Salut Gervase!
On Mon, Jun 27, 2005 at 11:46:55PM +0100, Gervase Markham wrote:
> 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.
Sorry, I was thinking of the CA issue. But if you have to do this for
/every/ change it becomes onerous on the maintainer. Your "hot button"
proposal seems sane. If this thread makes you codify your trademark
proposal more than at least some good has come out of it :)
> >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 in
> >the 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?
Don't open that can of worms again :)
Anyway the swirl is nicer and more people associate it with Debian
precisely because the trademark license is onerous and has killed off
use of the vase thing.
[please don't start a logo flamewar here unless you really want swathes
of mail]
> 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.
Would this not be useful for all people seeking to use the trademark
license? I think it would be worthwhile.
Do you have a few ideas off the top of your head now of definite things
that cannot be touched?
> 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.
You want us to use the trademark, we want to use the trademark. It's a
question of whether we feel we can compromise our rights to change
things freely and still use it that is the issue here.
> >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.
Sure and that's useful to have.
> >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?
Just the CA issue; that there's no clear decision one way or the other
and CAs are one thing you want to control closely. I just wonder how
many more issues like this there are - without a list or a codified
document of things that are likely to piss you off it's hard to know.
> 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?
Perhaps anyone the Firefox maintainer/Debian respects and trusts.
Why can't we leave this to the maintainer or even local admins though?
As regards ignoring the law and ignoring your trademark license I think
that's more political. If you want us to use the name then you'll leave
us alone and let us; if we make some change which you don't approve of
then the headlines will read "Mozilla Foundation stops Debian shipping
Firefox!" etc.
Nagios is a trademark. We don't have any issues with Nagios because
it's a trademark in the spirit of Free Software where the owner is
trying to protect the name from being used by others for his software
and avoid legal problems/issues having been burnt before using NetSaint.
Why does the Mozilla Foundation feel the need to enforce quality through
this blunt tool of stopping us using the trademark? Why can't you just
produce the best browser? Surely if you produce the best code we'll use
it.
Simon.
--
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