Bug#815006: Renaming Iceweasel to Firefox

[David McMackins]

On Thu, 18 Feb 2016 11:35:11 +0100 Wouter Verhelst <w at uter.be> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 07:48:25AM +0800, Paul Wise wrote:
> > On Wed, 17 Feb 2016 16:55:42 +0100 Sylvestre Ledru wrote:
> > 
> > > = About the Debian specific patches =
> > 
> > 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?
> 
> I don't see a dilemma.
> 
> If Mozilla were saying "Debian is a big player, so we're giving them an
> exception", you'd have a point. But that's not what they're saying.
> 
> Instead, they're saying "we've observed Debian's past behaviour, and
> consider that what they've been doing thus far is something we don't see
> as violating our trademark". That isn't Debian-specific; as long as
> other people could, in theory, get the same exception, we're good wrt
> DFSG#8 -- even if nobody ends up trying to get that same exception. It
> would still be the case if Mozilla were to reject the use of their
> trademark by some other party, if that other party were to do something
> really egregious.
> 
> Of course, this is a balancing act, and something we (Debian) should
> carefully monitor. But as long as the above still holds, I don't see a
> problem wrt DFSG#8.
> 
> -- 
> < ron> I mean, the main *practical* problem with C++, is there's like a dozen
>        people in the world who think they really understand all of its rules,
>        and pretty much all of them are just lying to themselves too.
>  -- #debian-devel, OFTC, 2016-02-12

I still think we are approaching something dangerous. Sure, we might
have the ability to make these patches which Mozilla doesn't think
misuse their trademark, but what about users who want to make a heavier
modification and redistribute? Now they would have to rebrand. As it
currently stands, Debian has done this tremendous work for them and
actually helped them to exercise their freedom.

I don't want to see Debian go to a place where users are put a step back
just because the Debian patches and similar are okay with Mozilla.


Happy Hacking,

David E. McMackins II
Associate, Free Software Foundation (#12889)

www.mcmackins.org www.delwink.com
www.gnu.org www.fsf.org