Bug#815006: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 07:48:25AM +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
> Mozilla's trademark policy isn't clear about how much modification
> requires Mozilla's written consent. Any written consent except for a
> clarification to Mozilla's trademark guidelines would be specific to
> Debian and thus would be in violation of DFSG item 8. Debian cannot
> make agreements with Mozilla about this that don't also apply to all
> distributors of modified versions of Mozilla's software.
> 
> What is the plan to solve this dilemma?

Let's take the worst case scenario: Mozilla's policy gets so extreme
that *every* derived works must be rebranded away from Mozilla's
marks---assuming for a moment that that is something that could be
enforced using trademark law in the first place. Such a policy would be
fine w.r.t. DFSG §4.

If a policy is less clear cut than that (as Mozilla's is), and we
(Debian) decide to use the marks anyhow, what we are doing is a risk
assessment exercise. We consider in good faith that the patches we will
apply will be OK w.r.t. the (unclear) policy and that therefore Mozilla
will not force us to rebrand. But we might be wrong, and Mozilla might
decide to force us to rebrand, which will be a PITA if it has to happen
in stable.

AFAIU there is no formal/contractual guarantee that Mozilla is giving
Debian here, nor they are giving us a trademark license. So DFSG §8 is
respected. Mozilla just recognizes that the kind of work that Debian
Firefox maintainers have done in the past, if continued in the future,
*should* be fine w.r.t. their trademark policy. As per my understanding
of trademark law, and given no trademark license is being given to
Debian, others (including our downstreams) will be able to apply the
same changes to Firefox without being forced to rebrand either.

Cheers.
-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli  . . . . . . .  zack at upsilon.cc . . . . o . . . o . o
Maître de conférences . . . . . http://upsilon.cc/zack . . . o . . . o o
Former Debian Project Leader . . . . . @zacchiro . . . . o o o . . . o .
« the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club »
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