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162 Comments
- trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+49Why not Red Panda? That is where the name firefox comes from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_panda
"The Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens Latin: "fire-colored cat") also known as the Lesser Panda, Wah, Bear Cat or Firefox" - JamesWilson, on 10/12/2007, -7/+55They should just use a blue e for the logo then... :)
- billyfoxtrot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+40Read the article...
The logo is under a non-free copyright license, which means Debian won't use it. - a99tandem, on 10/12/2007, -6/+38Dugg just for IceWeasel!
- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -20/+43Well, then that's Debian's problem. I think Firefox has a right to tell people to only use the FireFox name with the logo as long as they give the logo away free. And it's free, but it's under copyright. Could Mozilla be more reasonable? Yes. But are they doing anything wrong? Not at all.
- ryeancoke, on 10/12/2007, -5/+27Just move to Ubuntu ;-) Like the developers seem to be doing. But, seriuosly, these trademark issue are a major pain in the a?!. I created a few FireFox(tm) tutorials for family and friends. Four weeks later, I got a call from Mozilla asking me to stop using the FireFox logo. These trademark issues are doing nothing good for open source or firefox.
- baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -10/+31if the debian developers would fix libstdc++ so users can download Firefox or Seamonkey or Thunderbird from http://www.mozilla.org/ and install it then this would be much less of an issue, then configure apt-get to download & install non-debian packages like firefox & openoffice & etc... from the author's website...
- Four20, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23I like the suggested name 'FreeFox'
- shakin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22"Y'know, I'm a Debian user, and I've seen Debian do the exact same thing with Debian-based distros. Progeny Debian, I think it was, and more recently Debian Pure, now Genie OS, all had to change their names because of Debian's ToU. Even I have to say that they certainly have no room to protest."
That's completely different. Debian can easily state a case wherein Debian Pure may be mistaken for "real" Debian. The integrity of the Debian brand is at stake if one of those distros provides a poor customer expierience.
In this case Debian is distributing Firefox, but with a different icon. Firefox can't really say that Debian may provide users with a poorer Firefox experience than standard Firefox unless they think the icon is an important part of the whole software using experience. It's not like Debian has forked Firefox, but is still using the Firefox name.
Personally, I think both Debian and Firefox need to lighten up. - BluParadox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15No. The issue here is that the mozilla foundation refuses to let you do other things with the icon - for example modifying it and selling the modified version would not be allowed. They're fine with giving it away for free - just not completely without usage restrictions - and Debian is unwilling to use it unless they are able to give up all rights to the icon (essentially). This is something that the mozilla foundation cannot do because if they do so they basically give up their trademarks - which are important for any group that ever hopes to make money.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -8/+23Debian doesn't bundle any packages that are non-free (as in Freedom). Hence the lack of Java (which can be a pain in the ass). No need to compromize for a name and a icon.
I'm not sure why you'd want a web browser on debian anyway. Browsers are all about having the latest versions. Debian's all about out of date, but incredibly stable packages.
All our Debian boxes at work are servers, and don't even have a GUI installed. All our linux desktops run Ubuntu. - saads, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15You can read the actual discussion between the debian developer (owner of the blog) and the Mozilla guy here:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=354622 - headzoo, on 10/12/2007, -11/+26Didn't Firefox gain the browser market they have now through grass roots marketing? It was thousands of bloggers and webmasters plastering the "Get Firefox" buttons on their sites, with the Firefox logo. Now they want to give the middle finger to that same group of people?
Is there any sanity left in the software world? - mistshadow2k4, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20Y'know, I'm a Debian user, and I've seen Debian do the exact same thing with Debian-based distros. Progeny Debian, I think it was, and more recently Debian Pure, now Genie OS, all had to change their names because of Debian's ToU. Even I have to say that they certainly have no room to protest.
- Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -12/+26@shakin: So why doesn't Debian just use the damned icon? It's a freaking ICON. Shove that tiny 32x32 bundle of pixels in there and this whole debate is settled.
And the Debian people wonder why distros like Ubuntu are bleeding them out. Come on people! Stop being so damned fanatical and get in touch with reality; people don't care about if a bloody icon is "free as in beer" or "free as in speech"! They want to double click a little icon and make their web browser go. - JohnH, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Debian takes an extremely hard stance on the freedom of everything they put into their distribution, but it's in no way confined to Firefox.
One could complain that Debian doesn't unbend their principles to make room for a dinky picture, or one could complain that the Firefox guys are taking their branding a little too far, or that it's ludicrous for them to burden their gigantic, tremendously useful open-source software project by mandating the inclusion of a non-free icon. - sekyuritei, on 10/12/2007, -23/+37... and people wonder why Linux doesn't have more desktop share. Great time to be idealistic, Firefox peeps!
- thewebguy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17i don't know the ins and outs of their policies, but i think that this falls directly under the respnsibility of the debian team. if they have a policy that they want to hold to (not including any non-free copyright) then they should have the sole responsibilities attached to that.
if mozilla's terms say that debian can't distribute firefox with a different image and still call it firefox, debian needs to respect that. - cmiz, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18In my opinion, Firefox's biggest appeal is that it's FOSS. The fact that they're pulling shenanigans like this goes against what they are supposed to be standing for. I say screw it, grab the source, compile it and call it 'Debian Browser'.
Seriously Mozilla, whip up a free license icon, it would take you all of about 10 minutes. - heavensblade23, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18Debian is the one that made the decision not to use the icon and thus run into problems with the Mozilla foundation.
- drlha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13"Debian is not and never has been a desktop distribution"
If that were true, why bother including a web browser at all in Debian?
PS. Computers at my work run Debian as a Desktop OS. - trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12"If Mozilla was to issue a creative commons licence on top of their copyright would that be enough to satisfy them?"
Yes, in fact that is exactly what they want. - nerd05, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14@guspaz
Ubuntu is based on Debian, and Ubuntu also uses the a different icon, so this would affect them too.
Since Firefox is open-source, I don't understand why the Mozilla foundation is bothering with making the icon non-free. Anyone have any theories for this? - interiot, on 10/12/2007, -8/+20Surely Firefox isn't the only one who has a non-free logo? And does the logo being non-free mean that Firefox is any less open-source?
- cphuntington97, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I suppose my former birthday cake wasn't quite kosher... if you know what I mean.
http://jonathanfilbert.com/firefoxcake/ - kenthorvath, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13I've got it: FireFaux...
- tavisjohn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11This is about a YEAR old...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceweasel - cmiz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Correct me if I'm wrong... but doesn't Ubuntu use the blue globe for Firefox as well? Although this is aimed directly at Debian, I'm pretty sure that all derivatives (aka Ubuntu) are affected as long as they use the blue globe.
IMHO the blue globe looks nicer than the Firefox Icon (tm, apparently) anyways. - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -14/+23"... and people wonder why Linux doesn't have more desktop share"
Right. 'Cause Microsoft never spends any time on copyright disputes, and lawyers.
You know, that's why windows isn't more popular -- all that time trying to stop piracy.
Nice troll though. - aplusbi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12This has very little to do with Linux. Debian and Debian packages (including FireFox) are distributed according to the Debian Social Contract. The use of the FireFox logo broke that contract so Debian distributes a modified version of FireFox that uses a different logo (a blue globe). Mozilla is now asking Debian to either use the official logo, stop calling it FireFox, or stop distributing it as a package altogether.
Most other Linux distributions do not have the same restrictions on packages so this would not apply to them. - kevogod, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11@jacobmp92
That is an absolute lie. Ubuntu does not ship with Adobe Flash. It never has and never will... unless of course Adobe's Flash is released under a GPL license. Adobe Flash is available in Ubuntu's commercial repositories but these are not enabled by default. - headzoo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12I can't imagine why my comment is getting dugg down. The Mozilla Foundation *does* owe it's success to the thousands of website owners that supported them by putting the logo and buttons on their sites. And now Mozilla says that's a no-no? How am I wrong about that?
- xst4t1kx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10I now seriously want an "IceWeasel" theme.
- ricree, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10The name is probably trademarked, so if they want to enforce it they can. Since firefox is released under a free license, there is nothing the mozilla foundation can do about using the program itself.
Personally, I think that they should stop worrying about what icons people are using and start working to improve the browser. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I respect both Firefox and Debian's sides of the argument: the use of project logo's needs to be controllable; and Debian extremely strict social contract is one of the major things that seperates it from other distros, and guarantees that it won't get corporatified *cough* Fedora, SuSE *cough* Frankly, the social contract is why I use Debian; Debian will probably be around for a very very long time because of it (as slow as the development may get). On the other hand, for example, if Canonical tanks, then things don't bode well for Ubuntu...
I don't see why both sides can't be satisfied; (in my opinion) the best solutions, in order of preference:
---Mozilla opens up their logo (perhaps they make a seperate "official use" logo, like Debian has done)
---Debian moves firefox to non-free (honestly, who doesn't source non-free anyhow?)
---Everybody simply quietly ignores the conflict and goes on as usual.... (which is what seems to happening anyhow)
---changing the name is a bad idea... it will cause immeasurable confusion and backwards compatibility issues. (although I'm all for iceweasel if it must; maybe foxfire would be less confusing tho, redpanda is cute too) - jholdaway, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@ headzoo ... Didn't Firefox gain the browser market they have now through grass roots marketing? It was thousands of bloggers and webmasters plastering the "Get Firefox" buttons on their sites, with the Firefox logo?
Exactly. You hit the nail on the head. It was the butons with the name "Firefox" and the Firefox logo that gave them market share. The only way they could do that is to keep the name with the logo together. Because it is open source you could end up with hundreds of versions out there (and you do). It is not unreasonable to keep them together.
And they are not trying to make a mint of the artwork but keep a non-open copyright to keep people from being able to release, say, a music player with the firefox icon. It also allows the Mozilla Organization to know who is realeasing versions of their browser. - ayam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8You can _always_ freely add another archive to /etc/apt/sources.list but debian official will remain free and DFSG compliant
- BuddhaChu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Hey! I actually learned something from your comment and going to that link. That's isn't supposed to happen around here is it!? :P
Nice one Burninator with the extra "o"! :D - pobst, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Come on Colbert Nation, this application must be called the "Stephen Colbert Gecko-Based Web Browser". Now get out there and vote and make it happen!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9This is the problem they are now a bloody corporation they have to worry about their image.
- Keloran, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7theres a long history of the Firefox team being generally annoyed at the attitude of the Debian developers/moderators, this is just the nail in the coffin
- felderado, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Gentoo used to not include the artwork because of this. Not too long ago Gentoo was authorized by the Mozilla Foundation to use the Firefox Artwork. Now all Gentoo builds are considered as authorized as the regular releases because our build process meets their standards.
Soo.... What's going to happen now? - BluParadox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6jacobmp92: I believe there is an OSS project for a flash player on linux. It is possible that you ended up with that and not a proprietary version, but to the best of my knowledge there isnt any proprietary software that ships with ubuntu...
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9OMG this is just like the XFree86 fiasco, let's all jump ship and run Konqueror or links or something.
- LucianSolaris, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I back debian. Debian is designed around those who wish to relinquish themselves of restrictions, or at least start their installation that way...
also, debian seems to be an umbrella of sorts when it comes to child distos, so it makes perfect sense to be hard line on non-free items so child distros know they're starting from a clean IP slate. - jacobmp92, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8There is just one problem. Debian/Ubuntu is not allowed to use the logo either, since they both change the package to adapt to the OS.
- garethevans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Wow, you (or whomever made it) did a nice job on the texture of the fire.
- vexx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The Browser formally known as Firefox?
- t1m1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@aguilr:
Because Epiphany is already called 'Webbrowser' in Debian. - ephemerae, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Oh for *****'s sake. This is stupid.
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