Re: firefox -> iceweasel package is probably not legal

[Sean Kellogg <skellogg@u.washington.edu>]

On Wednesday 06 December 2006 12:48, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Wed, 06 Dec 2006, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote:
> > What do I get if I run it?
>
> There's nothing in the package, so you don't get anything.
>
> > If it's just a "Sorry, Firefox(TM) not available for legel reasons,
> > we recommend Iceweasel instead", then that's fine.
>
> What is being done is the technical equivalent; merely recommending
> iceweasel has technical problems because not all frontends support
> recommends. Moreover, in Debian, there's no way that you'd just have
> the firefox package installed, so a Depends: is the proper dependency
> according to policy. If you actually bother to look at the package
> description, you'll see:

Trademark law does not care about Debian's technical limitations.  The 
functionality doctrine is about real world functional limitations imposed on 
tradedress.  As this is neither tradedress nor a real world functional 
limitation, it is incorrect to continually invoke this doctrine in hope that 
you will convince us otherwise.

Same goes for Debian Policy.  It doesn't limited libability, it just means the 
policy authorizes the violation of other's trademarks.

-Sean

-- 
Sean Kellogg
e: skellogg@u.washington.edu
w: http://blog.probonogeek.org/

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