* Julien BLACHE :: > Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> The Debian Way (tm) would be to drop mozilla, firefox and > >> thunderbird from Debian -- there's no reason what works with > >> the FSF can't work with the MoFo. > > > > The downside to this approach is that the Mozilla Foundation > > have no good reason to /care/. They're a group that produces > > free software, but they're not campaigning for freedom. In any > > case, we can make their software DFSG-free by removing any > > references to the trademarks. Dropping it entirely wouldn't > > really help anyone. > > It seems to me that what the MoFo really cares about is market > share, and producing /free/ software comes after that on their > list of priorities.
I don't even think the restriction to rebrand their software is *really* compatible with the "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients" GPL#6 clause. Do *every* source file in the mozilla trees belong to the Mozilla Foundation? > > We drop their products from Debian, they lose market share. We > drop their trademarks, and *we* lose market share: "eh, wtf, > Debian hasn't got firefox? mozilla? thunderbird? sunbird? omgwtf > $DISTRO has them!" Maybe my market perception is *very*, *very* different from yours, but IMHO the would be quite the opposite. If we drop their products, the market sees: "Debian is without the main FOSS internet suite!" and says "$DISTRO it is then", ie *we* lose market share. If OTOH we drop their trademarks, our (prospective) users won't even notice, because: (1) if they install or use a live-cd, they will see the browser icon and "Iceweasel Web Browser" caption, and won't notice, and (2) if they read about Debian before they install/use a live-cd, they will stumble somewhere in the info "Debian uses a rebranded version of Firefox called Iceweasel to protect its users (that may want to modify and redistribute the software) from any trademark liability. > > Their trademark policy is something that should not exist in a > free software context. They don't care about free software. They > don't care about distributors/vendors. I agree, to a point. They have reason to protect their assets from "evil" versions of mozilla, but their current policy is too hard. -- HTH, Massa -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
