Debian and Mozilla: a new proposal [LWN.net]

Gervase Markham, the Mozilla Foundation representative charged with negotiating an agreement with Debian over the use of Mozilla's trademarks, has posted a new proposal to that end. Mozilla would retain control over trademark use, but would no longer be able to exercise that control after a package is frozen for a stable release.

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Debian and Mozilla: a new proposal

Posted Jan 17, 2005 18:38 UTC (Mon) by gjmarter (subscriber, #5777) [Link]

Here's my own ill-conceived plan for a technical solution. The application should be set up with both trademarked and a standard alternate set of logos. At run-time the application would run some sort of signature check and if the binary matches the compiled in signature then the Mozilla trademarks can be used. If they do not match then the alternate logos will be used.

The signing does not need to be secret. It just needs to be understood that by putting a specific signature into the application that you are certifying that the resulting binary meets the rules for the trademarked logos.

An ordinary user making a recompile would not need to know about this. By default they would end up with an application that does not use the trademarks.

There is still the issue of what binary names are allowed, but I suspect that a compromise could be reached on that. Or in the alternative, there might be a technical solution for that as well.

Debian and Mozilla: a new proposal

Posted Jan 17, 2005 19:35 UTC (Mon) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

There is still the issue of what binary names are allowed, but I suspect that a compromise could be reached on that.

I think the problem is not only with the binary names, but with the menu labels (e.g. in K-menu or in the icewm menu) and the tooltips of the "quick launch" icons on the toolbar.

Bye,NAR

Debian and Mozilla: a new proposal

Posted Jan 18, 2005 14:18 UTC (Tue) by gerv (subscriber, #3376) [Link]

> At run-time the application would run some sort of signature check and if
> the binary matches the compiled in signature then the Mozilla trademarks
> can be used. If they do not match then the alternate logos will be used.

If you read the article and the threads, you will see that the concern is not that Debian ship an exact copy of Mozilla. In fact, we expect and are quite happy that Debian will need to make modifications to Firefox and Thunderbird.

(Also, if your solution found a problem to solve, it would be very difficult to implement technically. The signature of the binary depends on so many things, including compiler, platform, compile options, phase of the moon etc.)

Gerv

Debian and Mozilla: a new proposal

Posted Jan 18, 2005 1:06 UTC (Tue) by jimmybgood (guest, #26142) [Link]

This is really a non-issue. The Mozilla foundation badly wants its trademarks spread by Debian, because they plan on making a lot of money off those trademarks. The more well known they are, the more money they make.

Debian should call their bluff and just change the name and be done with it. Mozilla needs Debian more than Debian needs Mozilla. If Mozilla really didn't want their trademarks spread, they wouldn't be distributing them in code. The code you get in tarballs or from cvs would not have any trademarked content. Mozilla would just patch their code to insert them when they make their binaries. Everyone else would insert their own names or be stuck with "Web Browser".

Myself, I'd prefer that. I don't want or need their trademarks, although I am pretty reliant on their code. The same goes for Abiword.

In fact, I'd like to ask all developer's _not_ to distribute any specially protected content with their source. I don't want it and I can't understand why anyone else would.

Debian and Mozilla: a new proposal

Posted Jan 18, 2005 14:23 UTC (Tue) by gerv (subscriber, #3376) [Link]

> The Mozilla foundation badly wants its trademarks spread by Debian, because
> they plan on making a lot of money off those trademarks. The more well
> known they are, the more money they make.

You say that like it's a bad thing. The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organisation, whose income goes towards writing more and better free software. Why is it bad if they find a way to use trademarks to generate money in this way? And why, all other things being equal and an appropriate level of freedom being preserved, would Debian not want to assist them in that goal?

> If Mozilla really didn't want their trademarks spread, they wouldn't be
> distributing them in code. The code you get in tarballs or from cvs would
> not have any trademarked content.

In fact, that's exactly what happens with the trademarked logos (which are not in question here; both sides agree Debian will not be using them). They aren't in the tarballs (or shouldn't be) and aren't in the default CVS pull. The question is over the name. The name is in the source by default because a lot of people use it; the trademark policies covering who can use the name are more liberal than those covering who can use the logo.

Gerv

Debian and Mozilla: a new proposal

Posted Jan 18, 2005 15:59 UTC (Tue) by jensend (guest, #1385) [Link]

The trouble with this proposal and the current trademark policy (besides the question of whether the proposal satisfies DFSG #8), it seems to me, is that either tons of legitimate uses of the trademarks get cut out or the position of Trademark Czar quickly becomes a full-time job, and perhaps enough work for a full squad of developers. There have got to be more ways to automate the process- approved build procedures would be a way to start: "anything built according to these build procedures from official source tarballs- or tarballs with only changes which are either covered by the Distribution policy or are equivalent to patches checked in to the Foundation's stable branch corresponding to the released tarball- is granted permission to bear the trademarks, subject to revocation by the Foundation's revision of the list of approved procedures".