Firefox To Be Renamed In Debian 625
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.
Well, then: (Score:5, Informative)
Make up your own names (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh for heaven's sake..... (Score:5, Informative)
And of course, the Linux kernel does not, and never has, required patches to be submitted before they're used. Distros like Gentoo maintain a set of their own patches for the Linux kernel, with no problems. Debian also has their own kernel patches, last I checked.
Re:Oh for heaven's sake..... (Score:2, Informative)
If Linus tells them that he doesn't want them to use his trademark in relation to their modified version of the kernel then yes, they will stop using the trademark. What would you suggest instead, fight it out in court?
To pre-empt the "ZOMG MOZILLA TEH NAZI" crowd... (Score:5, Informative)
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=
The trademark problems discussed make the issue pretty clear.
Submitting patches (Score:5, Informative)
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 [mozilla.org].
Re:Oh for heaven's sake..... (Score:4, Informative)
According to the DFSG, they'd have to keep it in nonfree if they wanted to keep the name.
Re:Questions on Thunderbird & Other Mozilla Pr (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Oh for heaven's sake..... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh for heaven's sake..... (Score:2, Informative)
Mozilla's trademark policies do not allow use of their trademarks unless you are using the exact same binaries that they offer for download on their site. That means that while Linux distributions can distribute the official Mozilla Firefox binaries, they cannot add patches to the source and still use the trademarks.
Unfortunately, patching packages is pretty important to Debian, as well as every other Linux distribution. Why? Take security updates, for instance. Firefox has its own security update system in place. Just click on the update button in the application and an update is downloaded. Sounds great in theory. Unfortunately this will NOT work for pretty much ANY version of Linux. If Debian included the default build of Firefox, security updates would not work unless the browser was being run as root. Unacceptable. Also, Debian would be unable to do their own security updates. Unacceptable.
In case you don't know, Debian stable handles security problems by backporting upstream security fixes to older stable versions. This ensures that the your production environment doesn't drastically change because of some simple security update. (Of course, Debian is already having issues backporting Firefox updates because the code base is such a mess, but that is a different story...) This strategy is impossible if Mozilla and other trademark holding litigious organizations enforce such short sighted trademark protection policies.
Debian tried to get around this asinine trademark requirement by removing the Firefox and Mozilla logos from their versions. Apparently, this is not enough for Mozilla. Mozilla is forcing Debian to change the name of its packages, as well. According to Mozilla, Red Hat and some others gets around the trademark requirements submitting patches to Mozilla for approval. While this may work wonderfully for a for-profit company with paid developers, it will not work as well for Debian. If Debian developers had to submit patches to Mozilla for approval, not only would it slow down the development process, but it would make it less attractive to volunteer developers.
Imagine this scenario, if you will:
Debian developer: Mozilla, your Firefox security updates do not work properly. May I please fix them with this patch?
*6 weeks later*
Mozilla Corporation Rep: After careful consideration by our technical staff, your patch has been rejected. Have a nice day!
If the above situation were to happen, Debian would have no choice but to rename the packages. Kind of like they're doing now.
Debian is doing the right thing by renaming the packages. I hope other Linux distributors will follow suit. And hopefully use the same name for their repackaged browsers. For that reason, I hope Debian chooses a reasonable name that can be used by all free software distributions. Please, nothing limited in scope, like DebianFox or LinuxFox...
TC
Re:Oh for heaven's sake..... (Score:5, Informative)
Fairly liberal I'd say, and if you care to contrast with Mozilla's trademark policy [mozilla.org] it makes a world of difference.
Re:Well, then: (Score:3, Informative)
Or, they couldn't. Trademark law forbids not only names that are the same but also "quite similar" to a trademark.
Re:Questions on Thunderbird & Other Mozilla Pr (Score:1, Informative)
Re:FireGNU (Score:3, Informative)
But they should! (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, this is an issue that the open source world has not thought very deeply about yet.
Re:Please mod down misleading parent post (Score:5, Informative)
Not really different. In fact, Debian is happy to use the open-use Firefox logo, and that's what we're already doing. The "problem" is that Mozilla Corporation has demanded that, if we don't use the official-use logo, we stop calling our browser Firefox. Of course we will comply.
Nothing to see here, except Debian preparing to comply with the demands of a trademark holder.
The only remaining problem is what to call the browser instead. I'd probably support a friend's [erinn.org] suggestion of Firefaux, except that I think it would violate trademark law, which prohibits "confusingly similar" names. Because of this I think it's a bad idea to use either "Fire" or "Fox" in the new name. So ... yeah. Iceweasel.
Debian should follow it's own rules (Score:2, Informative)
For some reason Debian doesn't think this is a good plicy. Ok, if that is so, then why does Debian itself state that
"Debian" and the Debian Logo are trademarks of Software in the Public Interest, Inc. [debian.org]
I doubt Debian would like it if I came along, changed a bunch of apt source code, and re-relased it using their name and logo.
Re:To Debian: Pick Your Battles (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Selective quoting (Score:5, Informative)
They don't, part of Debian's build process for Firefox strips the logo (and some other things, anything considered "non-free" actually). They had striked a deal with some Mozilla spokeperson some time ago about that, and were allowed to use the Firefox name without the Firefox logo (the Mozilla branding usually requires you to have them together, and probably imposes some other things, if you want to use the Mozilla Firefox brand), but it looks like that policy has changed and they can't anymore.
Which means that now they can either include the logo (which they can't, since it's non-free, unless they move Fx to non-free packages) or stop using the name.
They picked the later.
Re:Oh for heaven's sake..... (Score:4, Informative)
Close, it's more like this:
- Debian says, "I want to modify the source so that Firefox can better fit in with my OS."
- Mozilla says, "Sure, but you have to run changes through us to release it with the official branding. We want to protect our brand and QA those changes before you ship something that will reflect on our image."
- Debian responds, "Um, no. We do what we want because it's free software. This isn't going to fly with us."
- Mozilla answers, "Well, you're free to have the source and do with it what you will, but the logo is copywritten and the name is trademarked and we reserve the right not to let you use it without our permission. The only way you're getting that is to let us QA the changes or ship it unmodified."
- Debian says loudly with it's nose in the air, "OK, fine! We're not using the name or the logo, because we do what with Free software. That's what makes it free."
It seems like the natural course of events happened here. Debian wants everything to be free. Mozilla wants to protect a brand. So Debian takes what's free and makes its own brand. I think the culture of that at Mozilla is not into Free Software as an ideology (and there are many blog posts by Mozilla employees that say so) but that it is a means to create great software. I think the culture of Debian is that they're really into Freedom and the software will come over time. Given the availability and an infinate amount of time, the probability of creating great software goes to 1. (They like the Math equations over there in the Debian camp!)Of course, it all doesn't matter as long as Ubuntu gets to keep the Firefox branding. If not, I'm sure there will be scripts written to change it all back. Freedom, baby! Yeah!
Re:Make up your own names (Score:5, Informative)
Dude, the fix is trivial, i'll even walk you through it:
Re:But they should! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Freefox / Iceweasel / Firechicken (Score:3, Informative)
I think it is in my best interest (as a user) that Debian alter its package so that mozilla.com can no longer prevent me from doing so; therefore rebranding the Firefox browser (or even renaming the package, if necessary) is in the best interest of the user.
Re:To pre-empt the "ZOMG MOZILLA TEH NAZI" crowd.. (Score:4, Informative)
the conditions you need to get on board with:
- All changes the distributor wishes to make to the source code must be
provided as discrete patches, along with a description of why the change
is required
- Releases are expected to be based on the CVS tag and/or source tarball
for the release version, plus approved patches.
- build configurations should also be submitted for approval.
- The logo and the trademark are required to be used together.
To me #1 and #3 are blatant restrictions on the freedom of using firefox, so I can agree with Debian's stance of calling it something else.
Re:FreeFox (Score:3, Informative)
Also, I run Debian on my desktop and I know others who do, so it is not 'non-existent'. It might be a vanishingly small minority, but that's different from not existing.
DebianFox (Score:2, Informative)
1. The software is based on FireFox, and therefore will probably be compatible with Firefox Add-ons
2. The software has been tweaked by Debian, and therefore might not be perfectly compatible, and now you know who to complain to when it breaks.
Not that I expect them to do this, but it would be the right thing to do.
Re:FreeFox (Score:4, Informative)