On 9/28/06, Stephen John Smoogen <smooge@xxxxxxxxx> 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@xxxxxxxxxx (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 -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
