On Tue, 2016-01-12 at 09:43 +0100, Enrico Tagliavini wrote: > Technically speaking you can modify it and still call it Firefox with > Mozilla authorization. Technically speaking you can modify Microsoft Word and redistribute it with Microsoft's authorization, but that doesn't make it free software, specifically because you need Microsoft's authorization. :) > The reason why the Firefox name and icon are > not free to use is to protect the reputation of the browser and be > able to sue abusers. Practical example: Firefox is open source, I > include a malware in it, compile and ship it from my website calling > it Firefox, including the source code (to comply with the license). > Sure enough sooner or later my fraud would come to the light, but I > surely did some damage in the mean time and ruined Mozilla's > reputation. If I call it IceWeasel, to avoid being sued because of > using the Firefox name and icon without Mozilla's authorization, and > put a different icon it's a lot harder for a malicious attacker to > trick the user to install it. This applies more to platforms where > there is no package manager and the user has to actively search for > software on the internet. Heck even on Linux it took so long to get > my father into the idea he can do everything with the package > manager. Protecting the Firefox brand is justifiable from Mozilla's point of view, but has implications for redistributing the software. > > That being said if you take away the name and the logo it's just a > matter of time before some Fedora user is going to fall into the > trap, so keeping the branding has some advantage. > > On the other side: Fedora is already shipping a binary different from > what Mozilla is shipping. It's many months Fedora enables gtk3 and, > as far as I know, Red Hat is helping Mozilla in this since this is > needed for Wayland (btw thank you, loving gtk3 Firefox). In Firefox > 41 release Fedora disabled OMTC since compiling with system cairo > breaks it (then switched to bundled cairo in 42 to ultimately solve > the issue, this is very distro independent, I have the same problem > in gentoo). Mozilla didn't sued Red Hat for this. The addon signing > thing would be a slightly different matter I guess, but I'm sure (and > hope) some sort of mediation is possible. On GTK3, I'm sure Mozilla wouldn't mind (especially since Stransky is working on it upstream), but on addon signing Mozilla's position seems firm. Though, that doesn't mean we can't send a proposal to Mozilla. Debian initially had a trademark agreement with Mozilla, but it was revoked by Mozilla and Debian did not want to have to ask Mozilla for permission to backport security fixes and customize the browser to make it compliant with Debian policies (the artwork in Firefox is under a proprietary license and Debian did not want to ship it, but the trademark agreement was revoked because Mozilla didn't find the customizations acceptable). Fedora could try to get a similar agreement with Mozilla, or alternatively could get Mozilla to do or allow what it needs upstream, but that forces Fedora to rely on Mozilla and to give up on its position if there is a disagreement. We can't get Fedora-specific customizations upstream, so we could only do them with extensions (assuming even we come to an agreement on addon signing) and that would also be a problem with the new WebExtensions that have less access to the browser than the current browser addons. There's a disagreement now on extension signing, and there would no doubt be other disagreements in the future. I don't want to see Fedora give up on its policies (as has been the case for some of the releases that introduced major changes and were shipped to the stable Fedora release regardless) or on other customizations just because Mozilla will not allow it, and rebranding Firefox now solves the problem we have at hand and any problem we might have in the future. > > On 12 January 2016 at 06:09, Rastus Vernon <rvernon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > wrote: > > Debian and other distributions (Trisquel, gNewSense, GuixSD) have > > used unbranded forks of Firefox for years and I don't think this > > has been a problem for them. In any case I don't think we can call > > "drastic" something that multiple other distributions do. > > > > The Debian and GNU projects consider Mozilla Firefox as proprietary > > software because it does not meet the Debian Free Software > > Guidelines or GNU's definition of free software. Fedora didn't > > follow that stance. > > > > I don't think whether we're using a fork or not is important. It'll > > be just as up-to-date, just as well supported by websites, and > > would work like Firefox so habbit would not be a problem. The > > Firefox name and branding is a problem for Fedora (it prevents us > > from modifying the browser), not a benefit. > > > > On Mon, 2016-01-11 at 14:00 +0100, Kalev Lember wrote: > > > > On 01/10/2016 11:29 PM, Michael Catanzaro wrote: > > > > On Thu, 2016-01-07 at 14:26 +0100, Jiri Eischmann wrote: > > > > Hi, > > there is currently a case against Firefox discussed in FESCo: > > https://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/1518 > > > > > > > > We have many different opinions in this thread. Clearly, there is > > no > > solution that will make everyone happy. I tried to formulate a > > consensus position based on the comments in this thread, which I > > suspect the majority of us can support: > > > > "Fedora Workstation prefers to ship the latest release of Firefox, > > not ESR releases. Shipping an unbranded version of Firefox is > > acceptable to us, but not ideal. Shipping a version of Firefox that > > blocks unsigned extensions is also acceptable to us, but not > > ideal." > > > > In other words: we're fine with FESCo deciding for either unbranded > > or locked-down Firefox, but we won't be very happy either way. Does > > this seem fair? > > > > > > > > My personal take on this is that we need to ship with a mainstream > > browser that is actively developed and that web sites support. > > These days, I think it's a choice between either Firefox or Chrome. > > > > We don't have Chrome in Fedora so this leaves Firefox. > > > > Also, shipping a browser with a widely recognizable name (Firefox) > > as opposed to shipping a minor fork (Icecat) has a huge benefit > > when it comes to people finding the web browser -- they will have > > used the same browser on other operating systems, making switching > > to Fedora easier. > > > > Habit plays a huge role. Take a familiar name away and it's > > suddenly much harder for us to compete. > > > > I think it would be fine to ask Firefox upstream to support > > additional trust chains to support locally packaged extensions, but > > if that fails I don't think we should go with anything as drastic > > as switching to an unbranded Firefox fork. > > > > -- > > desktop mailing list > > desktop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/desktop@lists.fedoraproj > > ect.org > -- > desktop mailing list > desktop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > http://lists.fedoraproject.org/admin/lists/desktop@lists.fedoraprojec > t.org
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