Re: Ongoing Firefox (and Thunderbird) Trademark problems
On Tue, Jun 28, 2005 at 09:39:05AM +0100, Gervase Markham wrote:
> Cameron Patrick wrote:
> >I'm curious as to how this would apply to Debian-derived distributions
> >which either (a) don't change the Firefox/Thunderbird packages, or (b)
> >change them in some trivial way. Would someone taking the packages
> >unchanged from Debian be required to either ask MoFo for a trademark
> >agreement or rename their Firefox?
>
> As I've said to Eric, and earlier on this list, anyone not changing the
> package would definitely not need to ask. I also suggested that anyone
> changing it within the bounds of the current trademark policy (e.g.
> bookmarks, start page etc.) would also not need to ask - which hopefully
> covers the "trivial" changes that most people would want to make.
>
> Perhaps it would help if I posted my proposal again?
It would certainly help if you answered the points below, which detail some
of the practical cost of rebranding. Thanks in advance!
1) The name of the package (.deb file if you want). This cannot be
changed with much disruption. Does MoFo claims trademark right on
firefox or mozilla-firefox when used as package name ?
2) files shipped in pathname including the string mozilla-firefox or
firefox, e.g. /usr/bin/mozilla-firefox, /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/chrome.
Does MoFo claims trademark right on firefox or mozilla-firefox when used
in pathname ?
We cannot afford the risk of having to change them on short notice, so
our only possible course of action is to use names that cannot be
reclaimed by the Mozilla Foundation.
Of course, how the program display itself is another story: we could well
have a iceweasel package containing a /usr/bin/iceweasel binary starting
a program displaying itself as "Mozilla Firefox" if it is within the bound
of the trademark policy.
My opinion is that Debian can _accept_ the Mozilla Foundation trademark
policy, but cannot _depend_ on it.
Any move that reduce the cost of rebranding to something that is doable
on short notice might enable us to accept the trademark policy.
Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
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