Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

[Posted January 10, 2005 by corbet]

The Mozilla Foundation is the keeper of a number of increasingly important projects, including the Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird mail client. These programs are free software, licensed under the Mozilla Public License. Thus, one would think, distributors would have no trouble including these packages in their distributions. As the Debian Project's experience shows, however, free software can still come with certain kinds of strings attached.

The issue at hand is trademarks. Mozilla Foundation software comes with trademarked names, and the use of those names is governed by the Mozilla Trademark Policy. If you want to distribute software called "Mozilla Firefox" or "Mozilla Thunderbird," you must adhere to a strict policy which includes signing an agreement with the Foundation and making almost no changes to the software. No extensions may be added, the list of search engines cannot be changed (they paid to be there, after all), etc. This highly-restrictive policy was never going to work with the Debian Project's needs.

Another approach is the "community edition" policy. A wider (but still narrow) range of changes is allowed, and the distributor can use the names "Firefox Community Edition." The commands can be called firefox and thunderbird. The Foundation maintains a veto right over uses of the "community edition" names, however:

Community members and organizations can start using the "Firefox Community Edition" and "Thunderbird Community Edition" trademarks from day one, but the Mozilla Foundation may require individuals or teams to stop doing so in the future if they are redistributing software with low quality and efforts to remedy the situation have not succeeded.

So anybody distributing a "community edition" must live with the possibility of receiving a "takedown notice" from the Mozilla Foundation at any time. The Foundation's goals are certainly understandable:

...we need to keep enough control over our trademarks to make sure they are a sign of quality and safety. It needs to be impossible, for example, for someone to release a product called 'Firefox' that has added spyware. We want to avoid someone building a highly-optimized but unstable build and passing it off as official.

Most readers will agree that a spyware-enabled Firefox is a bad idea, though whether purveyors of spyware will have much respect for trademarks is an open question.

The Debian Project insists on shipping nothing but free software, and freedom certainly includes the right to modify the code. Debian currently includes patches which may go beyond the trademark policy's guidelines - an extension manager which understands multi-user systems, for example. A strict reading of the community edition guidelines suggests that not even security patches could be distributed without prior approval from the Mozilla Foundation. The Debian Project certainly wants to be able to distribute modified versions of the code; the Project is also known for a close and literal reading of licenses. So the Debian developers are concerned about the whole trademark issue.

The Mozilla Foundation wants to work with Debian to get past these issues:

We want people to use Thunderbird in Debian, and to know they are using Thunderbird, and to get the high quality experience people get from using our Thunderbird. And we want to come to some arrangement with Debian to make that possible.

This arrangement could possibly include allowing Debian to apply its own patches to Firefox and Thunderbird and still use the community names. The Foundation seems to have a fairly high level of trust in Debian's ability to keep the quality up. Debian's users are another story, however:

However, you guys want the freedom to ship software that sucks - or, more to the point and more likely, want to be able to easily give your software to other people and allow them to make it suck and then ship it. If that software ships using our trademarks, then that is incompatible with our trademark goals. So if we can't come to some arrangement that lets Debian use them but asks redistributors to contact us or remove them, then it's increasingly looking like we can't square this circle.

So it looks somewhat like the Foundation would like to make a special policy exemption for Debian. The problem there is that Debian-specific licenses violate section 8 of the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Those guidelines apply to software licenses, not trademark policies, but the principle remains the same. The Debian Project is unlikely to accept a policy which does not extend to its users.

The discussion has quieted - it may have gone into a non-public mode - so it is difficult to say where things stand now. If an agreement cannot be found, Debian will still be able to distribute Firefox and Thunderbird - they are free software - but different names will have to be chosen. "Iceweasel" has been the working code name for this scenario; many other names have been suggested as well. This outcome would not be pleasing to any of the parties involved, however; one assumes it will be avoided if at all possible.

Mozilla is unlikely to be the last project that decides that it wants to achieve some sort of quality control through its trademarks. That wish is understandable, but it is also very much at odds with the spirit of free software, which involves letting go of the code. One has to accept that not everybody will have the same idea of what makes "high quality." Incidents of free software projects being harmed by distribution of poorly-done modifications have been rare, and, perhaps, are not worth the worry that is being put into them here. Mozilla has done an outstanding job of creating powerful and useful software; now, perhaps, the Foundation may want to relax and trust its users just a little more.

to post comments

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 17:59 UTC (Mon) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link] (10 responses)

Can someone explain to me why section 4 of the DSG (included below), "Integrity of the author's source code", isn't the basis for resolving this issue?

********************************************************************
4.

Integrity of The Author's Source Code

The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form _only_ if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software. (This is a compromise. The Debian group encourages all authors not to restrict any files, source or binary, from being modified.)
*******************************************************************

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 19:12 UTC (Mon) by piman (guest, #8957) [Link] (9 responses)

If you invoke DFSG#4 it requires Debian to rename the software.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 19:33 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Now exactly. If Debian does not change software it does not need to rename it. If Debian will get "OK" for all planned changes there are no need to rename anything as well. After all Debian does include "plain TeX" (see my message below) and it's called "plain TeX"!

It's not DFSG problem - it's more like management problem: if Debian will agree to Okay all changes with Mozilla foundation then even security changes can not be added without such OK - and this is where real problem lies.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 19:36 UTC (Mon) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link] (7 responses)

I can't see any apocalyptic conflict of principles here. DFSF #4 says that authors can require derived works to carry a different name. Debian itself would not allow an arbitrary derived work of Debian to still call itself Debian. Now add to the above the fact that Mozilla says that they like Debian's quality and they are willing to allow Debian to use their trademark. Debian can decide for itself whether they want to use the trademark even though they can not pass that ability onto their users, the quality of whose derivations they obviously cannot vouch for.

So Debian has these possibilities: 1) use Mozilla like any other package but give it some name variant indicating it has been modified, 2) use Mozilla and call it Mozilla but put it in non-free and indicate in the source distribution of their modified code that a further user-modified version should not be installed as Mozilla because that interferes with a trademark, 3) offer a choice between version "1)" in free and version "2)" in non-free, 4) make a different subset of non-free called "trademarked", recognizing that the legitimacy of this sort of restriction has already been coded into the DFSG.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 19:55 UTC (Mon) by piman (guest, #8957) [Link] (5 responses)

> 1) use Mozilla like any other package but give it some name variant indicating it has been modified

That's what the article is about. Did you read it? This is what Debian (and everyone else) will have to do to distribute Mozilla under the current policy.

But this is substandard for users. What value does the "Mozilla" mark have for anyone -- distributors, users, or the Mozilla Foundation -- when every Unix user uses the Iceweasel browser instead? The Mozilla Foundation needs to realize their management of the mark is hurting everyone.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 20:08 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (3 responses)

Why it's Ok for *TeX (plain TeX, LaTeX and so on have very strict regulations imposed on redistributors)and bad for Firefox ?

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 11, 2005 4:22 UTC (Tue) by goonie (guest, #4252) [Link]

IIRC, TeX is treated as a special case by Debian developers, because it's been in Debian since day 1 (almost), and, well, it's by Don Knuth, sooper-genius.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 13, 2005 17:49 UTC (Thu) by edgewood (subscriber, #1123) [Link] (1 responses)

While both the Iceweasel and Community Edition options are arguably DFSG-free, they both present policy challenges. Iceweasel is the best option from a freeness perspective, but poses challenges to Debian users, since many inexperienced users may be confused by the name changes. On the other hand, Debian developers may not want to live with the restrictions of the community edition.

TeX is different because 1) it has a much smaller user base than Mozilla, so a name change, if one were necessary, would have a smaller impact, and 2) a user who is experienced enough to even know what TeX is can probably handle a hypothetical name change.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 20, 2005 13:33 UTC (Thu) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

Also, something tells me TeX won't need any security fixes.. ;-)

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 20:18 UTC (Mon) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

I read the article and felt that - without saying anything false - it gave a false impression of serious conflict where no serious conflict exists. My range of suggestions is meant to show that there are multiple good possibilities. You may feel like "1)" is not a good possibility, but I doubt most people seriously care. Also, if making a symlink doesn't count as "distribution" then sysadmins can make symlinks called mozilla for folks that can't cope with deb-mozilla or iceweasel.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 20, 2005 13:36 UTC (Thu) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

I see a big difference in if I am allowed to make a MyOwnDebian fork or not. Mozilla forbids any name that contains the string "Firefox" so the normal rules does not apply.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 18:32 UTC (Mon) by kfox (guest, #4767) [Link] (5 responses)

The Mozilla Foundation can't relax and trust its users -- the law demands active protection of a mark.

Why can't Debian just release "Debian Thunderbird"? That protects Mozilla from dilution, but makes the relationship obvious.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 18:37 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (4 responses)

1) Nobody questions the validity of the "Linux" trademark, despite a much more relaxed attitude regarding what can be called "Linux."

2) "Debian Thunderbird" would be an acceptible name under the "community" trademark rules. But those rules still have a lot of restrictions, as described in the article.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 19:46 UTC (Mon) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link] (3 responses)

"Nobody questions the validity of the "Linux" trademark"

No community members, sure, but in a court of law, things like active enforcement have real meaning. If Microsoft made a product called Microsoft Linux that, well, wasn't, Linus might find it rather hard to assert his trademark ownership when he lets all sorts of other not-strictly-Linux products and services use his trademark.

Enforcement of what?

Posted Jan 10, 2005 20:32 UTC (Mon) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link] (2 responses)

That's not my understanding.

You enforce two things. The first is that people don't make protected
use of your trademark without a license. Failing to do that will indeed
be a problem if you trademark is challenged in court -- especially by
parties which you have been making use of the mark. The other thing you
enforce are the terms of a license allowing use of the trademark. Without
a license the only allowed uses are minimal, like fair use in copyright.
However trademark law doesn't care what uses you allow in your licenses.
A generous license will not mean it is revoked, invalidated, or
considered abandoned.

Of course IANAL.

The thing we are talking about here are the license terms, not use of the
trademark without a license.

Enforcement of what?

Posted Jan 14, 2005 1:11 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

The thing we are talking about here are the license terms, not use of the trademark without a license.

It's the same thing. I don't mean it's equivalent; I mean it's technically one and the same.

The license terms tell you what you have to do in order to have the right to use the trademark. If you don't perform the terms, you don't get to use the trademark. The licensor can't force you perform the terms; he can only force you not to use the trademark if you don't (or recover damages for the unlicensed use).

Sometimes people have a separate contract in which the licensee gets a license in exchange for the licensee giving up something. In that case, the licensor could separately enforce the contract. From what I've read, that's not what Mozilla is doing.

Enforcement of what?

Posted Jan 14, 2005 5:10 UTC (Fri) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link]

I think we agree. My point is that we are discussing licensing terms
here. It will have no effect on the validity of their trademark to use
different terms -- a disagreement with a statement to the contrary in a
previous post. I understand that a pure license is a unilateral grant
and that enforcement won't have anything to do with breach of contract but
with trademark infringement. I see that my post can read differently but
my point (an the reason I changed the title) was to draw attention to
_what_ is being enforced: the trademark itself is unchanging and there is
nothing to debate (unless someone wants to challenge it like the Godzilla
trademark owners), on the other hand the terms given for its use can, at
least in theory, be modified.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 19:16 UTC (Mon) by jwb (guest, #15467) [Link]

I'd use Debian Iceweasel. Makes more sense than trying to bend over backwards for Mozilla.org's paranoia.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 19:18 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (10 responses)

New problem. Reel new. Only 20+ years old, in fact. This predates Debian, Linux and GNU project as well:
-- plain.tex --
% This is the plain TeX format that's described in The TeXbook.
% N.B.: A version number is defined at the very end of this file;
% please change that number whenever the file is modified!
% And don't modify the file unless you change its name:
% Everybody's "plain.tex" file should be the same, worldwide.
[skipped]
-------------

TeX is included in most distributions (including Debian last time I've checked). Now, please explain again: how is it any different then Firefox's issue ?

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 19:26 UTC (Mon) by piman (guest, #8957) [Link] (9 responses)

Debian doesn't change that file, so it doesn't have to rename it. More importantly TeX doesn't enforce it with trademarks, so the names "teTeX" and "LaTeX" are okay.

Debian does change Mozilla and Firefox, and can't just rename it to "Debian Firefox" because that's too similar for trademarks. It would have to rename it "Iceweasel" or something totally different.

No one is saying Mozilla's license is non-free (well, some people are, but that's not what this article is about). The problem is that the trademark license is *stupid* and requires basically every Linux distributor to rename Mozilla Foundation products when they distribute them, in order to make the distribution conform to the trademark license.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 20:11 UTC (Mon) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link] (7 responses)

Why is Mozilla's policy "stupid"? It seems totally sensible not to give somebody else the freedom to create a false impression of your work.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 21:12 UTC (Mon) by kimoto (subscriber, #5244) [Link]

It may be counterproductive if they really "want to come to an agreement with as many distributors as possible to use the names Firefox and Thunderbird".

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 21:17 UTC (Mon) by piman (guest, #8957) [Link] (4 responses)

It's stupid because it means no one can use the name "Mozilla", so there's no impression of the product. If anything, "Mozilla" will come to mean the upstream tree without the bug fixes, security updates, and new features (critical features for Unix systems, like multiuser support) -- "Mozilla" will come to mean "crap". No one wins in this case -- distributors have more work, users get confused, and the quality associated with the Mozilla name degrades.

The Mozilla Foundation is succumbing to a totally unfounded fear. "Linux" is a trademark but doesn't have a restrictive license. "GNOME" and "KDE" don't have such licenses. Most projects don't have trademarks at all. Why Mozilla (and a small handful of other projects, like AbiWord) feel they need this "protection" eludes me.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 22:03 UTC (Mon) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link] (2 responses)

"It's stupid because it means no one can use the name "Mozilla", so there's no impression of the product. If anything, "Mozilla" will come to mean the upstream tree without the bug fixes, security updates, and new features"

We are talking about the same Mozilla and Debian? Mozilla the open source project that anyone can volunteer to join? With developer forums, bugzilla, talkback, frequent releases, etc? Debian the distribution that releases a stable branch every 3 years or so? I guess it is obvious to you that the only way to get bug fixes and features into Mozilla is to use the Debian developers version, but you are going to have to walk me through the logic.

Sarcasm aside, people who don't like their development tree are free to fork it. Feeling a need to fork it and yet still call it Mozilla is just silly. Remember "gcc 2.96"? That was basically just a snapshot and look how much hell it caused.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 22:30 UTC (Mon) by piman (guest, #8957) [Link] (1 responses)

The word "Debian" did not appear in the post you replied to. This policy affects everyone who wants to distribute Mozilla with modifications -- that is, almost everyone who wants to distribute Mozilla.

While GCC 2.96 caused problems, I think you underestimate how much software you get from your distributor is not in its pristine upstream form. Upstream Mozilla does not feature real multiuser support, for example. Pretty much every GCC, glibc, and kernel you get is hacked in numerous places by your distributor. GNOME and KDE get obvious distributor-specific modifications. Unmodified upstream source for large projects is the exception rather than the rule.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 23:50 UTC (Mon) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

> The word "Debian" did not appear in the post you replied to.

Debian was a central topic in the post where you originally called the Mozilla policy "stupid". More importantly, I'm a Debian user and I appreciate the quality of their improvements to many packages, and the way that many of them are customized to Debian. But I also recognize a substantial difference between the development process of Mozilla and that of many typical upsource software projects included in Debian. Debian is one example of somebody who wants to make changes and its apparently an example where Mozilla will allow them to call the changed version Mozilla, Thunderbird, etc. So Debian is not an example of Mozilla's policy causing them problems.

Mozilla is worried about protecting themselves from inappropriate use and Debian is worried that at some point in the future, Mozilla might, at least theoretically, ask Debian to (gasp!) call the package by a different name if they don't see eye to eye with the changes. Mozilla's worry seems more serious.

Wrong conclusion

Posted Jan 12, 2005 12:11 UTC (Wed) by filipjoelsson (guest, #2622) [Link]

You say:
"It's stupid because it means no one can use the name "Mozilla", so there's no impression of the product."

This is wrong: As long as you distribute Mozilla as released by the Mozilla Foundation, you may use the name "Mozilla". If you want to make some small adjustments, you can still call it "Debian Mozilla, the Community edition".

They use the trademark to guarantee the official versions. One reason is to get an effective legal weapon fighting entities that would like to plant malware/spyware and pass it off as Mozilla.

As long as you don't expect every user to eyeball the software, it is a good idea to think a bit about what you do to protect your users from security problems. Otherwise Free software could get a really bad name, really fast - if eg a semi-official Mozilla was subverted.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 20, 2005 13:39 UTC (Thu) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

That was the biggest doublespeak since "software piracy". The "freedom to create a false impression of your work", normally known as the "freedom to improve others work", is one of the basic principles of this thing called Free Software.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 13, 2005 11:29 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

More important: Debian is not allowed to change one byte of plain.tex without changing the name. For that matter, they are not allowed to change the TeX program outside of certain exactly defined code sections, without changing its name. Believe me, I know DEK since 1983: he and the AMS (who are the actual copyright and trademark holder) are serious about that topic.

And the debian-legal folks don't take exception to that; but cause great stink for LaTeX (before the latest LPPL) and for Mozilla. This is hypocrisy.

Disclaimer: I'm associated with the LaTeX project. (Do a whois on latex-project.org :-) I'm not involved in the Mozilla project.

Joachim

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 10, 2005 19:44 UTC (Mon) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link]

I delt with similar isssues when authoring the UserLinux Mark Protection Policy:
http://www.userlinux.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Mark_Protection_...

Mozilla has completely the right idea with their mark protection. As the user base becomes less technical, they want and expect a brand to certify quality more since they are putting more trust in a brand.

Strong marks are a good thing. They are very common for organiztions outside of open source software (Red Cross, Better Business Bureau, Easter Seals). BBB marks would have no weight if they were loosely available, fragmented, and easily confused like Debian's open use and official marks.

-Brock Frazier
Boise, ID USA
(more about UserLinux at http://www.userlinux.com )

Interesting conversation, but I think it will work out OK

Posted Jan 10, 2005 21:58 UTC (Mon) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (8 responses)

I've read all the messages on this on debian-legal, and it seems to me that this is a bit of a tempest in a teapot. No one is arguing that the Mozilla license is not DFSG-free: as someone pointed out DFSG #4 clearly allows mandatory renaming clauses and indeed, Debian has contained other packages with very similar licenses for years. Similarly, DFSG #8 really means that packages whose licenses are changed to be free for Debian only, but where that change doesn't trickle down to Debian users as well, are not considered free. It doesn't mean that Debian can't have *additional* rights, which don't trickle down, as long as the end user, while having less rights, still has a DFSG-free package.

I see absolutely no reason why, from a _legal_ standpoint, Debian can't distribute the Community Edition of Mozilla. The CE is DFSG-free, and the end-user gets a package which is also DFSG-free. The comments about whether Mozilla Foundation is being unreasonable, short-sighted, etc. in their trademark policy is really irrelevant: Debian has no policy requirement that upstream authors be reasonable and have the best interests of Debian or even the F/OSS community in mind... all Debian cares about is that (a) the license meets the DFSG, and (b) there is a Debian Developer willing to package it.

From my reading of the debian-legal threads it seems clear that the sticky points are process-related, rather than legal. Can Debian live with the _process_ restrictions that MF is imposing in order to distribute the Community Edition? The MF seems like it is really willing to work hard and make some critical compromises with the Debian folks, based on Debian's well-deserved reputation for quality and integrity, in order to ensure that Debian can use the CE. It also seems obvious to me that achieving this agreement is in the best interests of both Debian and the MF; I feel confident this will be worked out satisfactorily.

Interesting conversation, but I think it will work out OK

Posted Jan 10, 2005 23:45 UTC (Mon) by kimoto (subscriber, #5244) [Link] (7 responses)

Say it is 2+ years after the release of sarge, and its successor (what, "etch"?) is not out. Debian wants to backport some security fix to the trademarked program. The trademark holder says, "No, it is an embarrassment to us for such an ancient version to be released today. You must build a version based on a more modern version of our program. Sometimes it behaves completely differently now, and it may not even build on some of your obscure architectures; however, we don't care about that."

What is Debian to do? Change their security-fix philosophy (i.e., minimal changes) for the sake of the trademark holder? Release a new .deb that deletes the program completely? Release a new .deb with no content except to depend on moz-iceweasel?

Interesting conversation, but I think it will work out OK

Posted Jan 11, 2005 0:19 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (2 responses)

Right now Debian released version of Mozilla with known security holes as Debian 3.0r4. If it's Ok to do now - why it's not Ok to do in the future ?

Interesting conversation, but I think it will work out OK

Posted Jan 11, 2005 11:47 UTC (Tue) by rene (guest, #8057) [Link] (1 responses)

That is because it is more or less impossible to backport the fixes to
mozilla 1.0.

When it was possible it probably was done and will be done in the future.

Interesting conversation, but I think it will work out OK

Posted Jan 13, 2005 4:08 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Have you even read what was written before ?

I asked: what's so problematic about trademark issue.

I've got answer: it can preclude Debian from backporting bugfixes - and what then to do ?

I ask: duh... this already happened - and what Debian did ?

This time it's technical difference, next time it'll be trademark - what's the difference ?

The poimnt is: if you want to always have ability to backport fixes - then this gig is already lost clause. And if you'll think about it then you'll need to piss Mozilla developers quite severely to made them forbit porting bugfixes.

Interesting conversation, but I think it will work out OK

Posted Jan 11, 2005 18:12 UTC (Tue) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (3 responses)

Is it really necessary to define a generic policy that Debian must follow for every trademark holder who manages their marks the way Mozilla Foundation is doing? Since the legality is not a question, but only the process, there is no reason not to examine each case individually, taking into account the upstream authors. I'm also not interested in arguing about theoretically possible but wildly improbable situations: the idea that MF would make a request like this of Debian, _especially_ when dealing with a security patch, is completely unrealistic. In fact, the threads on debian-legal raised this very point and MF stated that the terminology about patching, etc. is not intended to cover security fixes. Possibly that's something Debian and MF would want to make part of some kind of agreement, if it's a worry for some.

Anyway, in answer to your question, IF something like this happened then obviously Debian would have to create an "iceweasel" release and, as you say, release a new deb that forced the upgrade.

Note, however, that this work will have to be done ANYWAY, right now, if Debian should decide the CE is not acceptable: Debian already provides a firefox package after all. Personally I'm more of a fan of the XP development model; of KISS; of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"; etc. Don't make work for yourself now just because there's an extremely unlikely possibility you might need it in the future.

Interesting conversation, but I think it will work out OK

Posted Jan 11, 2005 20:40 UTC (Tue) by kimoto (subscriber, #5244) [Link] (2 responses)

As far as I can tell, it's not clear whether the MF intends to restrict the use of the command name "firefox" (and whether trademark law allows them to). So you could have breakage because the command name stops working.

Also, there is no firefox in a stable Debian release (for the obvious reasons ...), and it is considered no problem for packages to disappear from unstable. This has already happened: the "mozilla-firebird" package has come and gone.

Interesting conversation, but I think it will work out OK

Posted Jan 12, 2005 2:35 UTC (Wed) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (1 responses)

I also don't know if MF intends to/is able to restrict the name of the program on the disk. Seems doubtful to me but you never know. Even if they could restrict the filename, it's hard for me to believe they could restrict Debian from installing a "/usr/bin/firefox" symbolic link to "iceweasel".

Anyway, if the worst came true and the word "firefox" could not appear anywhere on the system, that would of course be annoying. However most applications use (or should use!) Debian's alternatives capability to invoke the browser, which would make any such transition seemless.

symlink is no different

Posted Jan 14, 2005 1:01 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

Even if they could restrict the filename, it's hard for me to believe they could restrict Debian from installing a "/usr/bin/firefox" symbolic link to "iceweasel".

I can't imagine that trademark law or the Mozilla license would restrict the file name but not an alias for that name. It's like saying you can put "Microsoft Office" on your CD package for your Office knockoff as long as you put some other name on the disk inside.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 11, 2005 0:10 UTC (Tue) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]

They could always take another approach: rename the package, but insert "Based on Mozilla Firefox" or somesuch. I imagine the Mozilla team would be amenable to this, since it A) gives proper credit, and B) avoids the issue of trademark dilution.

Many Open Source Licenses have similar provisions

Posted Jan 11, 2005 3:22 UTC (Tue) by sdague (guest, #7731) [Link] (1 responses)

New BSD License:
...
* Neither the name of the <ORGANIZATION> nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
...

Appache License:
...
4. The names "Apache" and "Apache Software Foundation" must not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without prior written permission. For written permission, please contact apache@apache.org.
...
Research it yourself at http://opensource.org

Many Open Source Licenses have similar provisions

Posted Jan 14, 2005 5:12 UTC (Fri) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link]

Prohibiting use to "endorse or promote" is a lot less onerous than
prohibiting any use... even uses you would have a fair use right to.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 11, 2005 15:04 UTC (Tue) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]

It seems to me the Debian problem is much of a practical nature:
It is OK for changes to require other changes. For example the GPL states that changes must be compiscuously documented.

Basically it needs:
1) the right to distribute verbatim copy of packages
2) the right to make any modification with an 'acceptable' hassle.
3) The above hassle need to be predictable.

This means that peppering the code with trademarks so that removing them is very difficult is not DFSG free. Requesting to change one string to say 'non-official' instead of 'official' is DFSG-free.

Therefore the best option for the Mozilla foundation would be to make trademarked material a add-on package to apply on top of iceweasel to make it firefox. Debian would package them separatly with a suitable dependency. Debian-based distros can just omit the firefox package if they have made non-compliant change to iceweasel. Of course prepackaged version distributed by the Mozilla foundation will include the add-on.

This would also avoid any ambiguity about what is trademarked and let the Mozilla foundation show its good-will with modified versions (that the trademark is meant to secure quality not to bar people from distributing modified versions).

No extensions or search engine changes!?

Posted Jan 14, 2005 15:49 UTC (Fri) by cdmiller (guest, #2813) [Link]

That's too bad. Mozilla is hampering freedom of modification and freedom of redistribution. Sounds like iceweasel will be the outcome for debian.

Lots of special purpose distros, (kiosk's, CD's, embedded etc), will look at other browsers or rename firefox in order to redistribute with their needed changes in place.

I wonder who convinced Mozilla to take this route. A bunch of renamed browsers will dilute Mozilla's name recognition, not increase it. Oh well.

Current Proposal

Posted Jan 14, 2005 16:59 UTC (Fri) by gerv (guest, #3376) [Link] (2 responses)

I'm the mozilla.org person who has been talking to Debian. Here's what I posted to the list as a suggestion last night.

Gerv

<snip>

Here's my attempt at something which hopefully everyone can accept. I've tried to take into account all the excellent feedback over the past few weeks, for which I thank all involved. Comments are in square brackets.

This assumes that DFSG #8 means that Debian can be given rights over and above the rights necessary to make a program free, as long as all the rights necessary to make it free are transferable.

1) The Foundation grants Debian, and all redistributors of the official Debian packages of the Foundation's products, the right to label those packages with a name containing the trademark.

[This document would apply to "Firefox", "Thunderbird", and any other trademarks on software names we may hold in future. The name would be Firefox, Community Edition or whatever is agreed between the Foundation and the maintainer. It's not important to this document.]

2) The Foundation agrees to document the procedure for changing the name to its satisfaction, for the benefit of Debian and anyone else, and to work to make that procedure as simple as possible.

[This means that if you or a Debian redistributor ever has to change the name, it hopefully won't be too onerous. And it means we can't blindside anyone with 'but you forgot to change *this* instance".]

3) The Foundation will review the current Debian package at freeze time, and at other times at their discretion, and bring any issues they have to the attention of the maintainer. The maintainer is not responsible for notifying the Foundation of any changes he may make to the package, or obligated to make any change that the Foundation may suggest. However, in the unlikely event of irreconcilable differences occurring between the maintainer and the Foundation, the name of the package will have to be changed in all as-yet-unreleased versions of Debian.

[This gives you a free hand over the development process, and us the oversight that we need by law to be seen to be having.]

4) The Foundation agrees not to withdraw the permission more than three months into a freeze.

[This is intended to mean that we can't require an inconvenient change just when you are about to release; if we don't notice until it's too late, it's our problem. My understanding of the Debian process is not complete; 'freeze' may not be the correct term here.]

5) The Foundation agrees not to withdraw the permission for versions of the product shipping in stable releases of Debian, provided all updates to the package are within Debian's guidelines for package updates in stable releases.

[You have carte blanche to make security fixes. We are happy because your own procedures say you can't gut the package and replace it with something different. And you are happy because you have to follow your own procedures anyway, so it's not a burden.]

6) The Foundation agrees that it's not Debian's responsibility to make sure the distributors of any derivative works of Debian packages have an implicit or explicit trademark license from the Foundation.

[No hassle for you.]

7) The Foundation requests that Debian document, in a place where it might be seen by package modifiers, the potential need to acquire such a trademark licence.

[I hope you would view such a notice as a service to your users - but distributors of modified versions may need a license whether you add the notice or not.

This is hopefully in line with DFSG #4, which says that packages are free even if derived works are required to carry a different name.

It is also in line with free software licenses where changes require other changes, e.g. the GPL 2a) where code changes must be documented.]

Is this a runner?

Gerv

One final note: I can't completely exclude the possibility that someone higher up at the Foundation (e.g. Mitchell Baker) will say that I've overreached myself. But I don't know of any reason why that would be the case, and I'm negotiating in good faith. I would, of course, get a final version approved by all necessary parties :-)

Current Proposal

Posted Jan 17, 2005 18:30 UTC (Mon) by JoeBuck (guest, #2330) [Link] (1 responses)

I think that to satisfy DFSG #8, the same offer would have to be available to other distros as well (maybe with some neutral condition, like a track record of producing quality distributions).

Current Proposal

Posted Jan 17, 2005 21:33 UTC (Mon) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link]

In fact I'd almost certainly think that to be the case. The DFSG can be annoying but it is well intentioned - specifically, rule 8 is clearly meant well but in some cases leads to this level of negotiation being necessary. Sometimes I think Debian is too organised for its own good :-)

Jon.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Jan 20, 2005 10:12 UTC (Thu) by slef (guest, #14720) [Link]

Well, I think there are two aspects to this. The first is the trademark licence (which covers the software in a way, so is a software licence in a way), should follow DFSG - as some have pointed out, that's not usually a problem for trademarks. You have to do something pretty restrictive (like Mozilla's general offer) to cause a problem. The second is that some of the branding artwork is under a copyright licence that makes it not follow DFSG, so even if the trademark permission works, the branding artwork will probably still end up in the non-free section of the archive (and so not on official CDs).

The main conversation has not gone private and I'm not sure why you suggested it had. I mentioned on-list when I've tried a private approach in the past. Then, Mozilla Foundation just walked away. If they drop the ball this time, you'll see it in public.

The other key things to note are: 1) It's the package maintainer's choice whether they want to follow terms offered by MoFo to get access to the name; 2) Today's package maintainer should not commit debian or future maintainers to any contract-like restriction. Those are my main remaining questions with the terms Gerv's posted to debian-legal and the comments here.

Apologies if any of the above is in error - it's not as easy to check in a web browser as a mail/news client.

Debian and Mozilla - a study in trademarks

Posted Sep 26, 2006 19:25 UTC (Tue) by jpick (guest, #29470) [Link]

Hey, if I patch my version of Firefox, I'm still going to call it Firefox, because it is.

But according to this, if I try to distribute my patched version online (calling it Firefox + my patches), I can expect legal threats? That's not very nice, IMHO.

I don't really understand this whole Mozilla Foundation / Mozilla Corporation thing. Somehow they are making a lot of money off a free piece of software. I'm not so sure I trust the motives behind this.

If anything, Firefox needs a lot more people tearing it apart, cleaning up the code, and experimenting with it. I use it everywhere, but it's got some major useability and architectural problems, still.