Firefox trademark shenanigans (Re: Any chance of getting Firefox 2.0 into rawhide/FC6?)

[Konstantin Ryabitsev]

On 9/28/06, Stephen John Smoogen <smooge(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  > Besides, GNOME and gaim are applications designed and written
> for you
>  > the Linux user in mind (GNOME arguably is done with the Fedora user in
>  > mind), and we have sway with what goes in to that codebase.  Firefox is
>  > written with the Windows user in mind and if you find bugs, I am not
>  > guaranteed to be able to fix them because I (on behalf of Fedora or Red
>  > Hat) can't make changes to the source code without getting approval from
>  > the Mozilla Corporation pursuant to their trademarking guidelines.
>  >
>
>  IceWeasel! 
Honestly, we may consider doing the same thing as Debian guys, to show
our support and to prevent future possibility of a similar situation,
in case/when MozCo decides to change their marketing rules again.

Besides, it is my understanding (from reading the Debian bug
discussion and generally from being roommates with the Debian Firefox
maintainer in question), that MozCo is enforcing the "if you use the
name, you must use the logo" rule. In theory, since the logo is
copyrighted (and not sensibly licensed), Fedora should NOT be able to
use the name with a generic logo, unless Red Hat has an agreement with
MozCo about this specific case. Even in the case when such agreement
exists, it's still not acceptable, because it interferes with any
third-party repackaging of the Fedora tree.  This restriction is
already true for current releases of Fedora.

If Red Hat and Debian both pick a name for a non-restricted version of
Firefox, then that would help lessen the potential confusion. It would
suck if every distro has Firefox under a different name. If someone
wants to cooperate with the Debian Firefox maintainer, he's open to
such dialogue with Red Hat/Fedora (FESCO?). Interested parties may get
in touch with him via eric(a)debian.org (he's cc'd on this message).

I think "IceWeasel" is very silly and creates unnecessary tension with
upstream, but "Freefox" sounds like a winner, unless it is decided by
IAALs that it's too close to "Firefox" and thus can be found
infringing.

It's definitely late for such change to happen in the FC6 timeframe,
but we have to look further, and if we are to stick to the motto of
providing a distribution that is "free to infinity," then we can't
continue to ship Firefox under the name that limits what we can and
cannot do with the software.

Regards,
-- 
Konstantin Ryabitsev
Montréal, Québec

[Rahul Sundaram]

Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:

>  It's definitely late for such change to happen in the FC6
> timeframe,
>  but we have to look further, and if we are to stick to the motto of
>  providing a distribution that is "free to infinity," then we can't
>  continue to ship Firefox under the name that limits what we can and
>  cannot do with the software.
>   
Thats not true. Several projects enforce trademark guidelines. They hold 
restrictions on the name to ensure that their brand isnt spoiled. That 
includes Debian,Fedora and Linux itself. If there is pain in following 
the guidelines, you can rename it (see httpd vs apache in Fedora) but 
the trademark restriction by itself doesnt make the software non-free or 
incompatible with the Fedora objectives.

Rahul

[Konstantin Ryabitsev]

On 9/28/06, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  Thats not true. Several projects enforce trademark guidelines. They
> hold
>  restrictions on the name to ensure that their brand isnt spoiled. That
>  includes Debian,Fedora and Linux itself. If there is pain in following
>  the guidelines, you can rename it (see httpd vs apache in Fedora) but
>  the trademark restriction by itself doesnt make the software non-free or
>  incompatible with the Fedora objectives. 
It is true for Firefox. I was not speaking for trademarks on names in
general. In the words of MozCo
(http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=354622):

"If you are going to use the Firefox name, you must also use the rest of the
branding."

We can't use the rest of the branding, because it's non-free.

Regards,
-- 
Konstantin Ryabitsev
Montréal, Québec

[Rahul Sundaram]

Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:

>  It is true for Firefox. I was not speaking for trademarks on names
> in
>  general. In the words of MozCo
>  (http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=354622):
>  
>  "If you are going to use the Firefox name, you must also use the rest of 
>  the
>  branding."
>  
>  We can't use the rest of the branding, because it's non-free.
>   
So is the Debian and Fedora's branding. The branding is part of the 
trademarks. It cannot be free or it becomes diluted and you lose the 
trademark. Strict enforcement is *required by law*.


Rahul

[Konstantin Ryabitsev]

On 9/28/06, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
>  > "If you are going to use the Firefox name, you must also use the rest of
>  > the
>  > branding."
>  >
>  > We can't use the rest of the branding, because it's non-free.
>  >
>
>  So is the Debian and Fedora's branding. The branding is part of the
>  trademarks. It cannot be free or it becomes diluted and you lose the
>  trademark. Strict enforcement is *required by law*. 
I'm not sure what we are arguing. Here's my logic:

1. Firefox artwork has a non-free license (not DFSG compliant).
2. Firefox trademark name MUST be used in conjunction with the logo.
3. If Fedora is to follow similar guidelines as Debian (which it
claims), then 1 and 2 conflict.

Moreover, I am also saying that:

1. Software released under the name "Firefox" has very strict
restrictions about the patches that may or may not be applied to it.
Any patch that isn't approved by MozCo cannot be applied to Firefox.
2. I consider this to be against the spirit of Fedora. Fedora is about
"freedom" and "all patches must be approved by Mozilla Corporation"
is
not freedom.
3. MozCo provides a simple way around it by offering a compile-time
flag that removes all branding, so repackagers can have complete
freedom about the patches that they apply and don't apply to their
software.
4. Debian *IS* doing that, and I'm arguing that we should follow suit.

Regards,
-- 
Konstantin Ryabitsev
Montréal, Québec

[Jef Spaleta]

On 9/28/06, Konstantin Ryabitsev <icon(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  1. Software released under the name "Firefox" has very
> strict
>  restrictions about the patches that may or may not be applied to it.
>  Any patch that isn't approved by MozCo cannot be applied to Firefox. 
This is not as black and white an issue as say the situation with pine.

As a strict interpretation of the precepts that outline what Fedora can include,
it's not clear to me that its an undue burden to downstream
distributors of Fedora to require them to change the name and the
branding of firefox in their distribution if they patch the codebase
without approval.  The point is they are are absolutely free to change
the codebase all they have to do is change the application naming and
branding when they make those codebase changes.  I do not believe that
is is overburdensom to require people to make additional branding and
naming changes as a condition on continued usage of trademarks.

We have to be very very clear on this... copyright and trademarks are
distinctly different.
While I make have OSI approved copyright licensee to modify the
codebase as I see fit as an enduser or a downstream distribution..
restrictions on the use of the trademarks is a completely seperate
issue that copyright does not cover.  What we are talking about here
with firefox is trademark restrictions, there isn't a single
additional copyright restriction being applied to the codebase... even
the artwork. I can in fact take the original artwork and modify it to
my hearts content under the available copyright license. What I can
not do is use a modified version of that artwork in a way that
infringes on the established trademarks, nor can I create a distinctly
new original peice of artwork that infringes on the established
trademarks. What is afforded me under copyright still meets the OSI
definition. My actions are restricted by trademark regardless of
whether the material is derived or an entirely original creation..
full stop.

>  2. I consider this to be against the spirit of Fedora. Fedora is
> about
>  "freedom" and "all patches must be approved by Mozilla Corporation"
> is
>  not freedom. 
I will however agree with this that the 'all patches must be approved'
is overburdensome
for the Fedora project itself.  If this were the policy for all
projects that Fedora integrates into a distribution, would such a
policy allow the Fedora maintainers to work effectively? I think not.
On a particular case by case, package by package basis, such a policy
from upstream may or may not be acceptable to the package maintainer
who has to be shackled by it.  Some of us like being tied up and being
told we are naughty. Maybe the current firefox maintainer is one of
those people, I can't say.

Fedora already has a mission to work with upstream as much as
possible, so such strong arm tactics by upstream to compel cooperation
may never have much in the way of teeth with regard to Fedora packages
as long as the maintainers stay commit to the upstream,upstream,
upstream mantra.

However I would much rather see the Fedora project avoid taking
advantage of such special permission trademark clauses so that we
continue to have the option to have our own software maintainers to
make short-term decisions in the best interest of this project
regardless of the occasional political, economic, or drug induced
shifts in the focus of upstream. I don't care how closely we work with
upstream, there will be impedence mismatches at points in that journey
and special relationship clauses will only serve as a point of
contention in project relationships when we have to work through
disagreements.

I personally do not value the firefox or any projects naming or
branding as much as I value the ability of this project's developers
to think and act in the best interests of this project's userbase.

-jef"Here's the irony.. wasn't it firefox that had to go through a
couple of iterations in own branding just to find a name that doesn't
infringe on another's mark?  Wasn't it called phoenix at one point....
the gods of irony are pleased."spaleta

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 9/28/06, Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
>
>  > It's definitely late for such change to happen in the FC6 timeframe,
>  > but we have to look further, and if we are to stick to the motto of
>  > providing a distribution that is "free to infinity," then we can't
>  > continue to ship Firefox under the name that limits what we can and
>  > cannot do with the software.
>  >
>
>  Thats not true. Several projects enforce trademark guidelines. They hold
>  restrictions on the name to ensure that their brand isnt spoiled. That
>  includes Debian,Fedora and Linux itself. If there is pain in following
>  the guidelines, you can rename it (see httpd vs apache in Fedora) but
>  the trademark restriction by itself doesnt make the software non-free or
>  incompatible with the Fedora objectives.
>  
Suggestions for names:

apache -> httpd
firefox   -> html-browser
seamonkey -> html-suite
thunderbird -> html-email
sunbird -> html-calender




-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"

[Ralph angenendt]

Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
>  Suggestions for names:
>  
>  apache -> httpd
>  firefox   -> html-browser 
web-browser? 

>  seamonkey -> html-suite 
web-suite? Though that sounds as stupid as html-suite sounds (no offense
intended).

>  thunderbird -> html-email 
Uh, no. It does read and render HTML mails, but it's not an html/httpd
client per se. It's a mail reader ...

>  sunbird -> html-calender 
Hmmm. web-calend(a|e)r?

Ralph
-- 
Ralph Angenendt......ra(a)br-online.de | .."Text processing has made it possible
Bayerischer Rundfunk...80300 München | ....to right-justify any idea, even one
Programmbereich.Bayern 3, Jugend und | .which cannot be justified on any other
Multimedia.........Tl:089.5900.16023 | ..........grounds." -- J. Finnegan, USC

[Kevin Kofler]

Ralph Angenendt <ralph+fedora <at> strg-alt-entf.org> writes:
>  > seamonkey -> html-suite
>  
>  web-suite? Though that sounds as stupid as html-suite sounds (no offense
>  intended). 
internet-suite would be better. It doesn't just support the WWW. Similarly, 
Thunderbird and Sunbird shouldn't have web- (nor html-) in their renamed names.

        Kevin Kofler

[Kevin Kofler]

I've read through the Debian bug report where this very problem is being 
discussed right now:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=354622

I think Mozilla's restrictions on the trademark are a real problem. For 
example, they don't even tolerate SECURITY updates without explicitly approving 
every single patch. They have also pretty-much backpedaled from a previous 
agreement they had with Debian (with the justification that that agreement was 
with Gerv from the Foundation and now it's the Corporation which decides), who 
is guaranteeing us that they won't do it to Fedora too? Who's guaranteeing us 
that they won't refuse to approve an important patch (or worse, ALL new 
patches) in the future? I'd really suggest following Debian's renaming here 
(with the same name if possible, to reduce confusion).

        Kevin Kofler

[n0dalus]

On 10/1/06, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at&gt; wrote:
>  I've read through the Debian bug report where this very problem
> is being
>  discussed right now:
>  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=354622
>
>  I think Mozilla's restrictions on the trademark are a real problem. For
>  example, they don't even tolerate SECURITY updates without explicitly approving
>  every single patch. They have also pretty-much backpedaled from a previous
>  agreement they had with Debian (with the justification that that agreement was
>  with Gerv from the Foundation and now it's the Corporation which decides), who
>  is guaranteeing us that they won't do it to Fedora too? Who's guaranteeing us
>  that they won't refuse to approve an important patch (or worse, ALL new
>  patches) in the future? I'd really suggest following Debian's renaming here
>  (with the same name if possible, to reduce confusion).
>  
Firefox is an extremely important brand name in the realm of OSS -- it
is more widely known than Fedora or even Linux. When I install a
distribution, I expect to see a Firefox icon on the desktop.

I think we should keep the Firefox branding, trying to work
diplomatically with MozCo. It's possible that now that these issues
have surfaced, they will change policies to make things easier for
distributions.

If one day MozCo stop being cooperative, we can rebrand then -- but I
don't think we should rebrand until it becomes a problem (it's not too
difficult to release an update that replaces the firefox package).

n0dalus.

[Arthur Pemberton]

On 9/30/06, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at&gt; wrote:
>  I've read through the Debian bug report where this very problem
> is being
>  discussed right now:
>  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=354622
>
>  I think Mozilla's restrictions on the trademark are a real problem. For
>  example, they don't even tolerate SECURITY updates without explicitly approving
>  every single patch. They have also pretty-much backpedaled from a previous
>  agreement they had with Debian (with the justification that that agreement was
>  with Gerv from the Foundation and now it's the Corporation which decides), who
>  is guaranteeing us that they won't do it to Fedora too? Who's guaranteeing us
>  that they won't refuse to approve an important patch (or worse, ALL new
>  patches) in the future? I'd really suggest following Debian's renaming here
>  (with the same name if possible, to reduce confusion).
>
>          Kevin Kofler
>  
Sorry to jump in here. But from what I've read, it seems that MozCo is
cool with Fedora as things stand. As ugly as this entire dispute is,
it seems it would be only uglier if this turned into gang bang of
sorts.

I personally do not use Firfox as my primary browser, but I would hate
to see its name tarnished. If it comes to having to rebrand it, I
think that should be a last resort.

Peace.

-- 
Fedora Core 5 and proud

[Kevin Kofler]

Arthur Pemberton <pemboa <at> gmail.com> writes:
>  Sorry to jump in here. But from what I've read, it seems that
> MozCo is
>  cool with Fedora as things stand. 
But for how long? I think the patch approval process can also be a constraint 
on the Fedora Legacy team. Currently, Legacy is simply upgrading rather than 
backporting, and even working on packaging Seamonkey to replace the 
discontinued Mozilla Suite for the older distros (that gratuitous name change 
is also due to Mozilla's trademark policies, by the way), but what if they want 
to work together with the Debian stable people on backporting fixes instead? I 
don't think being shackled by a restrictive trademark agreement is what Free 
Software is about.

Also, do you like how Mozilla is using this as an argument to pressure Debian 
into compliance? "See, Fedora does what we want, why don't you?" I think
this 
places Fedora entirely on the wrong side of the fence.

And have you read the thread this one forked from? The trademark arrangement is 
also one of the reasons F*****x doesn't (always) use the "early testing of 
development versions in Rawhide" scheme which is successfully used for several 
other packages (GNOME, kernel, KDE before we got the long-lived 3.5 branch we 
have now etc.). (Yes, I said "one of", I know Chris Aillon also brought up 
others.)

>  I personally do not use Firfox as my primary browser, 
Neither do I, long live Konqueror! :-)

        Kevin Kofler

[Arthur Pemberton]

On 10/1/06, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at&gt; wrote:
>  Arthur Pemberton <pemboa <at> gmail.com> writes:
>  > Sorry to jump in here. But from what I've read, it seems that MozCo is
>  > cool with Fedora as things stand.
>
>  But for how long? 
That we shall see.

>  I think the patch approval process can also be a constraint
>  on the Fedora Legacy team. Currently, Legacy is simply upgrading rather than
>  backporting, 
Not familiar with the details on the differences between upgrading vs.
backporting. Although I would have assumed upgrading was better.

>  and even working on packaging Seamonkey to replace the
>  discontinued Mozilla Suite for the older distros (that gratuitous name change
>  is also due to Mozilla's trademark policies, by the way), 
This sentence seemed incomple, nevertheless: Seamonkey is my primary
browser. Firefox is just my secondary browser. So far, save for the
name change, with I didn't really mind, MozCo doesn't "seem" to be
hurting Seamonkey much. I was dissapointed that they gave up on the
suite, as I am not too much a fan of Firefox, but who am I to
complain.

As far as I remember, the problem with dependancy on the old suite can
be, and is to be solved with migration to xulrunner....here's hoping
that works out soon.

>  but what if they want
>  to work together with the Debian stable people on backporting fixes instead? I
>  don't think being shackled by a restrictive trademark agreement is what Free
>  Software is about. 
I can agree with that. However, it is my understanding that what truly
makes up the software, the code, is still "free".

>  Also, do you like how Mozilla is using this as an argument to
> pressure Debian
>  into compliance? "See, Fedora does what we want, why don't you?" I think
> this
>  places Fedora entirely on the wrong side of the fence. 
I do not really like that myself. I would prefer Fedora not be part of
the arguement at all. Like it or not, Fedora is disliked for various
reasons by various reasons as it is. We need no more bad press.

>  And have you read the thread this one forked from? 
No, hence the initial apology for jumping in.

>  The trademark arrangement is
>  also one of the reasons F*****x doesn't (always) use the "early testing of
>  development versions in Rawhide" scheme which is successfully used for several
>  other packages (GNOME, kernel, KDE before we got the long-lived 3.5 branch we
>  have now etc.). (Yes, I said "one of", I know Chris Aillon also brought up
>  others.) 
Seems like in the end, this only hurts the Firefox guys. If distros
stop patching, and only use vanilla sources when they come along, then
sucks for them.

>  > I personally do not use Firfox as my primary browser,
>
>  Neither do I, long live Konqueror! :-) 
Long live Seamonkey

>          Kevin Kofler 

-- 
Fedora Core 5 and proud

[Mark Rosenstand]

On Sun, 2006-10-01 at 19:26 -0500, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>  On 10/1/06, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at&gt; wrote:
>  > I think the patch approval process can also be a constraint
>  > on the Fedora Legacy team. Currently, Legacy is simply upgrading rather than
>  > backporting,
>  
>  Not familiar with the details on the differences between upgrading vs.
>  backporting. Although I would have assumed upgrading was better. 
Legacy is supposed to be "bugfixes only" - no? (If everything is just
updated, how is it different from the current releases?)

>  > but what if they want
>  > to work together with the Debian stable people on backporting fixes instead? I
>  > don't think being shackled by a restrictive trademark agreement is what Free
>  > Software is about.
>  
>  I can agree with that. However, it is my understanding that what truly
>  makes up the software, the code, is still "free". 
It's not; you cannot modify it.

>  > The trademark arrangement is
>  > also one of the reasons F*****x doesn't (always) use the "early testing of
>  > development versions in Rawhide" scheme which is successfully used for several
>  > other packages (GNOME, kernel, KDE before we got the long-lived 3.5 branch we
>  > have now etc.). (Yes, I said "one of", I know Chris Aillon also brought
> up
>  > others.)
>  
>  Seems like in the end, this only hurts the Firefox guys. If distros
>  stop patching, and only use vanilla sources when they come along, then
>  sucks for them. 
And since Firefox it part of their product, the distro sucks too. And
there's nothing they can do about it.

It doesn't make any sense to worry about "patent encumbered codecs" if
restrictions like these are acceptable.

[Rahul Sundaram]

Mark Rosenstand wrote:
>  Legacy is supposed to be "bugfixes only" - no? (If
> everything is just
>  updated, how is it different from the current releases?) 
Its far from a black and white thing. In some cases, upgrading to the 
next release is much more reasonable compared to the amount of work you 
do in maintaining a older codebase with heavy number of backports.

> > I can agree with that. However, it is my understanding that what
> truly
> > makes up the software, the code, is still "free".
>  
>  It's not; you cannot modify it. 
Of course you can. Nobody would be able to fork it if it wasnt Free 
software. The mozilla codebase is trilicensed under GPL/LGPL/MPL where 
all there of them are Free software licenses. The current issues are 
related to trademarks and not copyright licenses.

Rahul

[Mark Rosenstand]

On Fri, 2006-10-13 at 17:11 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  Mark Rosenstand wrote:
>  >> I can agree with that. However, it is my understanding that what truly
>  >> makes up the software, the code, is still "free".
>  > 
>  > It's not; you cannot modify it.
>  
>  Of course you can. Nobody would be able to fork it if it wasnt Free 
>  software. The mozilla codebase is trilicensed under GPL/LGPL/MPL where 
>  all there of them are Free software licenses. The current issues are 
>  related to trademarks and not copyright licenses. 
Not if you want to use the Firefox name. (Yeah, I agree it's stupid, but
I also understand aillon's explanation - still, it's not free.)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Mark Rosenstand wrote:
>  On Fri, 2006-10-13 at 17:11 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> > Mark Rosenstand wrote:
> >>> I can agree with that. However, it is my understanding that what truly
> >>> makes up the software, the code, is still "free".
> >> It's not; you cannot modify it.
> > Of course you can. Nobody would be able to fork it if it wasnt Free 
> > software. The mozilla codebase is trilicensed under GPL/LGPL/MPL where 
> > all there of them are Free software licenses. The current issues are 
> > related to trademarks and not copyright licenses.
>  
>  Not if you want to use the Firefox name. (Yeah, I agree it's stupid, but
>  I also understand aillon's explanation - still, it's not free.) 
I suppose you consider all trademarked software including Fedora itself 
as not free then.

Rahul

[Rex Dieter]

Mark Rosenstand wrote:

>  On Fri, 2006-10-13 at 17:11 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> > Mark Rosenstand wrote:
> > >> I can agree with that. However, it is my understanding that what truly
> > >> makes up the software, the code, is still "free".
> > > 
> > > It's not; you cannot modify it.
> > 
> > Of course you can. Nobody would be able to fork it if it wasnt Free
> > software. The mozilla codebase is trilicensed under GPL/LGPL/MPL where
> > all there of them are Free software licenses. The current issues are
> > related to trademarks and not copyright licenses.
>  
>  Not if you want to use the Firefox name.  
...and if you want to use "unapproved" patches.  The more I ponder this, the
less I like having to live with the limitations of using firefox's official
branding. 

-- Rex

[Christopher Aillon]

Rex Dieter wrote:
>  ...and if you want to use "unapproved" patches.  The more I
> ponder this, the
>  less I like having to live with the limitations of using firefox's official
>  branding. 
In order to maintain the package, I'm going to be doing the things they 
want *anyway*.  It makes no sense to do all the things and then drop the 
branding.  I'm not losing sleep over it, and it directly affects me more 
than most people on the face of the planet.  If you don't like it, don't 
use it.  Problem solved.

To help ease your collective troubles over such trivial things, please 
to be enjoying pictures of hedgehogs in tubes.

http://www.loosetooth.com/Numo/pics/elbow_wingding.jpg
http://www.loosetooth.com/Numo/pics/062206.jpg
http://www.loosetooth.com/Numo/pics/080106.jpg

[Michael Wiktowy]

On 10/13/06, Christopher Aillon <caillon(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  To help ease your collective troubles over such trivial things, please
>  to be enjoying pictures of hedgehogs in tubes.
>
>  http://www.loosetooth.com/Numo/pics/elbow_wingding.jpg
>  http://www.loosetooth.com/Numo/pics/062206.jpg
>  http://www.loosetooth.com/Numo/pics/080106.jpg 


Are those pictures of "Iceweasles" clogging up the Internets "series of
tubes" I have been hearing so much about? ;]

/Mike

[Christopher Aillon]

Michael Wiktowy wrote:
>  Are those pictures of "Iceweasles" clogging up the
> Internets "series of
>  tubes" I have been hearing so much about? ;] 
No.  They are hedgehogs.  In tubes.

[Nils Philippsen]

On Fri, 2006-10-13 at 16:31 -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
>  Michael Wiktowy wrote:
>  > Are those pictures of "Iceweasles" clogging up the Internets "series
> of
>  > tubes" I have been hearing so much about? ;]
>  
>  No.  They are hedgehogs.  In tubes. 
"Tubehog" would just be _the_ descriptive name for a widespread web
browser.

Nils
-- 
     Nils Philippsen    /    Red Hat    /    nphilipp(a)redhat.com
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary
 Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."  --  B. Franklin, 1759
 PGP fingerprint:  C4A8 9474 5C4C ADE3 2B8F  656D 47D8 9B65 6951 3011

[Steve Barnhart]

I agree with option 4. Follow the current method and everyone quit
jumping on every renaming and forking bandwagon Debian seems to be
creating these days. I can't stand when people make a big deal over
little things. The license and issues haven't changed.

On 10/16/06, Nils Philippsen <nphilipp(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Fri, 2006-10-13 at 16:31 -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
>  > Michael Wiktowy wrote:
>  > > Are those pictures of "Iceweasles" clogging up the Internets
> "series of
>  > > tubes" I have been hearing so much about? ;]
>  >
>  > No.  They are hedgehogs.  In tubes.
>
>  "Tubehog" would just be _the_ descriptive name for a widespread web
>  browser.
>
>  Nils
>  --
>       Nils Philippsen    /    Red Hat    /    nphilipp(a)redhat.com
>  "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary
>   Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."  --  B. Franklin, 1759
>   PGP fingerprint:  C4A8 9474 5C4C ADE3 2B8F  656D 47D8 9B65 6951 3011
>
>  --
>  fedora-devel-list mailing list
>  fedora-devel-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
>  

-- 
Steve

[Keith G]

When I posted the first 3 options I didn't realise that option 4 was
going to be possible.  If it is then I agree: Option 4.

On 17/10/06, Steve Barnhart <stb52988(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  I agree with option 4. Follow the current method and everyone quit
>  jumping on every renaming and forking bandwagon Debian seems to be
>  creating these days. I can't stand when people make a big deal over
>  little things. The license and issues haven't changed.
>
>  On 10/16/06, Nils Philippsen <nphilipp(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > On Fri, 2006-10-13 at 16:31 -0400, Christopher Aillon wrote:
>  > > Michael Wiktowy wrote:
>  > > > Are those pictures of "Iceweasles" clogging up the Internets
> "series of
>  > > > tubes" I have been hearing so much about? ;]
>  > >
>  > > No.  They are hedgehogs.  In tubes.
>  >
>  > "Tubehog" would just be _the_ descriptive name for a widespread web
>  > browser.
>  >
>  > Nils
>  > --
>  >      Nils Philippsen    /    Red Hat    /    nphilipp(a)redhat.com
>  > "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary
>  >  Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."  --  B. Franklin, 1759
>  >  PGP fingerprint:  C4A8 9474 5C4C ADE3 2B8F  656D 47D8 9B65 6951 3011
>  >
>  > --
>  > fedora-devel-list mailing list
>  > fedora-devel-list(a)redhat.com
>  > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
>  >
>
>
>  --
>  Steve
>
>  --
>  fedora-devel-list mailing list
>  fedora-devel-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
>

[Evandro Giovanini]

Em Sex, 2006-10-13 às 17:11 +0530, Rahul Sundaram escreveu:
>  >> I can agree with that. However, it is my understanding that
> what truly
>  >> makes up the software, the code, is still "free".
>  > 
>  > It's not; you cannot modify it.
>  
>  Of course you can. Nobody would be able to fork it if it wasnt Free 
>  software. The mozilla codebase is trilicensed under GPL/LGPL/MPL where 
>  all there of them are Free software licenses. The current issues are 
>  related to trademarks and not copyright licenses.
>   
I'd like to clarify that Debian will no longer ship Firefox because the
license of the Firefox logo is not free, so the core of this issue is a
copyright license, not trademark. If Mozilla relicensed the logo under
the GPL/LGPL/MPL like the rest of the Firefox source code then Debian
would be able to ship the package with the original logo in its main
repository. As it is, they can ship it in non-free if one of the Debian
developers feel like doing it.

Mozilla doesn't have to make the Firefox logo non-free to protect its
trademark. I know the Debian people even suggested this to Mozilla, but
they refused to relicense it anyway.

Cheers,
Evandro

[Rahul Sundaram]

Evandro Fernandes Giovanini wrote:

>  Mozilla doesn't have to make the Firefox logo non-free to protect
> its
>  trademark. I know the Debian people even suggested this to Mozilla, but
>  they refused to relicense it anyway.
>  
I am really curious to know how a completely free to modify logo can be 
protected by trademarks.

Rahul

[Evandro Giovanini]

Em Sáb, 2006-10-14 às 03:59 +0530, Rahul Sundaram escreveu:
>  Evandro Fernandes Giovanini wrote:
>  
>  > Mozilla doesn't have to make the Firefox logo non-free to protect its
>  > trademark. I know the Debian people even suggested this to Mozilla, but
>  > they refused to relicense it anyway.
>  >
>  
>  I am really curious to know how a completely free to modify logo can be 
>  protected by trademarks.
>   
It's definitely possible. For example, according to [1], the
redhat-artwork package is under the GPL. That doesn't mean it's not
protected by trademarks.

Also, see the comments from Larry Rosen on [2]. I think they make the
issue quite clear.

Cheers,
Evandro

1.
http://rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/redhat/enterprise/updates/4WS/redhat-artwor...
2. http://enterprise.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/10/09/1434251&tid=41

[Rahul Sundaram]

Evandro Fernandes Giovanini wrote:
>  Em Sáb, 2006-10-14 às 03:59 +0530, Rahul Sundaram escreveu:
> > Evandro Fernandes Giovanini wrote:
> >
> >> Mozilla doesn't have to make the Firefox logo non-free to protect its
> >> trademark. I know the Debian people even suggested this to Mozilla, but
> >> they refused to relicense it anyway.
> >>
> > I am really curious to know how a completely free to modify logo can be 
> > protected by trademarks.
> >
>  
>  It's definitely possible. For example, according to [1], the
>  redhat-artwork package is under the GPL. That doesn't mean it's not
>  protected by trademarks.
>  
>  Also, see the comments from Larry Rosen on [2]. I think they make the
>  issue quite clear. 
This isnt very informative. The RPM package license tags are merely 
indicative of the licenses and cannot be held as authoritative legal 
information. We have in many occasions seen packages where the license 
tags were incorrect. If you have more specific information about the 
kind of licenses for logos which would allow to protect trademarks while 
allowing free modifications, I would interested to know that.

All of the open source projects that I know of which care about 
trademarks has a restrictive copyright license on the logo.

Rahul

[Evandro Giovanini]

Em Sáb, 2006-10-14 às 05:19 +0530, Rahul Sundaram escreveu:
>  If you have more specific information about the 
>  kind of licenses for logos which would allow to protect trademarks while 
>  allowing free modifications, I would interested to know that.
>   
IANAL; I'm not sure releasing a file (a png for example) under the GPL
gives away your right to protect the trademark. This is what Larry
Rosen's comment on that linux.com article seems to imply. 

>  All of the open source projects that I know of which care about 
>  trademarks has a restrictive copyright license on the logo.
>   
Of the thousands of free software projects distributed by Debian I'm not
aware of any other with similar problems.

Cheers,
Evandro

[Christopher Aillon]

Evandro Fernandes Giovanini wrote:
>  Em Sáb, 2006-10-14 às 05:19 +0530, Rahul Sundaram escreveu:
> > If you have more specific information about the 
> > kind of licenses for logos which would allow to protect trademarks while 
> > allowing free modifications, I would interested to know that.
> >
>  
>  IANAL; I'm not sure releasing a file (a png for example) under the GPL
>  gives away your right to protect the trademark. This is what Larry
>  Rosen's comment on that linux.com article seems to imply. 
>   
It's unclear who's right.  I've heard arguments from other lawyers that 
the GPL simply cannot apply to images as the GPL itself explicitly 
refers to "source code" and its arguable whether an image is (I don't 
personally think images are source code, but a lawyer I am not).  A 
license that better serves images such as a CC license might work best.

[Keith G]

>  It's unclear who's right.  I've heard arguments from
> other lawyers that
>  the GPL simply cannot apply to images as the GPL itself explicitly
>  refers to "source code" and its arguable whether an image is (I don't
>  personally think images are source code, but a lawyer I am not).  A
>  license that better serves images such as a CC license might work best. 
I am not a lawyer either, but I agree with this interpretation of the
GPL.  And yet many people do license images under the GPL.  It's
certianly very unclear whether this would stand up in court or not.
IMO the FSF should release another version of the GPL specifically for
"media" instead of "source code"'.

This entire argument is futile, because we cannot change the licensing
desicions made by The Mozilla Foundation.  We should be accepting that
the licensing is what it is, and do what needs to be done accordingly.

As I see it we have 3 options:

1) Include Firefox in Core with a different name and logo,
2) Include Firefox in Extras with a different name and logo,
3) Do not include Firefox in Fedora at all.

Personally I would opt for (1), but (2) is acceptable as well.  (3)
would be a sad loss and would detract from the appeal of Fedora IMO.

[Rahul Sundaram]

Keith G wrote:

>  As I see it we have 3 options:
>  
>  1) Include Firefox in Core with a different name and logo,
>  2) Include Firefox in Extras with a different name and logo,
>  3) Do not include Firefox in Fedora at all.
>  
>  Personally I would opt for (1), but (2) is acceptable as well.  (3)
>  would be a sad loss and would detract from the appeal of Fedora IMO. 
Option 4) Since the maintainer has no problems following the 
requirements, let it remain as it.

Rahul

[Nicu Buculei]

Keith G wrote:
> > It's unclear who's right.  I've heard arguments from
> other lawyers that
> > the GPL simply cannot apply to images as the GPL itself explicitly
> > refers to "source code" and its arguable whether an image is (I don't
> > personally think images are source code, but a lawyer I am not).  A
> > license that better serves images such as a CC license might work best.
>  
>  I am not a lawyer either, but I agree with this interpretation of the
>  GPL.  And yet many people do license images under the GPL.  It's
>  certianly very unclear whether this would stand up in court or not.
>  IMO the FSF should release another version of the GPL specifically for
>  "media" instead of "source code"'. 
We had this discussion on Fedora Art when pondering the license for the 
new icon theme (Echo) and have NOT reached a consensus yet.
CC-BY-SA (attribution, share-alike) has it own troubles, some people 
argue it is not compatible with GPL.

OTOH, if the graphics is created in vector format, say SVG, I think it 
can be argued this vector format *is* source code and the exported PNG 
is something like a compiled binary.

-- 
nicu
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro

[Keith G]

>  Legacy is supposed to be "bugfixes only" - no? (If
> everything is just
>  updated, how is it different from the current releases?) 
Legacy exists as a service to users of older releases.  There's no
restriction that they're not allowed the latest versions unless they
upgrade their distro.  (YIKES that brings back nightnares from my M$
days).

>  > I can agree with that. However, it is my understanding that what
> truly
>  > makes up the software, the code, is still "free".
>
>  It's not; you cannot modify it. 
It's GPL licenced so ofcourse your can (actually it's triple-licensed,
but GPL is one of the licenses).

>  And since Firefox it part of their product, the distro sucks too.
> And
>  there's nothing they can do about it.
>
>  It doesn't make any sense to worry about "patent encumbered codecs" if
>  restrictions like these are acceptable. 
Ummm... Are we even talking about the same product here??

[Christopher Aillon]

Mark Rosenstand wrote:
>  On Sun, 2006-10-01 at 19:26 -0500, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> > On 10/1/06, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at&gt; wrote:
> >> I think the patch approval process can also be a constraint
> >> on the Fedora Legacy team. Currently, Legacy is simply upgrading rather than
> >> backporting,
> > Not familiar with the details on the differences between upgrading vs.
> > backporting. Although I would have assumed upgrading was better.
>  
>  Legacy is supposed to be "bugfixes only" - no? (If everything is just
>  updated, how is it different from the current releases?) 
It is more risky to backport them instead of taking the new versions 
wholesale.  Several of the patches for the critical fixes involve a 
re-architecture of the way the entire DOM/JS model is handled 
internally.  This means MASSIVE changes which took several architects 
months to perfect, and it STILL caused 10-20 regressions.

Even RHEL went the route of taking the new versions wholesale.  On *my* 
recommendation.  Not because of Mozilla restrictions, but because it 
makes more sense.  Put another way: if taking new versions wholesale is 
deemed unacceptable, have fun doing the backports because I'd probably 
quit.  I did them while they were feasible to do and committed them 
upstream and got them approved.  They just stopped becoming feasible to 
backport.

Is Firefox a Good Thing?

[Andy Green]

Christopher Aillon wrote:

>  It is more risky to backport them instead of taking the new versions
>
>  wholesale.  Several of the patches for the critical fixes involve a 
>  re-architecture of the way the entire DOM/JS model is handled 
>  internally.  This means MASSIVE changes which took several architects 
>  months to perfect, and it STILL caused 10-20 regressions. 
Shouldn't this cause a terrified reassessment of having Firefox in the 
distro at all, given its unique position running as the user (under 
whose credentials, typically, the entire value of the box resides), 
making connections to random addresses and running poorly understood 
local code according to what it finds there?

-Andy

Is Firefox a Good Thing?

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 10/13/06, Andy Green <andy(a)warmcat.com&gt; wrote:
[snip]
>  Shouldn't this cause a terrified reassessment of having Firefox
> in the
>  distro at all, given its unique position running as the user (under
>  whose credentials, typically, the entire value of the box resides),
>  making connections to random addresses and running poorly understood
>  local code according to what it finds there? 
Before I reinvent the wheel, can someone tell me if something like
this is being done:

For most user applications it would be possible to SELinux sandbox
them very tightly (nothing more than file access to a few specific
files/directories, no sockets to the local box except for printing,
etc) were it not for one issue: File save / File load.

As a result It would really make sense to convert the file save load
into a separate process which can read/write anywhere the user has
access and then communicate to the hosting app via stdin/out or other
lightweight IPC.   The file box app could be carefully audited so that
we could be confident that it would only read and write things with
the users consent.

Most user apps could be tightly confined with only this one little
tool.. gimp, gaim, xchat, etc.

Is anyone already working on something like that?

Is Firefox a Good Thing?

[Arthur Pemberton]

On 10/13/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On 10/13/06, Andy Green <andy(a)warmcat.com&gt; wrote:
>  [snip]
>  > Shouldn't this cause a terrified reassessment of having Firefox in the
>  > distro at all, given its unique position running as the user (under
>  > whose credentials, typically, the entire value of the box resides),
>  > making connections to random addresses and running poorly understood
>  > local code according to what it finds there?
>
>  Before I reinvent the wheel, can someone tell me if something like
>  this is being done:
>
>  For most user applications it would be possible to SELinux sandbox
>  them very tightly (nothing more than file access to a few specific
>  files/directories, no sockets to the local box except for printing,
>  etc) were it not for one issue: File save / File load.
>
>  As a result It would really make sense to convert the file save load
>  into a separate process which can read/write anywhere the user has
>  access and then communicate to the hosting app via stdin/out or other
>  lightweight IPC.   The file box app could be carefully audited so that
>  we could be confident that it would only read and write things with
>  the users consent.
>
>  Most user apps could be tightly confined with only this one little
>  tool.. gimp, gaim, xchat, etc.
>
>  Is anyone already working on something like that?
>  
You mean Firefox isn't under SELinux policies in strict mode?

-- 
Fedora Core 5 and proud

Is Firefox a Good Thing?

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 10/13/06, Arthur Pemberton <pemboa(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
[snip]
>  You mean Firefox isn't under SELinux policies in strict mode?
It is but you must choose between it being user impactingly restricted
and it having full run of your home directory ( via
write_untrusted_content, mozilla_read_content).

Locked down as it is today via selinux strict would only be acceptable
on a kiosk machine, not a user desktop.

Is Firefox a Good Thing?

[Christopher Aillon]

Andy Green wrote:
>  Christopher Aillon wrote:
>  
> > It is more risky to backport them instead of taking the new versions 
> > wholesale.  Several of the patches for the critical fixes involve a 
> > re-architecture of the way the entire DOM/JS model is handled 
> > internally.  This means MASSIVE changes which took several architects 
> > months to perfect, and it STILL caused 10-20 regressions.
>  
>  Shouldn't this cause a terrified reassessment of having Firefox in the 
>  distro at all, given its unique position running as the user (under 
>  whose credentials, typically, the entire value of the box resides), 
>  making connections to random addresses and running poorly understood 
>  local code according to what it finds there? 

The kernel has more vulnerabilities[1] than this user-space application 
does.  Let's reconsider having that in the distro, too.


[1] http://www.redhat.com/magazine/017mar06/features/riskreport/

Is Firefox a Good Thing?

[Andy Green]

Christopher Aillon wrote:

>  The kernel has more vulnerabilities[1] than this user-space
> application 
>  does.  Let's reconsider having that in the distro, too. 
With respect this is not a good response to my question.  How many 
kernel problems are remote-exploitable?  Does the kernel of itself visit 
random external "scripts" on the Internet and execute what it finds 
there?  No.  But a browser is designed to do such actions.  If we really 
do talk about code of such complexity that "MASSIVE changes which took 
several architects months to perfect, and it STILL caused 10-20 
regressions" it's a lot more frightening to hear that about usermode 
code that exists to go out to a potentially hostile Intenet on behalf of 
a logged-in user than it is to hear the same about a kernel where the 
vast bulk of vulns are local only.  Objectively, looking at your 
description of security fixes on the beast, shouldn't people take pause 
at a creature that is so complex and poorly understood, but is our main 
proposed way of interfacing to the good and evil of the external world?

-Andy

Is Firefox a Good Thing?

[Christopher Aillon]

Andy Green wrote:
>  Christopher Aillon wrote:
>  
> > The kernel has more vulnerabilities[1] than this user-space 
> > application does.  Let's reconsider having that in the distro, too.
>  
>  With respect this is not a good response to my question.  How many 
>  kernel problems are remote-exploitable?  Does the kernel of itself visit 
>  random external "scripts" on the Internet and execute what it finds 
>  there?  No.  But a browser is designed to do such actions.  If we really 
>  do talk about code of such complexity that "MASSIVE changes which took 
>  several architects months to perfect, and it STILL caused 10-20 
>  regressions" it's a lot more frightening to hear that about usermode 
>  code that exists to go out to a potentially hostile Intenet on behalf of 
>  a logged-in user than it is to hear the same about a kernel where the 
>  vast bulk of vulns are local only.  Objectively, looking at your 
>  description of security fixes on the beast, shouldn't people take pause 
>  at a creature that is so complex and poorly understood, but is our main 
>  proposed way of interfacing to the good and evil of the external world? 
You're grossly overreacting.  If you re-write the way the browser 
interfaces with the JavaScript DOM completely, and only 10-20 bugs 
surface, I'd say you did a pretty damn good job.  The issue and code is 
extremely well understood by those that need to understand it, myself 
included as I discovered and provided a workaround for this issue while 
I interned at Netscape.  As an intern, I just didn't have the time to 
fix it properly, and still don't have time to backport it if I'm 
expected to do all I do as it is.

There's always a potential for security problems when you don't control 
the input you get.

[Christopher Aillon]

Kevin Kofler wrote:
>  Arthur Pemberton <pemboa <at> gmail.com> writes:
> > Sorry to jump in here. But from what I've read, it seems that MozCo is
> > cool with Fedora as things stand.
>  
>  But for how long? I think the patch approval process can also be a constraint 
>  on the Fedora Legacy team. Currently, Legacy is simply upgrading rather than 
>  backporting, and even working on packaging Seamonkey to replace the 
>  discontinued Mozilla Suite for the older distros (that gratuitous name change 
>  is also due to Mozilla's trademark policies, by the way), 
No, it's not.  Seamonkey's name is rather irrelevant.  It's really a 
different product.  Not maintained by the same people, it's a fork of 
the old project.  See what happened with galeon and epiphany.  Same 
browser, same original author, different name.

Firefox's stringent trademarking policies became born because the 
Mozilla trademark became diluted.  You even see it in Internet 
Explorer's User Agent string.  The Mozilla trademark was long since 
"lost" so to speak.

  but what if they want
>  to work together with the Debian stable people on backporting fixes
> instead? I 
>  don't think being shackled by a restrictive trademark agreement is what Free 
>  Software is about. 
The question people are asking seems to be directed on what if Mozilla 
doesn't agree with us?  But the real question everyone *should* be 
asking is what if *we* don't agree with *them*?  Because until that 
time, we have no reason to worry about this.

With the rate of how quickly security fixes are turned around and the 
complexity of them, you'd need a team of many people to get patches out 
in a timely manner for all past releases, and produce quality patches. 
I'm really not sure how Debian is going to handle the one large mega 
security patch that took Brendan and jst (Chief Architect and Senior 
Architect) two+ months to patch plus over 10 regressions.  I see no good 
reason to *want* to not take new releases wholesale at this time.  As 
long as we're selective about the releases we take.  (E.g. take 1.5.0.x 
NOT the RC for now simply for maintenance purposes).


>  
>  Also, do you like how Mozilla is using this as an argument to pressure Debian 
>  into compliance? "See, Fedora does what we want, why don't you?" I think
> this 
>  places Fedora entirely on the wrong side of the fence. 
Fedora does what Fedora wants.  I've pushed for new releases because I 
can't possibly keep up with the security backporting.  See above.  The 
fact that I want to meet their needs at this time is a coincidence. 
Yay, you get sexy branding.  Enjoy.

[Arthur Pemberton]

On 10/2/06, Christopher Aillon <caillon(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Kevin Kofler wrote:
>  > Arthur Pemberton <pemboa <at> gmail.com> writes:
>  >> Sorry to jump in here. But from what I've read, it seems that MozCo is
>  >> cool with Fedora as things stand.
>  >
>  > But for how long? I think the patch approval process can also be a constraint
>  > on the Fedora Legacy team. Currently, Legacy is simply upgrading rather than
>  > backporting, and even working on packaging Seamonkey to replace the
>  > discontinued Mozilla Suite for the older distros (that gratuitous name change
>  > is also due to Mozilla's trademark policies, by the way),
>
>  No, it's not.  Seamonkey's name is rather irrelevant.  It's really a
>  different product.  Not maintained by the same people, it's a fork of
>  the old project.  See what happened with galeon and epiphany.  Same
>  browser, same original author, different name.
>
>  Firefox's stringent trademarking policies became born because the
>  Mozilla trademark became diluted.  You even see it in Internet
>  Explorer's User Agent string.  The Mozilla trademark was long since
>  "lost" so to speak.
>  
I always wondered how this was even allowed.

-- 
Fedora Core 5 and proud

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le Lun 2 octobre 2006 17:07, Arthur Pemberton a écrit :
>  On 10/2/06, Christopher Aillon <caillon(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > Firefox's stringent trademarking policies became born because
> the
> > Mozilla trademark became diluted.  You even see it in Internet
> > Explorer's User Agent string.  The Mozilla trademark was long since
> > "lost" so to speak. 
>  I always wondered how this was even allowed. 
Probably because Netscape/AOL only cared about the Netscape brand

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot

[Rahul Sundaram]

Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>  On 10/2/06, Christopher Aillon <caillon(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > Kevin Kofler wrote:
> > > Arthur Pemberton <pemboa <at> gmail.com> writes:
> > >> Sorry to jump in here. But from what I've read, it seems that MozCo is
> > >> cool with Fedora as things stand.
> > >
> > > But for how long? I think the patch approval process can also be a 
> > constraint
> > > on the Fedora Legacy team. Currently, Legacy is simply upgrading 
> > rather than
> > > backporting, and even working on packaging Seamonkey to replace the
> > > discontinued Mozilla Suite for the older distros (that gratuitous 
> > name change
> > > is also due to Mozilla's trademark policies, by the way),
> >
> > No, it's not.  Seamonkey's name is rather irrelevant.  It's really a
> > different product.  Not maintained by the same people, it's a fork of
> > the old project.  See what happened with galeon and epiphany.  Same
> > browser, same original author, different name.
> >
> > Firefox's stringent trademarking policies became born because the
> > Mozilla trademark became diluted.  You even see it in Internet
> > Explorer's User Agent string.  The Mozilla trademark was long since
> > "lost" so to speak.
> >
>  
>  I always wondered how this was even allowed.
>  
Mozilla was the internal codename for the Netscape product sort of like 
rawhide. Seamonkey was earlier code name for the suite and now 
trademarked independently by the developers as SeaMonkey.

Rahul



Rahul

[Rahul Sundaram]

Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>  On 10/2/06, Christopher Aillon <caillon(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > Kevin Kofler wrote:
> > > Arthur Pemberton <pemboa <at> gmail.com> writes:
> > >> Sorry to jump in here. But from what I've read, it seems that MozCo is
> > >> cool with Fedora as things stand.
> > >
> > > But for how long? I think the patch approval process can also be a 
> > constraint
> > > on the Fedora Legacy team. Currently, Legacy is simply upgrading 
> > rather than
> > > backporting, and even working on packaging Seamonkey to replace the
> > > discontinued Mozilla Suite for the older distros (that gratuitous 
> > name change
> > > is also due to Mozilla's trademark policies, by the way),
> >
> > No, it's not.  Seamonkey's name is rather irrelevant.  It's really a
> > different product.  Not maintained by the same people, it's a fork of
> > the old project.  See what happened with galeon and epiphany.  Same
> > browser, same original author, different name.
> >
> > Firefox's stringent trademarking policies became born because the
> > Mozilla trademark became diluted.  You even see it in Internet
> > Explorer's User Agent string.  The Mozilla trademark was long since
> > "lost" so to speak.
> >
>  
>  I always wondered how this was even allowed.
>  
Mozilla was the internal codename for the Netscape product sort of like 
rawhide. Seamonkey was earlier code name for the suite and now 
trademarked independently by the developers as SeaMonkey.

Rahul

[Kevin Kofler]

Christopher Aillon <caillon <at> redhat.com> writes:
>  Fedora does what Fedora wants.  I've pushed for new releases
> because I 
>  can't possibly keep up with the security backporting.  See above.  The 
>  fact that I want to meet their needs at this time is a coincidence. 
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying version upgrades are a bad thing (I'm all

for them), just that not having a choice is a bad thing.

Thanks for the explanations.

It's not just IE, by the way, pretty much all the browsers have "Mozilla" in

their UA strings nowadays. ;-)
Konqueror identifies itself as:
"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.5; Linux) KHTML/3.5.4 (like Gecko)"

        Kevin Kofler

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Mon, Oct 02, 2006 at 19:37:10 +0000,
  Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at&gt; wrote:
>  Christopher Aillon <caillon <at> redhat.com> writes:
>  > Fedora does what Fedora wants.  I've pushed for new releases because I 
>  > can't possibly keep up with the security backporting.  See above.  The 
>  > fact that I want to meet their needs at this time is a coincidence.
>  
>  Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying version upgrades are a bad thing (I'm all
>
>  for them), just that not having a choice is a bad thing.
>  
>  Thanks for the explanations.
>  
>  It's not just IE, by the way, pretty much all the browsers have "Mozilla"
> in 
>  their UA strings nowadays. ;-)
>  Konqueror identifies itself as:
>  "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.5; Linux) KHTML/3.5.4 (like Gecko)"
I believe this dates back to the browser wars when IE was playing catch up.
Web servers were checking the user agent string for 'Mozilla' before sending
pages using Netscape extentions to HTML. When IE was able to hand those
extensions, they still weren't being used because the web sites were all being
updated to take into account its new features. So they started using 'Mozilla'
in their user agent string to make their browser work 'better' on those web
sites.

[Arthur Pemberton]

On 10/2/06, Bruno Wolff III <bruno(a)wolff.to&gt; wrote:
>  On Mon, Oct 02, 2006 at 19:37:10 +0000,
>    Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at&gt; wrote:
>  > Christopher Aillon <caillon <at> redhat.com> writes:
>  > > Fedora does what Fedora wants.  I've pushed for new releases because I
>  > > can't possibly keep up with the security backporting.  See above.  The
>  > > fact that I want to meet their needs at this time is a coincidence.
>  >
>  > Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying version upgrades are a bad thing
> (I'm all
>  > for them), just that not having a choice is a bad thing.
>  >
>  > Thanks for the explanations.
>  >
>  > It's not just IE, by the way, pretty much all the browsers have
> "Mozilla" in
>  > their UA strings nowadays. ;-)
>  > Konqueror identifies itself as:
>  > "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.5; Linux) KHTML/3.5.4 (like Gecko)"
>
>  I believe this dates back to the browser wars when IE was playing catch up.
>  Web servers were checking the user agent string for 'Mozilla' before sending
>  pages using Netscape extentions to HTML. When IE was able to hand those
>  extensions, they still weren't being used because the web sites were all being
>  updated to take into account its new features. So they started using 'Mozilla'
>  in their user agent string to make their browser work 'better' on those web
>  sites.
>  
Seems to me that MozCo needs to start going after other browser before
they pick fights with distros.

-- 
Fedora Core 5 and proud

[Christopher Aillon]

Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>  On 10/2/06, Bruno Wolff III <bruno(a)wolff.to&gt; wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 02, 2006 at 19:37:10 +0000,
> >   Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler(a)chello.at&gt; wrote:
> > > Christopher Aillon <caillon <at> redhat.com> writes:
> > > > Fedora does what Fedora wants.  I've pushed for new releases 
> > because I
> > > > can't possibly keep up with the security backporting.  See above.  
> > The
> > > > fact that I want to meet their needs at this time is a coincidence.
> > >
> > > Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying version upgrades are a bad thing 
> > (I'm all
> > > for them), just that not having a choice is a bad thing.
> > >
> > > Thanks for the explanations.
> > >
> > > It's not just IE, by the way, pretty much all the browsers have 
> > "Mozilla" in
> > > their UA strings nowadays. ;-)
> > > Konqueror identifies itself as:
> > > "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.5; Linux) KHTML/3.5.4 (like 
> > Gecko)"
> >
> > I believe this dates back to the browser wars when IE was playing 
> > catch up.
> > Web servers were checking the user agent string for 'Mozilla' before 
> > sending
> > pages using Netscape extentions to HTML. When IE was able to hand those
> > extensions, they still weren't being used because the web sites were 
> > all being
> > updated to take into account its new features. So they started using 
> > 'Mozilla'
> > in their user agent string to make their browser work 'better' on 
> > those web
> > sites.
> >
>  
>  Seems to me that MozCo needs to start going after other browser before
>  they pick fights with distros. 

You should bring that up with them.  But again, 'Mozilla' has long since 
been diluted.  There's no interest in that.  'Firefox' is the 
interesting brand name these days and if they feel they need to protect 
it, then that's their call.  They are a little touchy on that subject 
anyway.

An interesting back story on why they want to protect it.  Back in the 
day, there were some people who liked the Mozilla suite but didn't like 
the fact that IE only websites didn't work.  So they added patches to 
make it more IE-like.  The problem is they didn't know the source code 
that well (it's a huge beast) so their patches broke important things 
such as standards compliance.  The patches were rejected from upstream 
and they decided that since it was open source, they would just make 
their own builds and issue it out to people as Mozilla.

Kudos to them, they had a good following.  But there was some press 
about Mozilla not having as good standards support as expected, because 
some people in the press or online journal or something had gotten their 
hands on the other copy.  Long story short, that was eventually 
corrected in both the news source and the patches eventually got 
dropped, and right around then, Mozilla started becoming popular anyway, 
so many people forget that story.  But that's the general type of thing 
the Mozilla guys would like to prevent.