Hmm, how would that be an indication of hypocrisy?
1. The swirl isn’t quite the same as the Debian Swirl.
2. Anyone getting upset over it might have agreed with the Mozilla developers wanting Debian to change.
Frankly, as far as I’m concerned (as a Debian user) it’s Mozilla’s logo, if they’re unhappy with Debian making changes without authorising every single one and calling it FireFox then it’s their right to ask Debian to change.
Remember, the only ppl affected by the FireFox change are going to be ppl using Debian, Ubuntu et al. Hardly the type of person to be flumoxed by a simple name change.
Of course, if they had to change the name of the Windows version of FireFox then planes would fall from the sky and the four horseman of the apocalypse would be roaming the land, but that would be a given anyway
I fully agree with the point you are trying to make, but I’m not totally sure, if the debian logo is trademarked or not and I’m also not totally sure whether you are making your point in favor of Mozilla or Debian here.
And actually, I don’t even get all the fuzz about the whole story currently going on. The case is totally clear IMHO: The firefox logo is trademarked. This is a good thing as this prevents us from seeing third-party spyware being distributed carrying the firefox logo (as the windows world has seen before with eMule, a P2P-tool).
I also understand Debian’s point of view of not wanting to distribute the trademarked logo as that could make derivates of debian non-distributable which is not what anyone of us wants. So it’s logical that debian does not distribute the logo.
Which leaves us with the name change, which is ALSO understandable: The name “Firefox” is trademarked aswell and a competing browser carrying this name is certainly nothing the Mozilla Corporation (or foundation) wants to see. And let’s face it: A heavily patched version of Firefox - missing the official logo among other things - is, infact, a competing product.
Allowing this to go on would mean that other, less well-meaning distributors would jump on and also distribute their firefox - loaded with spyware and whatnot. And Mozilla Corp. would not have any means of stopping them as they allowed it before with Debian - contrary to what their trademark policy stated - which creates a difficult to solve case for Mozilla.
So here we are: Mozilla Corporation is right not to allow a modified firefox to be distributed under the name firefox and Debian is doing the right thing in renaming the browser (or alternatively: Complying with the trademark guidelines of Mozilla).
I don’t understand the discussions going on - mozilla is totally right in what they are doing and I actually agree with them that enforcing the trademark is the only thing that guarantees us users that there’s firefox behind what’s labeled firefox - especially when considering the windows world full of crooks just waiting to make easy cash.
You can’t use it, as outlined by Debian. Now, if you would like to use the free logo, as provided by Debian, you are more than welcome. So I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.
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October 13th, 2006 at 2:10 am
I wouldn’t call it being a hypocrite, you simply are not allowed to use the offical Debian logo for this (http://www.debian.org/logos/)
October 13th, 2006 at 9:10 am
Hmm, how would that be an indication of hypocrisy?
1. The swirl isn’t quite the same as the Debian Swirl.
2. Anyone getting upset over it might have agreed with the Mozilla developers wanting Debian to change.
Frankly, as far as I’m concerned (as a Debian user) it’s Mozilla’s logo, if they’re unhappy with Debian making changes without authorising every single one and calling it FireFox then it’s their right to ask Debian to change.
Remember, the only ppl affected by the FireFox change are going to be ppl using Debian, Ubuntu et al. Hardly the type of person to be flumoxed by a simple name change.
Of course, if they had to change the name of the Windows version of FireFox then planes would fall from the sky and the four horseman of the apocalypse would be roaming the land, but that would be a given anyway
October 13th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Hi,
I fully agree with the point you are trying to make, but I’m not totally sure, if the debian logo is trademarked or not and I’m also not totally sure whether you are making your point in favor of Mozilla or Debian here.
And actually, I don’t even get all the fuzz about the whole story currently going on. The case is totally clear IMHO: The firefox logo is trademarked. This is a good thing as this prevents us from seeing third-party spyware being distributed carrying the firefox logo (as the windows world has seen before with eMule, a P2P-tool).
I also understand Debian’s point of view of not wanting to distribute the trademarked logo as that could make derivates of debian non-distributable which is not what anyone of us wants. So it’s logical that debian does not distribute the logo.
Which leaves us with the name change, which is ALSO understandable: The name “Firefox” is trademarked aswell and a competing browser carrying this name is certainly nothing the Mozilla Corporation (or foundation) wants to see. And let’s face it: A heavily patched version of Firefox - missing the official logo among other things - is, infact, a competing product.
Allowing this to go on would mean that other, less well-meaning distributors would jump on and also distribute their firefox - loaded with spyware and whatnot. And Mozilla Corp. would not have any means of stopping them as they allowed it before with Debian - contrary to what their trademark policy stated - which creates a difficult to solve case for Mozilla.
So here we are: Mozilla Corporation is right not to allow a modified firefox to be distributed under the name firefox and Debian is doing the right thing in renaming the browser (or alternatively: Complying with the trademark guidelines of Mozilla).
I don’t understand the discussions going on - mozilla is totally right in what they are doing and I actually agree with them that enforcing the trademark is the only thing that guarantees us users that there’s firefox behind what’s labeled firefox - especially when considering the windows world full of crooks just waiting to make easy cash.
Philip
October 17th, 2006 at 1:00 am
You can’t use it, as outlined by Debian. Now, if you would like to use the free logo, as provided by Debian, you are more than welcome. So I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.