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Nice ad hominem attack

Nice ad hominem attack

Posted Oct 25, 2004 8:56 UTC (Mon) by job (subscriber, #670)
In reply to: Nice ad hominem attack by BrucePerens
Parent article: How to be a Free Software zealot (NewsForge)

Mozilla Firefox should be considered non-free, IMHO. They use their
trademark to protect their product: Yes, you are allowed to distribute
and modify it, but you are NOT allowed to use the name neither the
graphics(!). IMHO, the graphics is an integral part of a GUI software
package. Ergo: non-free.

(Note: the fact that all Linux distributors distribute Mozilla doesn't
change the fact that they need to get special exceptions on a case basis
and that the Mozilla project has reserved them the right to shoot down
distributors in the future.)


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Nice ad hominem attack

Posted Oct 25, 2004 9:02 UTC (Mon) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

Trademarks have nothing to do with Open Source; Linux(R) itself is trademarked by one L. Torvalds.

Nice ad hominem attack

Posted Oct 25, 2004 10:42 UTC (Mon) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]

Trademarks have everything to do with open source. Much like copyright
has everything to do with it. The GPL license builds on copyright law.
But if your GPL'd code contains lots of trademarked words, then trademark
laws are also in effect and can restrict distribution in ways the GPL was
designed to protect.

Much like Linux itself is a trademark of Linus, Linux itself is also a
copyright of numerous people. The license under which you can use it is
what open source is all about.

Nice ad hominem attack

Posted Oct 25, 2004 12:42 UTC (Mon) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

But if your GPL'd code contains lots of trademarked words, then trademark laws are also in effect and can restrict distribution in ways the GPL was designed to protect.

If your code contains trademarks or copyrighted works that are not your own, normal restrictions apply. I'm pretty sure the GPL respects that, so what's the problem?

Nice ad hominem attack

Posted Oct 25, 2004 21:23 UTC (Mon) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]

I was merely explaning how trademark law as well as copyright law can
retrict distribution of software, as you said they have nothing to do
with each other.

My original comment was about that I think that a software should have
all parts free (copyright as well as trademark license) to be considered
free as a whole, and gave Firefox as a counterexample.

Nice ad hominem attack

Posted Oct 25, 2004 21:50 UTC (Mon) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

I am not quite sure what you mean. The GPL is actually quite restrictive, and only through its restrictions does it provide freedom. This is a way of saying that freedom is not as simple as getting rid of as much restrictions as we can.

Nice ad hominem attack

Posted Oct 25, 2004 9:34 UTC (Mon) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

Yeah yeah yeah ..

Tell you what if everyone that has crawled out of the wood work on the
strenght of this one article (as crap as it is) paid the same amount of attention to the job of getting Linux where it DESERVES TO BE then by now we would not be facing a continual bararge of crap from M$ Corp they would be silenced permanently and so would other bit players like sco sun .

It is just amazing how many people appear when some worm of a jurno has got his nutts in his hands .

Mozilla BTW is great and the fact that people MIGHT have to ask to include it in a distro places no problems oj it at all AFAICS

Pete .

Nice ad hominem attack

Posted Oct 25, 2004 10:44 UTC (Mon) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]

Indeed. So where are you in all this? Your opinion might carry some more
weight if you were actually a packager for a major distro having to deal
with all this stuff.

Nice ad hominem attack

Posted Oct 25, 2004 12:14 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

Having heard a lot about the FSF's philosophy, the grandparent is right.

All Mozilla's trademark stuff does is shoot THEMSELVES in the foot if they play nasty.

It does NOT restrict the USER's freedom at all. Don't forget - the FSF doesn't give a damn about DISTRIBUTORS.

Cheers,
Wol

Nice ad hominem attack

Posted Nov 4, 2004 15:57 UTC (Thu) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]

On the contrary. It is the user's freedoms that are being restricted. The
distributions can all ask and get special exceptions. Each and every user
that wants to extend Mozilla in some way can't possibly ask the Mozilla
organisation for special permission. That is the case today. Unless you
want to redo the graphics and change the name, of couse, but that might
be a bit more work than you originally had expected. It's your choice.

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