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Re: firefox -> iceweasel package is probably not legal



Sean Kellogg <skellogg@u.washington.edu> wrote: [...]
> You are right, that is a more fair analogy.  But I think it is yet more
> complicated.  I'm going to a car lot, asking for a Ford Focus and being told
> sure, we've got that, but we call it a Peugeot 307 (which, incidentally I had
> never heard of before...  looks a lot like a Ford Focus). 

Are we telling people 'sure, we've got that' or 'we have this instead'?

> Is the consumer confused?

Yes, because they would have not understood that Ford is a mark
independently of Focus and Peugeot is a different mark competing with
the Ford mark.  In my opinion, that confusion would not be caused by
Peugeot or any Peugeot equivalence marketing, but by insufficient
marking of Ford as a mark itself.

> Am I going to think this product is a Focus with a different name?

Not if you are reasonable.

> But consider for a moment that fact that iceweasel (at least the one I have
> installed) includes /usr/bin/firefox...  which is a symlink to iceweasel.
> The file isn't part of the transition package, it's part of the debian
> product.  The confusion then lies not just with the transition package, but
> with the iceweasel package itself.

Don't trademarks apply even less to included executable file names than to
package names?  They're not even used to label anything supplied in trade.
They are names of controls used to operate the machinery.  I could call my
firm's new car model 'steering wheel' and trademark it, but could I then go
sue other makers for labelling a control in their cars 'steering wheel'?

Confused,
-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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