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Firefox To Be Renamed In Debian
Viraptor writes, "Debian is ready to change the name of Firefox in its distributions, beginning with Etch. They say it can be done within a week. The reasons stem from Mozilla's recent insistence on trademark fidelity and its preferences regarding Firefox patches. Debian doesn't want to accept the original trademarked fox & globe logo; they don't see it as really 'free' to use. On the other hand, Mozilla doesn't want Firefox distributed under that name if it lacks the logo. Mozilla also wants Debian patches to be submitted to them before distribution, and claims that's what others (Red Hat and Novell) are already doing. But some believe development and releases will slow down if distribution-specific patches have to be checked and accepted first. We will surely see more clashes between copyright claims and 'really free' distros such as Debian. Ubuntu is also asking similar questions." No word yet what the new name will be or what the logo will look like.
Word.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Will Debian stop using the Linux trademark as well?
Irefox.
Firesomething is an extension that keeps changing the name you see. It's for people who aren't willing to wait for the regular changes like m/b->Phoenix->Firebird->Mozilla Firebird->Firefox->whatever Debian calls it.
Maybe it'll be a blue world or circle, with 'Internet' in the name somewhere, and perhaps, as its used to explore the wonders of the internet, add the word 'Explorer' to it perhaps.
:)
I can't see that catching on though, they'll call it WaterVole or something equally stupid
I'm sure that most of you would agree, there's nothing worse than being forced to watch two nerds argue. They can yell at each other about the most trivial of details, and neither one will budge. It's kind of like elk.
Watching open source development is like watching 50,000 nerds argue.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Here is a link to the thread on debian's bugzilla:3 54622
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=
The trademark problems discussed make the issue pretty clear.
This is only the case if the Firefox trademark will be used. Now that Debian is changing the name, they don't need to have their patches vetted.
There's been complaints for years and years at Mozilla over the dubious quality of some of the Debian patches, not to mention the very large amount of them (Debian users have a hard time getting support in the Mozilla IRC channels because there's a thousand and one new weird issues that are unique to Debian), and that's directly helped shape the policy that the trademarks can only be used with unaltered products, or with the alterations directly vetted. This is not unreasonable. The actual code is still completely free and available for everyone to do with as they please - it's purely the Firefox branding (and its meaning as a high-quality product) that's being protected here.
Read the Mozilla Trademark Policy.
No, Firefox is finally getting some name recognition and when people install Ubuntu or whatever they will be looking for "FireFox" and not whatever name Debian comes up with. It's a "brand". Linux splinters everytime someone has a little tiff and people wonder why there is no marketshare. The brand gets so splintered that any newb trying to figure out what to run is totally lost and yes, the Linux community needs newbs.
Debian really needs to get the stick out of their ass. It's a great server distro, but if they want any sort of desktop marketshare then they have to change. Ubuntu better tell Debian to shove it and include the logo and Firefox as Moz wants them too otherwise you're just going to confuse people. Not everyone wants to read Wiki's and forums to figure out that the browser they have is indeed Firefox.
In addition, so Debian starts patching and they start breaking extensions. Hmmm...people get pissed and stop using the browser and then stop using Debian cause the browser sucks.
The reasons stem from Mozilla's recent insistence on trademark fidelity and its preferences regarding Firefox patches. Debian doesn't want to accept the original trademarked fox & globe logo; they don't see it as really 'free' to use. On the other hand, Mozilla doesn't want Firefox distributed under that name if it lacks the logo.
;)), and so long as the distro's patch set doesn't change between security releases, no additional review is required (as I understand it) for the security updates, so this really shouldn't be a problem there.
The problem with allowing the name and logo to be separated is that it damages the brand identity - people might wonder whether this "Firefox" with one logo is really the same as a "Firefox" with a different logo, or people might think the unofficial logo is the official one (which would clearly harm the brand - consider Firefox t-shirts and the logo).
Mozilla also wants Debian patches to be submitted to them before distribution, and claims that's what others (Red Hat and Novell) are already doing. But some believe development and releases will slow down if distribution-specific patches have to be checked and accepted first.
Both sides have a point. Often, problems that users encounter with "Firefox" in distributions turn out to be a result of the questionable downstream modifications the distro maintainers added. Do you really think Mozilla would be worried and spending their time on these kinds of issues if there wasn't a good chance that people would associate Mozilla Firefox with low quality due to distro modifications? If there was no risk of damaging the brand, it would certainly be better for everyone to use the same logo and name.
From the distro's point of view, of course it's annoying to have to get approval on all patch sets. However, there is generally a long time between releases anyway (especially Debian's releases
We will surely see more clashes between copyright claims and 'really free' distros such as Debian. Ubuntu is also asking similar questions.
One irony of the situation is that Debian itself has the same problem with their branding: if you modify the distribution, you can't call it Debian any more. It's an unfortunate issue that if you want to have a useful (i.e. recognizable and trusted) brand, you can't allow people to ship their own derivatives of your product while using your branding.
Allowing users of your product complete freedom is a nice ideal, but it's not possible to do under the current laws unless you place no value on branding.
My server
Internet Foxplorer
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
You have it backwards. Mozilla is the one being unresonable here. Other open source projects have trademarks but they don't insist that Debian must use a different name because they have custom patches.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
Why not fireballmer (Couldn't resist)
It is only now, that Mozilla has changed the way they police and grand permission for their trademark, that the trademark has become an issue. Other distros have been able to get trademark permission. There is no way for Debian to get this same permission while that image remains under a non-permissive copyright & while it remains a term for trademark use.This is really ridiculous--brandnames and logos are separated ALL the time.No other F/OSS software package seems to have an insurmountable problem with this. They don't even have major problems with Gentoo & the strange CFLAGS or compiler arguments that some users of that distro use. Bugs are typically reported to the distro. If it is an upstream probelm, they'll hear about it.It is more than "annoying." It is dangerous. Distros should NOT have to wait for approval for patching security bugs. This isn't just theoretical--Debian does backport fixes to versions of Firefox that Mozilla stopped maintaining. While there is some time between releases, the package repositories get updated all the time.
The Firefox logo/trademark is important. Firefox has 10%+ of browser share now. That wasn't very easy to get. More and more non-techies are now familiar with Mozilla and/or Firefox and the logo. My father-in-law and wife are not technical, however both prefer Firefox now. One calls it Mozilla the other calls is "the fox", however both know what icon to click if I place it on their desktop.
The people of Debian are being stupid. The Firefox logo is an important logo and should be kept. Debian protects their trademark(s), why shouldn't Mozilla? I use Ubuntu over Debian, I just hope Ubuntu doesn't follow this stupid example of Debian. Mark S. seems to have his head on straight and since he is a business man I would think he understands the importance of a trademark.
It is not like Mozilla is trying to lock up the code and make everything proprietary. They just put a lot of effort into getting their name _and_ logo known and want to keep it that way.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
If you had actually taken the time to read the page you linked, you'd notice that Debian has TWO logos to explicitly prevent situations like the one that Mozilla is creating.
From the page that YOU linked:
So what, exactly, is your problem with Debian's logo situation?
I prefer FreeFox. Still very recognisable, while at the same time rubbing it in that Firefox is not truly free.
"But some believe development and releases will slow down if distribution-specific patches have to be checked and accepted first."
Yes, we certainly wouldn't want Debian Stable's release frequency to slow down any further than it already is.
#DeleteChrome
Or (regarding the Debian Official Use Logo):
It would seem that Debian recognizes that the use of trademarks is important to protecting the reputation of a project, and may even require approval in some cases. So why should they expect FireFox to be any different?
/K
A trademark MUST stand for something other than "Well, we started with this but hacked the hell out of it so it's something completely different now." Mozilla is NOT being unreasonable. The other projects which let people misuse their trademarks are risking the loss of enforcibility of their trademark.
Yes, this is an issue that the open source world has not thought very deeply about yet.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
We don't, particularly — the trademark isn't the problem. What we care about is that it also has a copyright license that does not allow any derivative works. So, you can't start with a Firefox logo image, pull up your favorite image editor and hack it into something new and interesting — say, for example, an icon set for a desktop theme.
Debian takes the right to modify software very seriously. And yes, that includes images shipped with software.
It is possible to trademark an image yet still allow derivative works to be created from it. Mozilla Corp, unfortunately, chose not to do this.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
Debian did not choose this battle. They have been distributing Firefox for years in the same way they distribute other open source software. It was Mozilla who forced the issue by threatening legal action if Debian doesn't change the name or start submitting all patches (even security patches) to Mozilla for permission before they are applied. Mike Conner of Mozilla says "you should consider this, as I previously said, notice that your usage of the trademark is not permitted in this way, and we are expecting a resolution. If your choice is to cease usage of the trademark rather than bend the [Debian Free Software Guidelines] a little, that is your decision to make."
Debian asked "could we at least get a stay of execution? Etch is going into deep freeze in less than a month. Would it be possible to resolve this after the release?" and Mozilla responded that "If we were forced to revoke your permission to use the trademark, freeze state would not matter, you would be required to change all affected packages as soon as possible. Its not a nice thing to do, but we would do it if necessary, and we have done so before."
Many legal squabbles are instigated by Debian, but this isn't one of them. Mozilla has forced the issue. Linux Weekly News wrote a good summary of the situation.
-Fyodor
Insecure.Org
The grand parent may be trolling or mixing the idea of freedom of the program source code with trademarks. The Mozilla Foundation simply don't want you to patch their product and still distribute it under the same name and using the same artwork and logos. That looks OK to me. The source code is completely free as in free speech, and Debian is free to apply their own patches and distribute the resulting program under a different name and using different logos. As some people already said, Debian themselves follow a similar policy regarding their name and logos.
Not only that, but that statement directly revoked the previous standing agreement Debian had with Gervase Markham from Mozilla, which essentially said that Mozilla trusted Debian's (generally conservative) judgement on patches. With this pointed out, Mike Connor confirmed that Gervase did indeed make that agreement, and that Mozilla wished to revoke it.
I understand the Mozilla Foundation/Corporation's issue here, and they certainly have the right to defend their trademarks; that defense itself doesn't necessarily go against Free Software principles. As I understand it, Debian doesn't have any problem with the *trademarks* on the software, because a big build switch exists to turn them on and off; however, Debian *does* have a problem with the non-free copyright license on the images, and thus doesn't use them.
The other problem lies in the fact that Mozilla doesn't really care about the quality of Debian's patches, as much as about getting everyone to use the official releases, regardless of distro policy. They don't like Debian backporting security fixes to 1.0 rather than upgrading people to 1.5, or backporting fixes to 1.5 rather than using Mozilla's (large) point releases; Debian has a "no new upstream versions" policy for stable releases, to avoid breaking things, and many people who run Debian stable rely on that policy.
Debian takes that right very seriously, and it has the right; Mozilla doesn't have a problem with that. However, their unmodified images are part of the branding, and the use of the name with the logo is mandatory as part of the branding. Mozilla's lawyers indicated to them (by my reading of the original thread) that while they *could* trademark the Firefox logo and make it under a modifications-allowed license, they would greatly risk their ability to police and enforce the Firefox logo as a trademark. Similarly, Debian's patches are of questionable quality and necessity and allowing the use of the "Firefox" name with these questionably patched versions would potentially damage the quality of the Firefox mark.
Debian just can't expect to get a free ride for doing a half-job. Or even, as the case appears to be, a quarter-job.
As has been pointed out: Debian takes its image and mark very seriously, too. Why the bitching by Debian supporters when they have to make changes for the very sort of thing that they do themselves?
Ni bhionn an rath achx mar a mbionn an smacht (There is no Luck without Discipline)