase, perhaps you could come up with a better proposal that was objective and could be applied to all parties whilst not being overly onerous so that people meeting some specific guidelines for quality could use the trademarked name (oh and solve world peace, hunger and poverty at the same time, ta ;)). I believe Eric's asked for this inthe past in this thread. Is it really such an impossible goal?
I really think it is - at least, to the level that I think would be required. Could you define such a set of guidelines for Debian itself, to allow people to use the official Debian logos on modified versions of Debian?
I've said in the past that I'd be happy to draw up a non-binding checklist of hot-buttons and so on, if that would help - to be worked out between the MoFo and Debian. That offer stands.
Quality is not a checkbox matter. The control that trademark law requires we exercise over trademark usage (which is reduced to an absolute minimum in the suggested agreement) means we have to maintain quality, not maintain "does X, Y and Z but not Q".
We say Debian has a reputation for shipping quality software, and we want them to use the trademark. I would hope you guys also want to use it, as a well-known free software brand. Why is our recognition of Debian's quality used as a negative against that happening? Anyone with a similar reputation (e.g. Ubuntu) can get a similar agreement.
I think it's the uncertainty that scares people here - the fact that if we don't meet some target we can't see or argue against we might have the license to use the trademark removed suddenly.
My proposal covered that concern - the Foundation would not have the power to withdraw the trademark from use in a frozen or shipping version of Debian.
I imagine that the packages will be renamed iceweasel or whatever as soon as Mozilla make some unpopular decision but I don't see how that serves Debian or Mozilla particularly. Sadly the way this thread is going I can all too clearly see Mozilla making some silly ruling in the future which doesn't sit well with Debian :(
What from this thread makes you think that the silliness will be on our side?
I'm still under the impression, waiting to be corrected, that Debian's policy for including new root certs is "we include the root cert of anyone who asks"... If we say that it's not acceptable for such a store to be used as the basis of Firefox's SSL, is that silly?
Gerv