What is Digg?57 Comments
- dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22"The whole scandal is not about Mozilla protecting it's trademark, of course they should. It's about the fact that they once told Debian that they could use the logo/name, but now are complaining about it."
Just like Digg, at one point, said everyone could use the logo/name. Their lawyers came in and said, "Hey, guys, this isn't a good idea. Someone can steal this from you, and you'll never get it back." So they wised up. - diggapleaze, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22ahh whatever...NOBODY'S 100% right here. you have to at least admit that putting this page up was a good thing, so Mozilla at least deserves credit for that.
- Juvenall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17Here's my understanding of the whole mess. Mind you, I could be wrong since I've not been following it as closely as some:
Debian, for whatever reason, was distributing a modified version of Firefox under the Firefox name. The Mozilla Foundation, in an effort to protect the validity of it's trademark and copyrights, sent Debian a request/demand/cease-and-desist notice. However, they also added that Debian is welcome to make changes, but they would either a) have to change the name or b) run changes by Mozilla before release if they wanted to keep using the Firefox name.
The problem Mozilla has is that Debian is using the Firefox name on a product that isn't 100% Mozilla code. So if something goes wrong, it can hurt the Firefox/Mozilla brand.
Again, that's my working understanding and may not be totally correct. If that's the case, however, the Debian people need to grow up, relax and move on. Mozilla didn't do anything that Debian wouldn't do if I started making my own changes to Debian and kept calling it Debian. - heavensblade23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Mozilla pretty much has to protect their trademarks to prevent someone from cashing in on Firefox' popularity by releasing a version with spyware or worse.
- elusive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13You left out the important bits:
"Because it would gain nothing, and lead to far more infringing uses of our marks. In practice, there is no use for the files except as expressions of our trademarks, so the rights associated with an open source license don't add anything."
In other words, what is the point in releasing the logo files as free (non-copyrighted)? They are still trademarked so their use is still restricted in exactly the same manner. - felchdonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10This is the same thing that Kevin Rose said about the Digg trademark, and the same thing Apple has been doing protecting its iPod trademark.
Get over it, folks, it's just the standard comings and goings of trademark law. Sound and fury. - andersonmanly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8That's right...if they didn't trademark their product, what's to stop Microsoft or Apple from snagging it and calling it their own?
- edwinm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9The software *is* free, This is not about the software.
- edwinm, on 10/12/2007, -5/+13Issue explained in a nutshell:
Mozilla says: "You can use the name Firefox if you also use the Firefox graphics".
Debian says: "We don't have problems with names (trademark law), but we do have problems with graphics (copyrights)".
Mozilla: "It's both or only the code"
Debian: "We somebody from Mozilla once told us we could use the Firefox name".
Mozilla: "We are smarter now. It's both of only the code".
Debian starts crying. - nalf38, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Sp: Hypocrisy.
Unlike MS, Mozilla is only protecting their TM, not their code. If Debian is so upset over their use or alleged misuse of a trademarked name/graphic, maybe they should boycott the Linux kernel, too, since the Linux name is also trademarked. - jaredvolkl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Edit: close Juvenall, see my explanation below
@jweinraub and @eaglestar
If you use Firefox/Thunderbird in Debian (Ubuntu), you're using a modified version of that software because Debian and Ubuntu are "free" and do not use the original logos. They do this for the same reason that Ubuntu can't play mp3 files and doesn't have Sun's Java installed by default. Those are both things you'd think would be in any modern OS, but they aren't because they aren't free. They are proprietary. Mozilla used to let Debian and other distros use their software without the compiled in logos. The maintainers of those distros had to download the source code, change the logos, and recompile them in order to include them. Now that Mozilla is enforcing their rule (this is due to how trademark law in the U.S. works and the same reason Digg had to force other sites to stop using the Digg name), these distros can't include this software anymore. The easiest way to remedy this problem is for the distros to name the program something else (thereby making it a derivative work with the source code available and compliant with their license).
The bottom line is Mozilla is forced to do this (willingly or not) to continue to say they have the trademark on the Firefox/Thunderbird logos. - tommasz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6People seem to forget that Mozilla is not just a Linux software developer. While it would be unlikely someone would create a malware-loaded browser with the Mozilla logo for Linux systems, you can pretty much guarantee that someone would for Windows.
- ToeCheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@chrismm...
Find me a trademark issue that Microsoft has fought and everyone bitched about. Remember that a Trademark is different than a Patent. Now if they went after someone because they had the word Windows in their title but they were not in the computer business then MS would be a dick. Even if MS suddenly got into the storm window business they don't have the right to it.
Now if I released an application call MS Basic then I think Microsoft should have the right to defend their MS Basic trademark. Regardless of what my app does and even if they don't have that application available anymore because the moment they let someone slide on it their hold on the trademark has been weaken.
What do you think Netscape (or AOL) would do if Adobe released a product called Navigator? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@andersonmanly - exactly right.
trademark serves (or is supposed to serve, anyway) as an indication of origin, that is, to prevent someone else from passing off another's product as their own. clearly microsoft and other nefarious entities would like to profit from the work done by moz developers if they could. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7They should just have a firefox icon and a description under it "browser whos name we cannot speak"
- sciencedude, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7@ToeCheese: They complained about Mike Rowe Soft and Lindows for two
- Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4A whole lot of people seem to get confused by free (= libre) licenses and.. err, trademarks? What do these have to do with each other? It's like those people who can't believe free and open source software is still copyrighted with everything that implies.
- sciencedude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4diggaplease: "putting this page up was a good thing, so Mozilla at least deserves credit for that."
They put this page up MANY months ago--back when they told many distros that using the name and not the coppywritten logo was O.K.:
Here's the page history:
http://bonsai-www.mozilla.org/cvslog.cgi?file=mozilla-org/html/foundation/trademarks/faq.html&rev=&root=/cvsroot/ - sciencedude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This should be modded up. No one seems to understand that Debian isn't upset about the trademark. They do not like the copyright the image is under and they are upset that the terms for permission to use the trademark have changed.
- macewan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's important to protect your trademark - one of the local county commissioners in my town is using the Wordpress name in his splogging site - yes I told Matt but it still represents the need to protect a name.
- trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"If Debian is so upset over their use or alleged misuse of a trademarked name/graphic..."
Where is this idea that Debian or Mozilla are 'upset' coming from?
They both have legitimate reasons why they are doing what they are doing, and they both realize that about the other. Nobody representing Mozilla or Debian has mentioned any anger, malice, or even disagreement.
They have mutually exclusive problems, and they are trying to find a way to continue working together, nothing more.
Please cite one ill willed reference from either party, I think you will find the 'argument' is contained entirely within Digg and other blogs that in no way represent either party. - nalf38, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5If you're going to change the code significantly and still brand it as Firefox, that's wrong. You can say it's based on Firefox, the same way Ubuntu is based on Debian, but calling it Firefox is wrong because it's not.
- KhaaL, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6well needed article... hopefully it will calm people and prevent them from getting further wrong ideas...
- venom8599, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Debian also doesn't have to be so zealous in having everything be "free". The image is copyrighted. Mozilla wants the image to stay copyrighted, because if it were free, it has no control over who uses it at all and the logo could be attached to very substandard derivatives, to malware, etc... with impunity. This to me is an example of how people who get overly zealous about totally "free" software cause complications. In some situations, copyright isn't an evil thing, and is appropriate.
- ahze, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2it was well needed? This FAQ was there in November 2004 when I applied for the use of the name Firefox and icons for FreeBSD.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I still don't get it. If the pretty logo is used for Mac/Win, why can't Linux use it, or Debian anyways?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Opera dev Haavard's reaction to all this
http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/show.dml/486861 - sciencedude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2But the whole issue is that they don't want to use the icon--the copyright isn't acceptable under DFSG.
- nalf38, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I understand ScienceDude. I just think Debian's restrictions for what goes in their distro and what doesn't is a little restrictive.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1going after mike rowe soft is entirely different to mozilla's situation, where distro's are blatantly using the icon.
***** it was the guys name. - kingp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@jweinraub
The reason is because most linux distributions repackage the Firefox browser with their distro. I think Mozilla's reasoning here is that if the distros want to repackage their own version of the browser, then anything reflecting mozilla's trademark should be removed and replaced with the distro's own images, etc.
I also know that fedora doesn't let you run the Mozilla version of Firefox (by downloading it from the Mozilla site) out of the box. You have to download and install certain GCC packages before it will work. However, the Fedora version that comes with the distro, works perfectly because it has been tweaked to work with the distro before it was shipped. - heathenx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@trogdoor
yup, i totally agree with you. the only people upset over it are diggers. are people here cherry picking the facts and then choosing sides?
personally, i would like the firefox and thunderbird icons used on debian/ubuntu but if debian/ubuntu refuse for legitimate reasons then no worries.
lighten up people. - subgeniusd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Sorry, but we have run into some technical difficulties!
The Opera Community will be back up as soon as possible. Until then, you may visit the following pages:"
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And this is 4 hours after link posted.
I'm on Debian right now and still think they are overreacting. But they have a right to overreact and if I don't like it I am entitled to a full refund (haha) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the reason is to stop ***** ripping off the logo it's simple.
trademark may not go far enough if they heavily modify the icon - LowenSoDium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Becuase Microsoft and Apple don't compile Firefox or it's patches for Windows and Mac OS, the Mozilla foundation does.
What if the Debian. version of Firefox had a bug or exploit in it? It would look bad for Firefox even though they might not be the ones to blame. - Shadowman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How is this a "scandal"? Talk about redefining a word for your own purposes. That's a scandal!
- ToeCheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@sciencedude:
What you are saying is that going after someone because the name sounds that same is similar to go after someone who uses the Trademark in their product's name?
It's OK for Digg.com to go after a site called DiggMania.com but I don't think they can go after a site called Bigg.com - imerlin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Ofcourse they should protect the trademark by default.
That being said I do belive thet they should make agreements with GNU distributions allowing them to use the Mozilla name even if the code has some distribution specific code or at least open discussion with them instead of telling them they can't. - thepatryn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2The Linux kernel in Debian also has custom patches applied, must they change its name too? That's ridiculous. Ubuntu and Debian are operating systems, and as such are one level of complexity over a software program, so comparing this to the Firefox case is not in order.
- jacobmp92, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Mozilla does NOT want both, they want neither, since the code is changed.
- Majken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's not just a matter of keeping the logo and name together. Debian *IS* making significant enough code changes for this to be an issue, as others have already said, although not everyone seems to be realizing that.
If Debian had agreed to use the official branding then Mike Connor's next move would have been to push the approval issue - which he should have done in the original post anyway rather than as an aside later on in the bug, I think he was hoping they'd just agree to not use official branding and that would be that - and we'd all be here talking about this anyway.
I give support in Mozilla's #firefox irc channel and we *tried* long ago to stop supporting debian firefox builds because they change things that we don't know about, but every person we told "you'll have to go to debian for support" responded with "they told me to come here." Now we go through the simple process of having them make a new profile, and if that doesn't resolve the issue (it never does) we have them install Mozilla's Firefox and give that a try. I have yet to see an issue on Debian's Firefox that hasn't been fixed by installing Mozilla's Firefox instead.
Debian has been (in some cases at least) writing their own patches to fix issues that are already fixed in Mozilla Firefox, rather than porting Mozilla's patches, which have been creating bugs that don't exist in Mozilla Firefox. The fact that I'm sitting here having to type Debian Firefox and Mozilla Firefox I think is a pretty good illustration of why Mozilla needs to do what they're doing, regardless of the icon issues. - jdrivein, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I read all the posts on this matter in the debian mailing list.
To sum up:
1. The license of the images is not free, while there's no license on the "firefox" name itself, just a trademark. Debian can't include the artwork because of its anti-DFSG nature and was once allowed to use the trademark without the artwork. As firefox is getting more and more popular, Mozilla corp. changed its mind and they want them to be used together, or not used at all. No way out: Debian (and probably Ubuntu too) has to drop the name "firefox".
2. Debian patches the firefox codebase in all its releases (stable, testing, unstable), if the program is distribuited with the name FF Mozilla Corp. wants to check and approve the patches (whose quality was doubted more than once by the pr man on debian ml...)
Debian can't allow this, as it wants to be free to change whatever they want (isn't ot called free software??), for the sake of security. There's more: when a new version is released Mozilla drops support for previsious ones, so the Debian mantainers backport patches from current to e.g. 1.0.7 or whatever is in stable. So the approving process by Mozilla on patches is quite difficult and probably long, Debian wouldn't be allowed to patch quickly new security holes in stable. The Mozilla pr man says that this will be enforced on every distro, but currently just Novell and RedHat comply and Debian was asked to.
My comments:
-There are way too many distro, they'll end harassing the main ones and wasting the mantainers time.
-Debian should drop the firefox name as soon as possible.
-It made me a bit sad - thepatryn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1The root of the problem is that Debian can't use the original Firefox logo, because it's non-free! If the image were free (as in freedom) then Debian would not be forced to change it, and then there would be no trademark violation to worry about.
I think the Mozilla people want users to have a "uniform experience", and that's why they want Firefox to be always the same, anywhere. That could be OK, but messing up with Debian just for that is no good. - jaredvolkl, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@LowenSoDium
I don't think these distros actually change any of the code, just the graphics. I don't see how that could cause crashes or a virus to spread. If something like that did somehow make it into a release, the community would surely flush it out quickly. That's the benefit of community developed software. - kelson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1If I understand this correctly, the problem isn't just that Mozilla won't let Debian use the trademarks. It's that Mozilla sets certain conditions on use of the trademarks, conditions that other distros have met (Red Hat and Novell are mentioned in the Debian bug exchange) , but that Debian is unwilling to meet for philosophical reasons.
It seems to boil down to this:
1. Mozilla wants to be able to approve anything that goes out with their trademarks. (Distros can ship it unmodified, or submit their local patches for approval.)
2. Mozilla wants these conditions to apply to both the name and logo. (Previously they were only concerned with the logo.)
3. Debian doesn't want to be held to conditions beyond the source licenses.
4. Debian does want to use the name.
Compromise on any one of these would resolve the situation Mozilla could license the trademarks to Debian without restrictions. Mozilla could uncouple the name and logo. Debian could accept the conditions on using the trademarks. Or Debian could use a non-branded build of the application. - sciencedude, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2"what is the point in releasing the logo files as free (non-copyrighted)?"
Free software advocates aren'te arguing for non-copywritten images. If the images were under a permissive copyright, that would please everyone. What is the purpose of keeping them under a proprietary copyright license? The trademark offers enough protection! - eaglestar, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Yea i don't understand ether, but it must be more than that, like Debian wanting to use the logo in some form of advertising or wanting to do something abnormal....
I mean even google uses the firefox name and distributes it with some of their software
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Would be nice if we had a link to the original issue... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2thanks a lot to the ***** digging me down. Boo hoo.
My point was they should be enforcing trademark issues against those who actually stand to hurt firefox, not help them. - sciencedude, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0Mozilla is free to police their trademarks and copyrights as they wish. Nothing stops them from putting out the image under a permissive license & nothing forces them to require the trademarked image with trademarked text.
- markcrules, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3The more time that passes the more I think Stallman was right, software should be free.
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