Re: help-mozilla-trademark-rust

[bill-auger]

trademark policies generally do not hinder software freedom - as
best as i understand this, rust is no exception - AFAIK, the
rust trademark policy is essentially the same as firefox -
firefox has had those same terms, since years before the rust
language existed; and gnuzilla has been compiling a customized
firefox for years before the rust language existed - so, any
concerns WRT that trademark policy could have been raised over a
decade ago; and indeed they were

to the best of my understanding, the only factors which would
relate to software freedom, is that one must rename the project
if unmodified copies are sold, or if there are significant
modifications - that is barely any impediment to software
freedom - one may simply rename the project or package, delete
the logos, and dispense with any concern regarding the trademark
policy - that was what debian decided to do in 2006

WRT gnuzilla specifically, the usage terms of rust are barely
relevant to firefox, anyways - rust is only a compiler; and its
terms of use do not affect the programs compiled by it - users
of icecat do not use rust in any way, unless they are compiling
it, and only at that time

as adfeno alluded to on the other list (there was no reason to
post to both lists BTW), if this is any concern at all, it is
much more a concern for distros than individual projects -
distros actually distribute the compiler; but individual projects
typically have no reason to distribute the compiler; but merely
use it privately for generating releases

it is not like this is a new issue, which the hyperbola team
has discovered recently, as most people who ask about it seem
to believe - rust ha been listed in the FSF's free software
directory since 2014 - recently an "anti-feature" warning was
added, regarding the trademark policy - that probably was in
response to the recent admonition of the hyperbola team; but i
do not recall any discussion about it, as i would expect, if it
were seen as having critical importance - anti-features are
prohibited per the FSDG, so there are potentially implications
for distros; but that is for reasons orthogonal to software
freedom

far from a "huge turmoil", AFAIK, it is _only_ the hyperbola
team (and those who read about it from the hyperbola website) who
believe that this is a matter of urgency - in any case, the
appropriate fora for discussing this issue, and to determine if
and/or how it relates to software freedom, are the FSDG and FSD
mailing lists - nothing will come of it, if discussed anywhere
else

https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-linux-libre
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/directory-discuss

if the rust trademark policy is determined to be a problem for
distros, then it would need to addressed by all FSDG distros -
if it is determined to be a problem for software freedom in
general, then the FSD and gnuzilla would need to address the
issue; but neither has yet happened