Re: [gNewSense-users] What is the firefox problem?

[MJ Ray]

"Benj. Mako Hill" <address@hidden> wrote:
> There are trademarks in many free software projects. The reason that
> Debian is going to be shipping IceWeasel instead of Firefox is not
> because they don't like the license, the license haven't changed, but
> because the FireFox developers have told told Debian that they are not
> comfortable with the changes or the Debian developers and don't want
> Debian to distribute FF using the FF trademark.

I hestitate to contradict Mako, but I believe that Mozilla changed
their license that covered debian after administration of the
trademark passed from the Mozilla Foundation to the Mozilla
Corporation.  See http://bugs.debian.org/354622 for long details.

In short, AIUI, MozCorp links permission to use the trademarks with:
1. use of various non-free-software source files,
2. particular settings,
3. no packager patches and
4. particular release policies.

gNewSense may be able to swallow the non-free-software source files (I
don't remember whether it's only artwork, on which FSF and Debian do
not agree) and the particular settings, but I'd be surprised if any
distribution is willing to let MozCorp dictate their release policy
(it's a type of termination clause) and not all releases work smoothly
on GNU/Linux without packager patches.

This linking of trademark permission with non-free-software and
various restrictions on modification and distribution is not done by
some other trademark holders, so seems unnecessary.

My current background info is on
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2006/debian#iceweasel

Hope that explains,
-- 
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Somerset, England. Work/Laborejo: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request/peteble.