Mozilla vs Debian Analyzed 414
lisah writes "Linux.com has a behind the scenes look at the history of the ongoing debates between Debian and Mozilla that predate Debian's last release, Sarge. The article also reports the issue may have been laid to rest for good now that Debian tentatively plans on calling it "Iceweasel" but attorney Larry Rosen said this never should have been a debate in the first place. In addition, Mozilla has been prompted to clarify its position on the company's marketing blog."
Iceweasel? (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone around here has a sig that says something like, "letting a programmer name your product is like making a marketer program it." Never before has it been demonstrated so clearly. (Well, to be fair, at least the browser isn't Gimped.)
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Re:Iceweasel? (Score:5, Informative)
The "problem" was that Debian didn't want to use this switch and go the unofficial route. Instead, they wrote a patch that would mix-and-match the official name with the unofficial icons and logos. Mozilla, having consulted their lawyers, said "Wait, you can't do that! It has to be one way or the other." They went back and forth, and finally Debian settled on going all unofficial.
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Re:Iceweasel? (Score:5, Informative)
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A different (more realistic) side effect: a lot of Open/Libre code is written as an adjunct to paid programmer's work (ie., as a hobby). Get rid of patents, copyrights, etc., the paid work becomes worthless and along with it, programmers. Who then have to find other work which will most likely not afford them the l
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Not sure why you say this. It seemed to me that the problem was that debian wanted to use firefox with all the firefox logos and artwork, but make some changes behind the scenes to the code. No I can understand firefox objecting to this, as if debian muck up their modifications it will reflect badly on the firefox brand, not debian.
If
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DUDES! If you want to use Firefox in the "Firefox" brandend incarnation, you abide to their rules. You're so anal about your own licensing being free only
Re:Iceweasel? (Score:5, Informative)
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Matt Groening - Love is ... (Score:5, Informative)
- Matt Groening
Simpsons, Futurama, Life in Hell
Re:Matt Groening - Love is ... (Score:4, Interesting)
...except you forgot to add that this quote was meant to express Nietzsche's take on love, and not in some mythical book called "Life in Hell"--which was a late revision of multiple sources, not entirely unlike the Bible or the U.S. Constitution in that regard--but in "Love is Hell," which preceded the other "...is Hell" books. Special +1 Informatives for anyone who can list the other philosophers whose theories of life were discussed on this same page of "Love is Hell." (I can't actually remember, but I think one was Kierkegaard.)
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Pfft. What can't you add to "Iceweasel?!"
This being a corollary to:
"What do ice weasels do?"
"What don't they do!?!?"
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So you can now read syslogs in Lucinda Console [wikipedia.org], huh?
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
Debian don't want to include certain icons related to Firefox because the licensing of those graphics isn't consistent with the aims of their project.
Mozilla say that's fine, as long as Debian don't call the package "Firefox".
So Debian aren't going to call it Firefox.
No villains, and everyone lives hapily ever after. The end.
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Re:Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of this comes down to "what's in a name"? Personally, I see Debian's position as more proper within the realm of the F/OSS community. If you toute your program as open source, yet say that if anyone makes any changes to the program that you do not approve of, that they cannot use your trademark, then that certainly doesn't sound "open" and "free" to me. Especially, if your source contains all of the trademark data in the code, and altering the content requires a great deal of work.
When you come down to it, it's the same situation as I have with Windows XP. "Oh, of course you OWN the CD, you bought it. But you're only LICENSING the data on it." They hide all this un-free double plus ungood behind telling you that you're free to do whatever you want, so long as you don't screw with them.
If a program is released as free/open source under the GPL, or BSD, or any license for that matter, but contains artwork inside of it that is restricted, then that's absurd, and retarded! I'm sorry that I have to take a Stallman approach to this issue, but it's stupid to have Copyleft and Trademark compete against each other...
Let's all trade our freedom of IP expression for the shackles of another IP prison!
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That is not true. That is exactly the confusion (FUD) that I was referring to. Copyright and Trademark are entirely separate. "Intellectual Property" is a fiction, or - more accurately - a theoretical combination of (C) and (TM). In this instance, Mozilla aren't disputing (C), but are disputing (TM).
If you want a full description, feel free to get yourself a lawyer ;-)
This instance s
you are wrong (Score:3, Informative)
To which you said, "Uh, done? I don't keep old casebooks on my shelf for the hell of it, you know."
On Slashdot, you are my favorite kind of lawyer. In real life, my least favorite. You are smug, lording it over other people, and 100% wrong.
If you think that the trademark law is enabled by the copyright and patent clause of the US Constitution, you might want to read the 1879 Trademark Cases. They are Supreme Court c
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And what do we call that? GiftMark?
Copylefted, giftmarked... what's the opposite of patent? Suede?
God, jokes about leather... that's a low, even for slashdot.
Re:Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what kind of patches Debian is applying, but they must not be trivial, if Mozilla wants to approve them before allowing distribution with their name and artwork.
The Mozilla foundation laid all of this out a long time ago. Debian knew the terms when they began using Firefox. They're free to agree to the terms or not use it.
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No one will let you use their trademark. It reflects back on them. If anyone could call a product Firefox, and put all of the Firefox graphics on there, then they can do anything in Mozilla's name. Anything includes making spyware, a virus, or just plain bad software. That would cripple Moz
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Re:Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's not that much about the logo as it is about other changes Debian makes.
No villains, and everyone lives hapily ever after. The end.
Sure, everyone is technically in their right. However, Mozilla is being very much of a pain in the ass. Can you imagine how life would be for distros if GNOME decided it doesn't get called GNOME unless it's the official GNOME release (no modifications)? And then KDE could do the same, along with X.Org, OpenOffice.org,
Re:Summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I can imagine it.
It would fucking ROCK.
Being able to assume that "GNOME 2.10" really is "GNOME 2.10" everywhere, and not "GNOME 2.10 plus some stuff that I thought might cool and without the stuff I thought I didn't need"... well, it would make life a lot simpler for app developers.
Re:Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
It would fucking ROCK.
Being able to assume that "GNOME 2.10" really is "GNOME 2.10" everywhere, and not "GNOME 2.10 plus some stuff that I thought might cool and without the stuff I thought I didn't need"... well, it would make life a lot simpler for app developers.
You're getting it wrong here. It would mean that Debian would have "TROLL 2.10 plus some stuff that I thought might cool and without the stuff I thought I didn't need", and RedHat would have "EMONG 2.10 plus some stuff that I thought might cool and without the stuff I thought I didn't need" and so on. Distribution are *integrators*, they can't just ship everything unmodified (they'd all be the same otherwise). (Most) People want something polished where apps fit together and all.
Re:Summary (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with the rest of your statement, though, and I do think that this business is a big waste of developer time and effort. Now it is really more difficult to comply adequately, depending on the nature and volume of Debian's patches.
If one were to invite prognostication from me, I'd say that this sort of response will grow, as Mozilla Corporation flexes it's muscle over trademark enforcement. I'd guess that Debian, Ubuntu, and any other distro striving to be truly free, will probably do something like perform conditions 1 and 3 anyway (publicly submit patches w/descriptions, as well as tag their divergent branch), will probably exert the GPL and use whatever build time configurations they think are best, and lastly, come up with their own artwork and graphics.
That will further their goal of using & distributing free, high-quality software (without non-free strings attached to binary data included in the final product) to their users. My guess is that creative icon-ing will make this change remarkeably less noticeable to end users. After all, there is no reason that iceweasel (et. al.) couldn't use the same (or similar) versioning and advertise itself as being 'firefox compatible' as far as extensions & page rendering go. Not to mention, that I seriously doubt it would be a violation of trademark to install a 'firefox', or 'mozilla-firefox' symbolic link (in a very
On the side of Mozilla Corp., they will either decide that this dilutes the brand, and just bend to unify everyone, or they won't care and will drop strictly-all-free sorts of GNU/Linux distributions, assuming that the market share they bring is minimal.
And that will be that. Just my guess, anyway. If Mozilla Corp is smart, they'll exclude the user-agent string from trademark issues so that at least usage statistics will show a unified product, rather ruining firefox's growing usage statistics rank in a schism.
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That's an interesting one. Maybe it would be a way for Debian and the others to put pressure on Mozilla Corp. After all, using Firefox as the user-agent string would be claiming "I am an [official] Firefox browser", which Moz corp said they weren't allowed to do. So yes, I'd expect the usage sta
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1) Same as before, they get blamed for all bugs, even those introduced by Debian
2) T
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Mozilla has their own license. Why should they have to conform to the ideals of other licenses. Or should Mozilla not be free to choose their license? Maybe Microsoft and Adobe should have to adopt one of those licenses as well.
We should have trademark usage license that chal
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Mozilla is free to choose their license. They could have made Firefox a proprietary browser (assuming they owned all the copyright) if they wanted to. They could have asked $1000/seat. We're not arguing the legality, but the fact that they're being a PITA for Linux distributions, who
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Mozilla say that's fine, as long as Debian don't call the package "Firefox".'''
What's unfortunate is that two years ago the Mozilla Foundation told Debian they'd be fine as long as they didn't call it "Mozilla Firefox"; they sanctioned the change to "Debian Firefox", as referenced in one of the links from the article. Now the Mozilla Corporation (the new t
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I prefer "WaterVole" (Score:3, Interesting)
Why iceweasel? (Score:2, Insightful)
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The only thing that's happened here is, the Mozilla Foundation is forcing Debian to change the name (as is their right under trademark law), somebody on the Debian mailing list suggested "Iceweasel" and it stuck.
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And how are they supposed to maintain a "stable" release when they are not allowed to backport security fixes? This issue is about more than just the copyrighted logos you know.
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1) they get proper code review
and
2) everyone benefits from them.
Of course it _is_ less work to just not share the security patches.
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And what happens when upstream is no longer interested in supporting the version of Firefox in Debian stable (or even oldstable), as is the case for Firefox 1.0.4 in Sarge? Mozilla stopped supporting the Firefox 1.0.x line in May, about 7 months before the scheduled release of Debian Etch, and 19 months before the expected end of security support for Sarge.
Debian needs to relax (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because it doesn't need to be "completely free"; it only needs to comply with the DFSG [debian.org]. Apparently, Mozilla imposed restrictions on the use of Firefox that were deemed incompatible with those. As long as no such restrictions are imposed on Linux, there is no need for Debian to fork it. If there is such a need, they probably will fork it.
``If you want Firefox on your system and w
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They *can't*. They wish the could, but the Mozilla people are threatening to take action if they ship with the name Firefox. The only way for them to use the name Firefox would be to ask permission for *every* single change they want to make. This not only defeats the purpose of open-source, but opens the door to other similar abuses. Think what would happen if the maintainer of every Debian package asked to approve patches before allowing use of the name! So
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This is not true in the slightest. Mozilla has tried to work with them and has NOT threatened to take legal action from any of the news articles I have read on this. In fact, they tried to bend backwards to accomodate the Debian developers requests but said they could not remove the logos and artwork for branding reasons. That and wanting all fixes to go through one group of develope
Re:It is a BIG Deal (Score:4, Interesting)
If the unauthorized use of logos were not prosecuted by a company I could do lots of fun things. For example, I could repackage the gimp, throw photoshop's splash image in it and call it photoshopper. Maybe the name of my company would be AdobeHut too. Better still, I'll put a "circle R" next to all of it and make it look official.
If Adobe doesn't throw every last lawyer at me, then lots of other people could do it. The courts would see it as essentially public domain. Meanwhile, I can drag Adobe into court for using my logo. Crazy right?
Both parties are doing the right thing here. I doubt it really consumed very much time/energy on the part of the project as these kinds of details must be addressed and that's about it.
Stories like this tend to make a figurative fire where there is none.
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Pragmatism is what is so great about Ubuntu - it sheds the tedious GNU politics of Debian but keeps the good work they've done and wraps it up in a nice user friendly package. If Debian wants to mess around with Firefox then fine, change the branding chrome and other settings, but they shouldn't be shocked that Mozilla says they can't use the Firefox brand on it. Even Debian has a trademark on their name (and
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So now Ubuntu users will wait longer for patches to get to them. But hey, they still get to call it Firefox. Woohoo.
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Now, because of the name change, Debian's project, which is a not-complete fork of Firefox, but, as it differs from the official Firefox, is under the control of the Debian Project, and they are free to name it as they wish. Th
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This is an issue with the DFSG, which is Debian's social contract. It's fine if you don't get it, but in that case please don't open your mouth on the subject, you only look stupid.
PS: don't bet on Ubuntu still shipping with Firefox, unless they strike the same deal with MozCo RedHat and Novell did, it won't happen.
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Thats basically what the Mozilla blog article said in case you neglected to read it. Allow me to put in a block quopte for you...
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I don't know if you realize this, but the entire point of free software is that it is FREE. Free to copy, free to modify, free to redistribute, free to examine. Free.
Firefox is a piece of free software. The artwork that accompanies the code should be free as well. If the Mozilla Foundation is not going to follow the principles of free software then I see no reason why the Debian people should have to put up with their bullshit.
"Does this comprimise [sic] the distrib
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Absurdity (Score:3, Insightful)
This would be like changing the name of the distribution to Dumbo GMAC/Looney and wondering why Disney and GM are sending you C&D letters, while Linus sends you an angry e-mail asking that you respect his trademark. It's free software, we can call it anything we want, and you are free to modify it! While technically true, that doesn't get anyone anywhere.
To Debian: We don't live in a black and white world. Please find another academic circular argument, and let this one go.
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While I agree that it's seems silly to have this argument over a name and some artwork, artwork is not code. It doesn't fall under the GPL. The code is still totally free. It's the art and name that aren't. If you had a project called XYZ, and someone wanted to take your work and distribute it, but change things in it... Would you still want them calling it 'XYZ'? No, you'd want to
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I dunno. Copyright and trademarks are different domains. Copyright gives control as a method of increasing value to the creator, trademark gives control largely to prevent deception of consumers. Just because Firefox is opensource doesn't mean anyone should be able to release whatever they want and call it Firefox. While "Iceweasel" is the kind of edge case that provokes debate over who is right or wrong, I think this is pretty clear if you consider extreme case
Iceweasel? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh well, Ubuntu already has things worked out with Firefox, so no naming games going on there. Debian should note well that sometimes downstreams do take over when the parent project became too onerous to work with. No one is too big for this to happen.
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The software is completely DFSG-free aside from the icons and trademark. What a waste it would be to move it to non-free just for the sake of these two easily removable things!
There's a related argument (I know you didn't make it) that Debian could at least make Firefox available from non-free in parallel with IceWeasel in main. Unfortunately it would be a nightmare for t
Ubuntu status and IceWeasel Icon (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone know what's up with Ubuntu? Are they going to pull official Firefox releases, or are they going to pull IceWeasel straight from Debian?
IceWeasel Icon - Direct Link (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is at Moz's end (Score:4, Informative)
I already made the change earlier in the year. Done right FF plugins still work so no big deal.
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I hope they're only trying to be funny and n
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Get with the program? Are you serious? Should we not patch Linux either? How 'bout X?
You should read Matthew Garrett's recent blog entry about why it's a good thing (for the Mozilla Corp, Debian, and the user community at large) for Debian (or anybody else) to be allowed to distribute patches. http://mjg59.livejournal.com/68112.html [livejournal.com]
Also, you should probably read this post [redhat.com] to t
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Here's the problem: Suppose Mozilla were to give Debian full control, Debian patches the hell out of it, and people say "Firefox sucks! It crashes all the time on Debian!" Now, suppose Debian gave Mozilla full control, Mozilla doesn't allow Debian-specific patches required to make it w
Community Edition (Score:3, Interesting)
This policy seems to be a good fit--Debian MUST NOT include the image which is under a non-DFSG copyright to conform to this policy (they don't want to and currently don't include it, but the NEW "standard trademark policy" is that it must be used if the Firefox name is used). And they must rename it "Firefox Community Edition, Debian." This seems preferable to Ice Weasel for both the majority of Debian users and Mozilla's image. OpenBSD already follows this policy, as do others. If the CEP is ever dropped, there will be many more distros who will be forced to switch to "Ice Weasel."
Shades of GPL3? (Score:3, Interesting)
Looks like Debian is getting burned by its own arrogance.
The GPL-3 allows the copywrite holder to place certain restrictions on the licensee's use of the software, for instance no military/weapons use (don't like your stuff being used; Freedom's a biach isn't it). Restrictions on what parts of the code the use may or may not change; requiring links to download the source be maintained.
Now they being hit, once again, by restrictions the copywrite holders are placing on the distribution: if you distribute software that we own the copywrite to, you must maintain our branding. Sounds reasonable, the application is called Firefox and the logos and branding are part of the application; after all the copywrite holder does have the right to say what's part of application, (certain exceptions may apply in the case of illegal monopolies, and fraudlent activities). The usage restrictions also don't seem out of line with Debain's official logo usage.
http://www.debian.org/logos/ [debian.org]Looks like the Mozilla Foundation is pretty much in line with the Debian usage here.
So the Debian developers are free to change the code however they want, but they can't call it Firefox and they can't use the Firefox logos.
I for one (Score:2)
What's the big deal with the name? Anyone that needs to recognize it mostly just clicks on the internet icon (thingy). Anyone else can just look and will find it. Besides, I never liked the sound of the Firefox name anyways. Iceweasel sounds so much cooler (literally, as a matter of fact).
It's all about the trademark (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, so? That's the problem. You're not supposed to be like any other company. You're supposed to care about freedom.
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Trademark law requires you protect you're trademark, if the images are part of the trademark then you cannot use them modified without negatively effecting your trademark.
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Don't forget firebird (Score:2)
Firefox was once called Firebird but renamed due to the "other" firebird which was a db.
Firebird, Phoenix, DCC... (Score:4, Informative)
And Debian's been on both sides, too, when they forced the DCC to drop "Debian" [linux-watch.com] (originally it was the "Debian Common Core Alliance.")
Iceweasel (Score:2, Insightful)
So can I use the name "Debian" freely, then? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So can I use the name "Debian" freely, then? (Score:4, Funny)
As a sort-of-almost-not-quite-yet sdk (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, pretend for a minute Debian had Firefox with that name and the regular icons. But they decided, for whatever reason, to roll back or use their own GC patch for the problem we had.
So, my app wouldn't work on Firefox, but would work on Firefox? Specifically, not on Debian FF but in the rest of the world? Any idea how inane this is? Firefox is trying to protect a brand of quality, if debian introduces a new bug into their browser, should Moz provide support? Should other people provide support in IRC, newsgroups, etc.. ?
What if I modified python to not use if anymore but use wellmaybeiwillonlyif instead, but released it, called it Python, same version, etc... should I be allowed to do so? Could I then say that python from python.org is not compatible with Python from python.org, which I should then call the unofficial branch?
Yeah, it's silly, but if I'm an OS, that's a lot of implementations of it that no longer support "if".
Oh good grief Mozilla guys! (Score:3, Insightful)
Look - FireFox is OpenSourced - right? So for chrissakes let them
do what they want with it - that is THE ENTIRE POINT!!! If the
Debian guys (who are not exactly complete Klutzes at this stuff)
mess up, you say "Hey the Debian guys screwed up - come download
the real one from the usual places."
Geez - just make it happen and get over it.
When Firefox ceases to be Firefox... (Score:5, Insightful)
2) a user on a Debian system not knowing this goes to Mozilla IRC with a Firefox problem (this has already happened)
3) No one can solve the Bug... only to find it is an unofficial patch made or nto made by Debian
4) User complains that Firefox sucks because its not the same across systems
5) Brand is tarnished
6) Rinse. Repeat.
If you don't want to follow the guidelines, and follow your own way of doing things... change the name, or risk damaging the whole projects reputation. If I know Firefox works a certain way, I go to a new system and something doesn't work quite right, well guess what I'm not going to be happy. It's starts with the logo... but where does it end?
HAH! That's brilliant! (Score:3, Interesting)
Now this is one reason why I love open source software so much. They have fun with their naming. It makes using an OS so much more interesting. Much better than using those staid commercial systems. IceWeasel has to rate up there with replacing "more" with "less", or naming a vi clone as "Elvis".
A revelation (Score:3, Interesting)
Main Entry: contrary
Pronunciation: 'kän-"trer-E, -"tre-rE, 4 often k&n-'trer-E
Function: adjective
1 : being so different as to be at opposite extremes : OPPOSITE (come to the contrary conclusion) (went off in contrary directions); also : being opposite to or in conflict with each other (contrary viewpoints)
2 : being not in conformity with what is usual or expected (actions contrary to company policy) (contrary evidence)
3 : UNFAVORABLE -- used of wind or weather
4 : temperamentally unwilling to accept control or advice
- contrarily
- contrariness
Without simply being derogatory, I've realised that when I think of Debian, the above word is what has customarily come to mind. It's nothing I can concretely put my finger on, but I've always felt that there was an aura of perversity about the project...a sense that the Debian developers change things from the upstream norm purely because they can, and not because they've necessarily put thought into whether or not it'd actually be a good idea. Not only that, I can also remember going into the Debian IRC channel on Freenode once. It reminded me very strongly of the account of the Mad Hatter's tea party from Alice in Wonderland. They honestly came across as some of the weirdest and most unhinged individuals I've encountered. I've been using IRC for 12 years, and have known some very bizarre types online...so that is saying a lot.
I'm not claiming that that is definitely what is happening here...I don't know, and the referenced article is sufficiently vague that I feel as though I still haven't got a better idea after having read it. What I am definitely saying however is that from what I've seen, these kinds of issues coming up is entirely consistent with Debian culturally. It's also one of the reasons why I've stayed far away from the distribution; that, their degree of formality with "policy", (are they a FOSS project, or a sovereign government?!) and their degree of open sympathy with Stallman/the FSF. I think I also resent the fact that I've read about them being referred to as the only "successful" non-commercial distribution, when due in part to the reasons listed above, there are others that I feel are at least as worthy of that designation as Debian is, if not moreso. Debian might be bigger, sure...but size alone does not necessarily equal success in my own mind.
That's not to say that there haven't been good things to come from the project, at least in a secondary sense. (Knoppix and Ubuntu come to mind, which are both Debian spinoffs) The point is that it's a long way from perfect...and things like this debacle are evidence to support that assertion.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really sad... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's fairly simple:
Probably, but what'd happen if someone rebuilt a whole Debian without including the (non-free) debian logo? Because that's what'd be equivalent to the situation between Debian and MozCo
(1): the Debian logo is non-free though, and this is considered a bug by the way
PS: this post was written with Mozilla Sunbeaver
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Mr. Kettle? Meet Mr. Pot.
Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.
My, how dark you both are.
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I assume you mean Galeon or Epiphany. (Hmm, does Debian ship with WINE?)