Open Source goes Commercial?

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Firefox
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Thumper's Evil Twin
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Post by Thumper's Evil Twin »

ktoosh wrote:How can you say it's not free?


Because the artwork is under a trestrictive license. Not rocket science.

Do you have to pay anything to get Firefox? I don't think so.


free != Free. Further to that, given that the artwork isn't in cvs it can be withdrawn or the licensing on it changed at any time by the copyright holders, which may include charging a fee for use.

Is it free of any restriction on it's use? no, but neither is any other GPL/NPL/MPL or other open-source program.


Yes they are. That's the point, unless you're engaging in a BSD / GPL holy war.

Are you saying that OSS has to be free of any restriction whatsoever? That is just ludicrous. If that were the case, what could you do if you published a piece of software, I came along and changed your name to mine and republished. Nothing.


Nothing is exactly what you can and should be able to do under the license in question. It's worked pretty well up until now. I consider that more important than the perceived threat of a "diluted brand name".

- Chris
ktoosh
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Post by ktoosh »

esavior wrote:
ktoosh wrote:
Thumper wrote:It means the official builds aren't truly Free. Firefox is now a proprietary binary with limited rights granted to its use. This is a fairly hefty deal for some.

- Chris
How can you say it's not free? Do you have to pay anything to get Firefox? I don't think so. Is it free of any restriction on it's use? no, but neither is any other GPL/NPL/MPL or other open-source program. Are you saying that OSS has to be free of any restriction whatsoever? That is just ludicrous. If that were the case, what could you do if you published a piece of software, I came along and changed your name to mine and republished. Nothing.

Simply saying that OSS must be free of any restrictions on use is not acceptable.

Kevin


Actually, acording to this article on Linux in wired magazine you can do exactly that,
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.1 ... topic_set=

"His hold over Linux is based more on loyalty than legalities. He owns the rights to the name and nothing else. Theoretically, someone could appropriate every last line of his OS and rename it Sally. "


Yes you can call it Sally, but you can't call it Linux with my name on it. For the same reason, you can grab all of the code for Fx and build it, but you can't call it Fx unless you mozilla.org's permission. I can call it "ktoosh's Spiffy New Browser" if I want, but I am still subject to some restrictions from mozilla.org: I have to publish my code. I can certainly get my own trademark and keep my own artwork separate, just like mozilla.org is doing.

Kevin
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Post by TheOneKEA »

ktoosh wrote:
esavior wrote:
ktoosh wrote:
Thumper wrote:It means the official builds aren't truly Free. Firefox is now a proprietary binary with limited rights granted to its use. This is a fairly hefty deal for some.

- Chris
How can you say it's not free? Do you have to pay anything to get Firefox? I don't think so. Is it free of any restriction on it's use? no, but neither is any other GPL/NPL/MPL or other open-source program. Are you saying that OSS has to be free of any restriction whatsoever? That is just ludicrous. If that were the case, what could you do if you published a piece of software, I came along and changed your name to mine and republished. Nothing.

Simply saying that OSS must be free of any restrictions on use is not acceptable.

Kevin


Actually, acording to this article on Linux in wired magazine you can do exactly that,
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.1 ... topic_set=

"His hold over Linux is based more on loyalty than legalities. He owns the rights to the name and nothing else. Theoretically, someone could appropriate every last line of his OS and rename it Sally. "


Yes you can call it Sally, but you can't call it Linux with my name on it. For the same reason, you can grab all of the code for Fx and build it, but you can't call it Fx unless you mozilla.org's permission. I can call it "ktoosh's Spiffy New Browser" if I want, but I am still subject to some restrictions from mozilla.org: I have to publish my code. I can certainly get my own trademark and keep my own artwork separate, just like mozilla.org is doing.

Kevin


Exactly. THAT is what needs to be made clear RIGHT NOW by Ben and Bart. They need to publish a document in plain language which explains EXACTLY how they intend to enforce their trademark and their copyrights over the Firefox brand, artwork and name, so that these issues can be sorted out and so that people can continue to checkout the CVS code and build Firefox for consumption.

And this issue is already affecting the builders; stipe has already said that he's going to bow out of building Firefox because of these ambiguities about the brand and the artwork. Unless mozilla.org clears things up soon, more folks may stop making unofficial builds for fear of lawsuits over copyright violations.
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esavior
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Post by esavior »

If Microsoft wanted to grab Firefox and ship it as part of their operating system then we would want to sit down with them, understand what they're trying to do, and then decide whether or not it would make sense for that product to be called Firefox or have our logos attached to them.


Where do I think Mozilla is going with this? Lets say down the road, Mozilla Firefox becomes a strong brand name. Then, Red Hat wishes to create a RPM of Firefox for their distro of linux. Obviously, they want their RPM to have to logos and to say Firefox. So, they would have to come to you for permission. So mozilla charges them a fee to uses the trademark and logos. Is that correct?
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Post by TheOneKEA »

esavior wrote:
If Microsoft wanted to grab Firefox and ship it as part of their operating system then we would want to sit down with them, understand what they're trying to do, and then decide whether or not it would make sense for that product to be called Firefox or have our logos attached to them.


Where do I think Mozilla is going with this? Lets say down the road, Mozilla Firefox becomes a strong brand name. Then, Red Hat wishes to create a RPM of Firefox for their distro of linux. Obviously, they want their RPM to have to logos and to say Firefox. So, they would have to come to you for permission. So mozilla charges them a fee to uses the trademark and logos. Is that correct?


Yes.

Open Source Code != Open Source Identity, in this case.
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larrybpsu
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Post by larrybpsu »

I get some sleep, and all hell breaks loose on this subject. Very interesting.

Yes, I believe that I was heading into the 'Distro' type of discussion about where Mozilla, Firefox, and such are going. I don't see any other path at the moment, because of legal issues.

From my perspective, this is no different than FreeBSD vs. NetBSD. Firefox has just started down it's own (internal) path...and others may decide to venture in other directions. Is it bad?

Maybe this is something that should have waited until the 1.0 release?

God Knows.
syscrash2k
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Post by syscrash2k »

I propose something like this as the logo for unofficial builds:
Image
I just changed the blue globe to a green one. If this violates copyright laws or anything, I will remove it, don't sue me :P
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Post by TheOneKEA »

syscrash2k wrote:I propose something like this as the logo for unofficial builds:
Image
I just changed the blue globe to a green one. If this violates copyright laws or anything, I will remove it, don't sue me :P


It's too similar to the official build artwork, which means that someone could confuse a build with that logo as an official build, which is no longer kosher.
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old momokatte
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Post by old momokatte »

I think some people are missing an important point here -- the Firefox images are trademarked/copyrighted and so is the Firefox name. Unofficial builds will not be allowed to be called Mozilla Firefox without permission from The Mozilla Foundation.

So, basically, CVS needs to contain non-trademarked branding (e.g. "Fx Browser" instead of "Mozilla Firefox") to prevent people from violating trademarks when they distribute unofficial builds.
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Post by bobince »

A possible solution would simply be to cut the fox's head off, leaving a plain ball of fire for such an afoxual browser. Would still make sense as a web browser icon whilst retaining differentiation.
ghola
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Post by ghola »

oops wrong thread :)
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Post by rmjb »

momokatte wrote:I think some people are missing an important point here -- the Firefox images are trademarked/copyrighted and so is the Firefox name. Unofficial builds will not be allowed to be called Mozilla Firefox without permission from The Mozilla Foundation.

So, basically, CVS needs to contain non-trademarked branding (e.g. "Fx Browser" instead of "Mozilla Firefox") to prevent people from violating trademarks when they distribute unofficial builds.


So a custom build can't be called Firefox either? I thought restrictions were just placed on the artwork. Can a linux user confirm this?

- rmjb
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Post by IGAU »

I dont see why everyone is getting up in arms over this...
The point is that while optimisers etc are making builds which are safe, it doesn't mean everyone else will.

Who's to say that I cant make my own bastardisation of Firefox which includes a keylogger and trojan code. As long as it's got the official logos and branding, the user is unaware of any potential problems, and thinks they're using something endorsed by Mozilla.org

If I am forced by law to use different graphics (plus, not having the graphic source) then it's going to significantly disadvantage my hax0r efforts.

I saw in the builds forum that Stipe is going to stop building Firefox optimisations and go and use IE or Opera or something. That's fair enough, but losing it over a branding issue? I dont see the point. Stipe's contribution will be missed, but to me it seems like a fairly stupid reason to throw in the towel and change browser preference.
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esavior
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Post by esavior »

... If a hackor is going to put a trojan into a firefox build do you really think they will care if they are using copyrighted images or not?
Mindjunk
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IGAU
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Post by IGAU »

It was a bit of an extreme example, but you're missing the point. If the source of the images isn't available, they probably cant use them - whether they want to or not.
The point that you've obviously missed is that there may be cases where unofficial builds are made that Mozilla.org would not endorse, and controlling their branding may prevent problems in the future.
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