* Julien BLACHE :: > Humberto Massa Guimarăes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> 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 $DISTRO has them!" > > > > Maybe my market perception is *very*, *very* different from > > yours, but IMHO the would be quite the opposite. > > Not necessarily.
We *will* have to agree on disagreeing, then. > > > If we drop their products, the market sees: "Debian is without > > the main FOSS internet suite!" and says "$DISTRO it is then", ie > > *we* lose market share. > > If we drop their products, we issue a PR explaining why we dropped > them. Just like we're about to do with the GFDL'ed docs. And *then* Debian will be left without a mozilla-compatible web browser, not without Mozilla itself. > > > 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 > > The icon won't be the firefox or mozilla icon. The name won't be > firefox or mozilla. The user will notice. The firefox and the mozilla icons (and and even their brands) are not so-well-known as you are assuming IMHO. My experience (6 years) as a final-user-supporter: they see the thing that looks like a globe, a planet, or has "web browser" or "internet" as its caption, web browser interface (forward, back, url, topping the browser panel) appears, they are happy. > > > (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. > > Don't count on it too much :) In the drop case, they would > probably start looking for a firefox/mozilla package for Debian > and would eventually end up on a d.o page explaining why the > packages were dropped, thanks to the Google Magic (tm). QED. In the rebrand case, they will look for said package and Google will take them to a page saying "Firefox is called Iceweasel under debian to protect you from trademark lawsuits", they think "oh, good, this Debian fellow is a nice guy helping protect me." -- HTH, Respectfully, Massa
