Re: firefox -> iceweasel package is probably not legal
Sean Kellogg writes:
> On Wednesday 06 December 2006 15:58, Michael Poole wrote:
>> Sean Kellogg writes:
>> > What meaning does Firefox have beyond identifying it as "a browser made
>> > by the Mozilla Foundation"? (oh, and the actual name of a kind of fox
>> > that was mentioned earlier). I don't want to give away the farm here,
>> > but if you can show another meaning then you've really got an argument
>> > against my claim.
>>
>> "Firefox" is the code base that the Mozilla Foundation uses to build
>> the Mozilla Firefox web browser. It is certainly the user interface
>> and feature set associated with that code. I thought I said so
>> earlier. The use of the "Firefox" mark to distinguish web browsers
>> built and supported by the Mozilla Foundation from any other browser
>> built from the underlying source code is a relatively recent thing.
>
> So, you propose that Firefox refers to both the code base and the browser?
> It's interesting, to be certain, but I don't think it changes
> anything. 'apt-get source firefox' gets a great deal more than just
> Firefox(TM) code base... it also gets all those debian patches and control
> files. So it's actually Firefox(TM) Plus. Adding to a product doesn't allow
> you to co-opt the original product's name.
To the contrary, preserving a product's name is the default mode of
permissions for free and open source software. It is quite rare for
software to impose a renaming requirement as permitted by DFSG#4.
As just one example, Linus Torvalds owns the registered trademark
"Linux" and the Linux Mark Institute maintains it in good standing by
enforcing appropriate use of the mark. However, distributions still
may (and do) use the mark to identify heavily modified versions of the
Linux kernel. There is no real confusion whether the Linux packages
distributed by Debian are different than the ones distributed by Linus
Torvalds, Red Hat, Montavista, or any other party.
>From my understanding, that was also the original rule for Mozilla and
Firefox. The Mozilla Foundation decided to change its rules, becoming
an exception to the general scheme in free software. (As an
uninvolved layperson, I believe that the Mozilla Foundation adopted
the policy with the goal of preventing Firefox from becoming a generic
mark.) It was this change of policy that led to the creation of
Iceweasel. Given that the "firefox" transitional package exists
solely because Debian exercised the previous implicit license, it
seems like a reasonable and eminently defensible use of the name.
Michael Poole
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