Whether or not you use it is inconsequential. However, it is consistent with my observation that not being familiar with something has not stopped you from commenting on it as an authority.
Are you a "Debianite" (who you've condemned) or are you a non-Debian user (which you've also just condemned). I suspect the later. One does not have to be a Debian user to understand this & I have been following the discussion quite closely--I maintain my own community edition of Firefox. I won't argue that I'm an expert though--IANAL, nor have I been privy to any private communications between the parties. But just what are your credentials of authority?
In discussing an issue of trademark enforcement under the same rules as copyright infringement.
The use of this copyrighted logo is required for trademark use. Therefore, they can't have something named "mozilla firefox" in the free tree.
I could have been more explicit. Mozilla said they would grant permission for trademark use on the contingency that the logo was also used. This is a statement of fact. There is nothing in trademark or copyright law requiring Mozilla to adopt this policy, but they are within their right to do so.
There is no reasonable way to side skirt the mechanics of the issue in favor of looking at what resulted from it.
Where is the side skirting you constantly refer to? One can abide by regulations and still object to them or object to the way they're regulated!
Without patching the kernel, why would they have to call it another name?
Just because something is a duplication does not mean it is entitled to use the trademark. This is why generic acetaminophen isn't known as Tylenol. For one who professes to know so much more than I do, you seem to know very little.
Even funnier, by calling it "Gentoo", "RedHat" etc... they are doing what you are saying they don't do.
Except that it is "Gentoo LINUX," "Red Hat Enterprise LINUX," etc. Pre-fixing or post-fixing a trademark doesn't entitle you to use it either.
I'm impressed that you try to pass off your apparent ignorance of the details of this particular case as some kind of superior knowledge of intellectual property law.
Even funnier.
Yes--this is. So far in this discussion, you've failed to understand that something can be protected simultaneously with copyright and trademark, have failed to understand how the DFSG bars the image from entering Debian proper due to the copyright (and not the trademark), and have now even claimed that trademark infringement that could lead to consumer confusion is actually O.K.
I had thought you just didn't understand the finer points of the Mozilla/Debian dispute. The funniest thing is that it wasn't until this most recent post that I realized you had no idea what you were talking about with regards to intellectual property law.
Its my general opinion of debianites that the most vocal are the most incompetant among them. This one in particular...
I'm not a debianite--I don't use it (though occasionally use Knoppix) & have rarely sided with them. I'll make no comment on my competency. I think that our comments speak for themselves without ad hominem attacks.
It has been fun watching this poster so blinded by the DFSG that they have no idea what a trademark is.
I know full well what a trademark is. And I also know the DFSG doesn't care about them. At what point did I say anything to the contrary?
Even without the copyrighted artwork, Debian would have to either comply with the design cycle by the managing body, or call it some other name.
You're right. But that is doable--other distributions have done that and will continue to do that. If the use of the logo is made mandatory, Debian can't do that (because of the copyright on that logo and the DFSG).
As for me the issue was settled by Dan Armstrong above. It is free, and where it isn't free no change of position will help. What they are running afoul of is what people have accepted for years as simple courtesy.
No--there wasn't anything like "courtesy" here. Mozilla has changed the way they police their trademarks. It is their right to do so, of course. But they had granted Debian permission to use their trademark and have since revoked it. Debian hasn't really run afoul of anything--they used the mark when they were allowed to and are working to conform to the new trademark policy.
Debian is demanding the right sink someone else's good name.
No they're not--they're trying to comply with Mozilla's policies. They've tried to come to a compromise on those polices & have expressed some frustration at the change in policy. But they're not trying to break trademark law.
Technically when you modify software and re-distribute it, that is a fork. From Linus, to PADL, to even Microsoft they have the right to distribute their own revisions patches and code under their name. You can have the Red-hat Kernel, the Mandriva Kernel, and the Rock kernel. If you fork, it is yours and you call it your own name. Its the way free software has always worked.
All of this is true & it has not been argued otherwise. But it is also true that other F/OSS applications have exteneded the rights to use their trademarks to distros who make reasonable changes--what distro has MySQL, OpenOffice.org, Gnome, or KDE under a different name? What distro uses the Linux kernel (patched or not) without calling it "Linux?"
The DFSG is the hammer, and every problem around them turns into a nail.
This is clearly an absurd analogy. If anything, the DFSG is a screw hole & the copyright on that image is a nail. It just won't fit.
Debian, in contrast to those high on their cool-aid, is being very mature about this. They are simply claiming responsibilility for their own fork by calling it another name. The same way Ubuntu and Xandros do when forking Debian.
Actually, at this point, they're considering either a namechange or to make a community edition. This would allow them the right to call the browser firefox and wouldnot require them to use the artwork with the unfavorable copyright.
I'm impressed that you try to pass off your apparent ignorance of the details of this particular case as some kind of superior knowledge of intellectual property law.
According to the DFSG, they'd have to keep it in nonfree if they wanted to keep the name.
As someone pointed out above, having a trademark does not make something non-free.
The copyright on the logo makes it non-free. The use of this copyrighted logo is required for trademark use. Therefore, they can't have something named "mozilla firefox" in the free tree.
Long and short of it, I don't believe Debian (for once) is picking a fight with someone on a free software issue.
Debian isn't picking a fight at all.
Mozilla seems to be upset about Debian's abuse of the trademark, and I don't believe non-free was ever forwarded as an option.
It wasn't forwarded by Mozilla, whose representatives don't seem to understand the DFSG. It has been mention by Debian users, who know that the Firefox logo can never go into the free tree (and that other conditions for trademark use could be met).
If you say Firefox to virtually anyone on a college campus, they will know what it is.... OpenOffice? Not so much.
I'd agree with you that most people don't know about Gnome or KDE. But OO.o? And college students who regularly need a word processor? I guess your experience isn't the same as mine...
Of course, you and Debian are free to disagree on this point, which is fine with me and Mozilla - all they're asking Debian to do is to not call it Firefox if they're going to branch it.
Just to make it clear: I, in no way, represent Debian. I don't even use it. I think it is within Mozilla's right to demand a name change. I just think that it is unnecessary (most other projects don't do this) & poor form that they changed their terms for trademark use (which used to allow "community editions") midway through & weren't very diplomatic in informing the community of this change. To my knowlege, the Mozilla site still does not have the current policy & still has many scraps of the old policy.
Just how many people do you think wish to run older versions?
It is hard for me to say--I only have anecdotal evidence. About 1% of hits to my site come from Firefox versions before 1.5 last month. ALL firefox versions made up about 8.5%. That's 1/8.5 is fairly significant.
Linux users make up a small portion of non-server computer users.
But a higher percentage of Linux users use it than Windows users--It is the default browser for many distros & has the name recognition from other platforms & has a large community behind it.
I don't see a whole lot of money and time being wasted on Mozilla's part. They sent a basic message saying that Debian was quite intentionally out of compliance with the trademark terms and to please either become compliant or not use the trademark.
They wasted time drafting policy after policy that they've apparently abandoned. They told the WHOLE community (not just Debian) to use these policies--both individually and through their website. Everyone was in conformance. Now they changed the rules & are apparently dealing with every distributor on a case-by-case basis & have no public-facing write-up of the new policy. This is a giant waste of time.
The Debian folk then proceeded to be the ones that waste everyone's time bickering on the subject.
How has Debian bickered? They have conformed to every policy change Mozilla has made.
The difference between that project and Firefox is that the Firefox guys are much bigger and have a much stronger brand, along with the legal/financial resources to handle this stuff. But don't think these problems are somehow unique to Mozilla.
How come OpenOffice.org has never had to do it? Sun certainly has more legal/financial resources than Mozilla & probably has less tolerance for the community (not to say that they are intolerant--it is just that Mozilla has a higher ratio of coders and contributors to lawyers than Sun & they are better able to handle a high volume of bugzilla noise.)
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.
Which is of course a stupid idea.
How is it a stupid idea? It is the standard operating procedure of most admins--if it is secure, use it--it may be more stable, better able to perform on old machines, and you won't surprise users with an unneeded update.
A far more sane security policy is to work with upstream to fix bugs then ensure you are always using the latest version of what's available.
This would be ideal, but Moz development is too rapid & they depricate stables too quickly. If they have such vast resources themselves and know that many people wish to use older versions, why won't they do the backport themselves?
Some of this is me playing the devil's advocate. But a lot of it is me being upset at Moz--I've donated money and time to their projects & I don't like to think that it has been squandered on legal infighting & not on improving their product....
Distros should NOT have to wait for approval for patching security bugs.
They don't; they just can't call what they have patched "FireFox".
And that's what they WILL do. But that rule is an inane requirement for trademark use.
The logo has a restrictive copyright because it is also a trademark. It's very expensive to get a trademark in every country, but other countries will respect one country's copyright. Thus, you can get some backup protection for your trademark by copyrighting your logo and then using a restrictive copyright.
Debian is brain-damaged on this issue and either needs to change trademark law (oh, and while they're at it, fix patent law), or else cope with copyrighted logos.
And what of MozCo? KDE and Gnome are both trademarked and have trademarked logos. Yet they don't find the need to resort to draconian copyright terms to protect their logos. The same is true of a lot of F/OSS projects. Why not Moz?
How is an image that is protected under the GFDL or GPL or the CC or any other "open" copyright license less protected than the Moz logo?
So why not "Debian Firefox?" A Moz representative said that the FIREFOX name (as opposed to the "Mozilla Firefox" name) couldn't be used.
I think the big problem here is that Mozilla keeps changing what they consider acceptable uses of their trademark & don't have a coherent policy. No one knows what the heck to do.
Yes. The logo isn't under a DFSG-compatible copyright.
If the Mozilla foundation is insisting that modified versions can't be called "Firefox", then Debian can't distribute a modified Firefox at all (whether or not it's in non-free).
But MozCo isn't doing that. They're insisting for approval of patches and for the artwork to be used with the name. Debian is capable of getting patches approved (though it would be a big pain & put their users at risk, as they wouldn't have immediate access to unapproved patches to security vulnerabilities). They are not capable of using the artwork, due to the copyright.
Mozilla still has a draft policy allowing people to name modified versions of "Mozilla Firefox" as "Firefox Community Edition." What happened to this? Many distributors have been following this. Why can't Debian use the name "Firefox Community Edition, Debian" as the new name fro their browser? Or will Mozilla be going after all of the other distributors they had previously granter permission to as well?
Note also that the "community editions" also forbade use of the official logo!
I disagree. This issue started as a copyright issue, which was never resolved. Debian is NOT able to use the COPYRIGHTed image of the logo. MozCo didn't grant them permission to use it (which is why it wasn't used by Gentoo or many other distributions for a long time) & the license would run contrary to DFSG anyway. Trademark was not an issue--Debian was allowed to use the trademark (as was Gentoo and as were other distros).
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.
The problem with allowing the name and logo to be separated is that it damages the brand identity
This is really ridiculous--brandnames and logos are separated ALL the time.
Often, problems that users encounter with "Firefox" in distributions turn out to be a result of the questionable downstream modifications the distro maintainers added.
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.
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;)), 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.
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.
Mozilla has voiced multiple issues with Debian's package. But, in their words:
If you are going to use the Firefox name, you must also use the rest of the branding.
The "quality" of Debian's patches was brought up later, but it seems to be moot--since there is no way to get around that first big issue of the copyright on the logo.
Why is this only happening with Firefox? Why not Thunderbird or the other Mozilla products which are in Debian's package repository? Why not the "Mozilla" name, itself?
I'm not a Debian user & do use many Mozilla products, but I think MozCo could have handled this better.
The logo is under a non-permissive copyright, which Debian objects to & which Mozilla has always defended from others using in "non-official" builds (including in Gentoo and the "optimized" builds for Windows and Mac by fans in the forums). These builds used a generic logo (the blue globe of the official logo, but without the orange firefox) or made their own logo.
Debian was granted permission to use the trademarked name and not the logo, but this was later rescinded.
While MozCo is perfectly within their rights to do this, they could have been a better player--no one (not even Debian) objects to the trademarked name or logo. But The COPYRIGHT on the logo runs contrary to the DFSG. Furthermore, MozCo can police their trademarks as they wish--I'm aware of no law which would require them to require the use of the image whenever the name is also used. So why did they change their minds as to what is permissable?
Furthermore, Debian has been backporting security fixes to older releases. MozCo encouraged them to use only the newer version (as Red Hat and Novell apparently do now) & said that this backporting would not be workable with the new trademark policy.
That said, Internet Explorer remains the most popular target for attacks, with 69 percent of all browser attacks targeted specifically at that browser alone. 20 percent of the attacks monitored during the period in question were targeted at Firefox.
When it comes to patching, all of the browsers are improving. Firefox is the fastest to get its patches out, with a one-day window of exposure. Opera had a two-day window of exposure, down from 18 days during the last half of 2005. The window of exposure for Safari is up to five days (from zero), while Internet Explorer typically has a nine-day window, down from 25 days in the previous study.
So Firefox is still less targeted than IE & also gets fixed much sooner.
It is relatively normal for techs to install anti-spyware/anti-malware software on client PCs. Some offer or require to install commercial programs to make a little extra money by selling a license. Others install freeware as part of their service.
If a web browser was less vulnerable to spyware and malware, than I don't see any difference in installing it.
If I go out for sushi, I would certainly expect the itamae to suggest the fish that is fresher than others.
The latest Security Now! episode had information on this exploit. Those who have policies in which they can't install third party patches do have an alternative:
I am also in need of good citation support & am a bit of geek about it (I am a co-developer of refbase).
There are a few issues with your post.
An office suite is A LOT more than a bibliographic management system & it would not be a small task to implement it in XUL in Firefox. There have been a number of online word processors & they haven't yet seen great success.
The other thing is that Endnote is not that great of a bibliographic manager & there are more serious attempts to replace it. Zotero for Firefox will be worth watching. The new MS XML format has metadata support for citations. And OO.o has the bibliographic project to add citation support to OO.o. Bruce D'Arcus's blog is worth following.
I have used Evolution on Win32. It mostly works and it looks like development binaries are also reasonable. I wouldn't consider it much more alpha than Sunbird. I suspect that other comments on the GPL are the more likely explanation.
OpenOffice.org and StarOffice shall include the Mozilla Foundation's Thunderbird and Sunbird (calendaring application) in the future.
This is an interesting move. I am Thunderbird and Sunbird user, so am not opposed to this change. I certainly know a lot of people were clamouring for Outlook-like functionality and integration for OO.o. I do wonder why these were chosen over Evolution, which is more like Outlook & already has integrated calendaring. I also wonder why Sunbird was selected--while I'm happy with it, it hasn't yet hit a 1.0 milestone. I still use it in production, but I know others avoid it & I think Mozilla would discourage it. And why Sunbird, rather than Mozilla Lightning, which integrates into Thunderbird?
Finally, Thunderbird seems to release updates more rapidly than OO.o. Does anyone know how updates will work? Will those who installed it through OO.o immediately get Thunderbird updates? Or will they wait until the next OO.o version bump?
Slashdot Mirror
I had thought you just didn't understand the finer points of the Mozilla/Debian dispute. The funniest thing is that it wasn't until this most recent post that I realized you had no idea what you were talking about with regards to intellectual property law.
I'm impressed that you try to pass off your apparent ignorance of the details of this particular case as some kind of superior knowledge of intellectual property law.
Clearly, I myself, got a little dupe happy: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=19855 3&cid=16268639
And that is essentially a dupe of http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/08/22/03 15257
I would be worrying, but I got my dupe fix in 2003 too. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/20/123524 4
There was a dupe back in 2003 too!
Some of this is me playing the devil's advocate. But a lot of it is me being upset at Moz--I've donated money and time to their projects & I don't like to think that it has been squandered on legal infighting & not on improving their product....
How is an image that is protected under the GFDL or GPL or the CC or any other "open" copyright license less protected than the Moz logo?
So why not "Debian Firefox?" A Moz representative said that the FIREFOX name (as opposed to the "Mozilla Firefox" name) couldn't be used.
I think the big problem here is that Mozilla keeps changing what they consider acceptable uses of their trademark & don't have a coherent policy. No one knows what the heck to do.
Mozilla still has a draft policy allowing people to name modified versions of "Mozilla Firefox" as "Firefox Community Edition." What happened to this? Many distributors have been following this. Why can't Debian use the name "Firefox Community Edition, Debian" as the new name fro their browser? Or will Mozilla be going after all of the other distributors they had previously granter permission to as well?
Note also that the "community editions" also forbade use of the official logo!
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.
Why is this only happening with Firefox? Why not Thunderbird or the other Mozilla products which are in Debian's package repository? Why not the "Mozilla" name, itself?
First: Firefox has always been patched in Debian (and many distros). The only thing new is that it won't have the same name.
According to the DFSG, they'd have to keep it in nonfree if they wanted to keep the name.
You can read the discussion in the bug report.
I'm not a Debian user & do use many Mozilla products, but I think MozCo could have handled this better.
The logo is under a non-permissive copyright, which Debian objects to & which Mozilla has always defended from others using in "non-official" builds (including in Gentoo and the "optimized" builds for Windows and Mac by fans in the forums). These builds used a generic logo (the blue globe of the official logo, but without the orange firefox) or made their own logo.
Debian was granted permission to use the trademarked name and not the logo, but this was later rescinded.
While MozCo is perfectly within their rights to do this, they could have been a better player--no one (not even Debian) objects to the trademarked name or logo. But The COPYRIGHT on the logo runs contrary to the DFSG. Furthermore, MozCo can police their trademarks as they wish--I'm aware of no law which would require them to require the use of the image whenever the name is also used. So why did they change their minds as to what is permissable?
Furthermore, Debian has been backporting security fixes to older releases. MozCo encouraged them to use only the newer version (as Red Hat and Novell apparently do now) & said that this backporting would not be workable with the new trademark policy.
If we look to Secunia, we see that IE has 106 advisories, 19 of which are unpatched. Firefox has 3 of 36 unpatched. The most sever unpatched advisory in IE is rated as "extremely critical." In Firefox, as "less critical."
It is relatively normal for techs to install anti-spyware/anti-malware software on client PCs. Some offer or require to install commercial programs to make a little extra money by selling a license. Others install freeware as part of their service.
If a web browser was less vulnerable to spyware and malware, than I don't see any difference in installing it.
If I go out for sushi, I would certainly expect the itamae to suggest the fish that is fresher than others.
I am also in need of good citation support & am a bit of geek about it (I am a co-developer of refbase).
There are a few issues with your post.
An office suite is A LOT more than a bibliographic management system & it would not be a small task to implement it in XUL in Firefox. There have been a number of online word processors & they haven't yet seen great success.
The other thing is that Endnote is not that great of a bibliographic manager & there are more serious attempts to replace it. Zotero for Firefox will be worth watching. The new MS XML format has metadata support for citations. And OO.o has the bibliographic project to add citation support to OO.o. Bruce D'Arcus's blog is worth following.
I have used Evolution on Win32. It mostly works and it looks like development binaries are also reasonable. I wouldn't consider it much more alpha than Sunbird. I suspect that other comments on the GPL are the more likely explanation.
Finally, Thunderbird seems to release updates more rapidly than OO.o. Does anyone know how updates will work? Will those who installed it through OO.o immediately get Thunderbird updates? Or will they wait until the next OO.o version bump?