Re: Iceweasel and Firefox compatibility
Hi, Steve:
On Wednesday 11 November 2009 08:17:50 Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 07:37:56AM +0100, Christian Perrier wrote:
> > IMHO, with not very convincing arguments. And no sign of answer about
> > the real potential problem: would that be another trademark issue.
> >
> > Whatever solution is taken in the other branches of this thread where
> > possible UA strings are discussed, I think we should at some point
> > check with Mozilla Corporation about their stance: would they consider
> > it to be a trademark violation if we mention "Firefox" in some way in
> > the UA string of Iceweasel?
Trade Mark protection as usual. It is not about naming the cursed word; it's
the way you mention it.
> I strongly disagree that we should do this, because it's *not* a trademark
> violation, so any opinion they might hold to the contrary is not relevant.
Of course you are not talking with your attorney hat here.
Just take it a bit out of context (as a lawyer would probably do):
Attorney: What's a User Agent String?
Expert: Well, it's the way the browser identifies itself against the server.
A.: So, can I say it's like me asking you "Who are you" and you answering
me "I'm Mr. Smith?" or "what's that? is this a Pepsi or what is it?"
E.: Well... I'd say that...
A.: Just answer yes or not!
E.: Hummm... Err... Well, yes.
A.: So then, Iceweasel is claiming to be "Firefox" against the server which
asks it?
E.: Yes.
A.: It is not answering "I'm *like* Firefox" or "My codebase is based on that
from Firefox" but "I'm Firefox"?
E.: Yes.
A.: No more questions.
Forget it's only machine to machine chatting and think for a second the
user-agent string were on a newspaper. I think it's clear that "Firefox 3.5"
would be an obvious copyright infringement while "Based on Firefox 3.5" would
be perfectly safe.
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