On Sun, Jan 02, 2005 at 10:41:08AM -0500, Dave Harding wrote:
> Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 02, 2005 at 12:59:08AM -0700, Joel Aelwyn wrote:
> > > Mind you, I don't think I'd necessarily have an issue with "To use
> > > this trademark, you must run a publically reviewable bug tracking
> > > system and implement some form of version management" (I might
> > > still, on a question of practicality, or even a basic question of
> > > "Does this make it a required cost of the software, and is that
> > > OK?", but it would be a matter of another debate entirely, at that
> > > point).
> >
> > The problem with this sort of clause is usually the same: what the
> > hell does it mean?
>
> Or rather, what does it have to do with Mozilla's requirements?
>
> Gervase Markham <gerv@mozilla.org> on Sat, 01 Jan 2005 10:06:17 -0500
> said:
>
> So we have to therefore say "beyond a certain level of change,
> please remove our trademarks".
>
> What purpose is served by Mozilla licensing the trademark under terms
> only requiring a BTS and a RCS? Any schmuck can distribute a broken or
> otherwise undesirable Mozilla *and* fulfill those terms.
>
> I believe Gerv states that he has confidence in Debian's commitment to
> creating a high-quality mozilla-* packages, not that anyone who has the
> same infrastructure as Debian will do the same.
>
> -Dave
I haven't seen Mr. Suffield's message arrive here, but I'll reply to
this one for now. What it means is simply "I was trying to come up with
an example of a quantifiable requirement that could reasonably be met
by our downstream users/distributions". I'm not even certain they *are*
reasonable, mind you, or that I'd be OK with them, and I suspect that it
is a moot issue for the very reasons you cite - enforcing anything short
of complete review by Mozilla is insufficient, and that approval method
inherently cannot be transitory or public for others (since others can make
arbitrary changes, saying "You started from a Debian base" is useless, even
if it's trivially meetable as a requirement in most cases).
I become more convinced, each time I go into anything about this, that
the simpler part of valor (I'm still unsure about 'best') is going to be
the iceweasel route. With all due respect to the Mozilla folks, while
I understand their desires regarding their trademark(s), I'm less and
less convinced that they are compatible with Debian's core goals, and as
such, simply circumventing the issue entirely is liable to produce less
convoluted, brain-twisting attempts to both meet their requirements and
remain honest to the DFSG.
Thankfully, they support the very concept, or seem willing to, and so I
have some hope that this need not turn into an ugly fracas with people
shouting "Not Free!" "Free!" "Not Free!" "Free!" at each other across
picket lines. Or whatever.
--
Joel Aelwyn <fenton@debian.org> ,''`.
: :' :
`. `'
`-
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