The return of Iceweasel [LWN.net]

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 28, 2006 8:28 UTC (Thu) by Jel (guest, #22988)
Parent article: The return of Iceweasel

No problem. It seems that Firefox, by this action, is no longer Free Software (was it ever?).
The "firefox" name was hijacked from real free software, and it wasn't the first name change. I'm
not even sure they're legally entitled to the name. Maybe they own "mozilla firefox", but "firefox"?
Doubt it, with prior art and all. So, Debian/Ubuntu should simply go back to calling it the last
reasonable name that was used, or indeed, use IceWeasel, to reflect and warn people about the
non-free status of the project. A simple FAQ entry or dummy package explaining the issue could be
used to let people install it under the name firefox anyway. Phoenix is probably already in used for
other projects too.

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The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 29, 2006 9:10 UTC (Fri) by rwmj (subscriber, #5474) [Link]

Well with the minimum of effort you could have actually checked whether or not they own the word "Firefox", and in fact they do:

http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entr...

Rich.

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 29, 2006 9:29 UTC (Fri) by Jel (guest, #22988) [Link]

Well, honestly, I wasn't that interested, and I'm not familiar with the
USPTO's website, being a citizen of a different country.

It's interesting. I didn't realise that trademarks apply to such a small
field; their trademark is basically just for web browsers; I figured a
software trademark would cover the entire software field. Seems too
narrow to me; if searching for "firefox" on the web complicates finding a
firefox database, then they should have had to prove their right to
override that name, it seems to me.

The return of Iceweasel

Posted Sep 29, 2006 13:45 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

Trademarks may apply to a company, a particular product, a particular service, etc. I suspect there are more product trademarks than company name trademarks.

The Firefox trademark

Posted Sep 29, 2006 18:15 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

There are two kinds of "apply to." The trademark registration tells what Mozilla is using the trademark for. But the trademark gives Mozilla the right to exclude others from using the trademark for lots of similar things too.

I don't know where the line gets drawn, but based on how broadly the rights have been granted in a few famous trademark cases, I would think someone with trademark rights on a Firefox database manager could stop someone from distributing a Firefox web browser.

Where's the proof?

Posted Oct 2, 2006 16:14 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

The "firefox" name was hijacked from real free software

I believe it's a false accusation. Where's the proof? Where's the other "firefox"? If it's free software, as you stated, can I get the source?

Where's the proof?

Posted Oct 2, 2006 16:34 UTC (Mon) by Jel (guest, #22988) [Link]

Never mind; I was thinking of the firebird database. They DID try to
hijack that name, but I forgot that they'd eventually given up and so
firefox is the newer name.

Where's the proof?

Posted Oct 17, 2006 4:01 UTC (Tue) by jwalden (guest, #41159) [Link]

They DID try to hijack [the Firebird name], but I forgot that they'd eventually given up and so firefox is the newer name.

Actually, if you recall Firebird was the followup to Phoenix, and as names go it was a fairly logical choice with logical consistency with the old name. Their mistake was in thinking that the separate software fields were separate enough to be safe. If you'll also recall they changed the name from Firebird to Firefox when it became clear that doing so was The Right Thing To Do. (Also keep in mind that this was over two years ago; naysayers should get a grip here.)

I know that all the "cool" kids in this thread and elsewhere seem to think it's okay to bash Firefox for everything they've ever done now, but reasonable people have never ascribed every Firefox decision to malicious intent and will not start doing so now.