Alexander Sack wrote: >So what do they basically want? They basically want us to comply to the >community editions terms as described in [1]. This implies that we do not use >any term that reads: "Mozilla Thunderbird". Neither in the package-name nor >in the application itself. Correct.... >So what does this mean? The mozilla-thunderbird package should be named >thunderbird (*sigh*). They feel this is most important and there is no way to No, worse; they want "thunderbird-community-edition". Or "thunderbird-community-edition-debian" :-P Barring explicit special permission.
It gets worse. From the trademark policy: -- Community members and organizations can start using the "Firefox Community Edition" and "Thunderbird Community Edition" trademarks from day one, but the Mozilla Foundation may require individuals or teams to stop doing so in the future if they are redistributing software with low quality and efforts to remedy the situation have not succeeded. Doing things this way allows us to give as much freedom to people as possible, while maintaining our trademarks as a mark of quality (which we are required to do in order to keep them). -- In other words, they can revoke the right to use the Thunderbird name entirely, on a whim. Is that acceptable (DFSG-free) or not? This is not an issue which I remember addressing before. If they did revoke permission in the future, you'd need to change all the names *again*. That might be an incentive to go the Iceweasel route immediately. :-P >negotiate about the package name. In addition we need to make some changes to >the thunderbird "thunderbird-community-edition" >package. That is ... remove all "Mozilla Thunderbird" terms from >the app (change to Debian Thunderbird). "Debian Thunderbird Community Edition" >In addition all locale packages need to >be adjusted. Yep. >Another IMHO more important point is, that we need (they want us) to add a >statement to the thunderbird copyright file like: > >"People distributing works derived from the default Debian package of >Thunderbird will have to also comply with the mozilla.org trademark policies, "Thunderbird Community Edition" >or remove the trademarks entirely from the package. Obviously, if it's a >just a copy of the package, no permission would be needed." Yes, that's a fine legal notice. >So my question ... Is thunderbird still free and suitable for main with these >restrictions? Well, the legal notice is OK. I hope I've clarified what the trademark policy actually requires. :-P Whether that's free enough or not, I don't know. Some other parts I *don't* like: "Therefore if you want to ship extenions, themes or plugins installed by default (as opposed to, say, linked as XPIs from the default start page) then you need to run the list past us for approval." ... "Any rights to Mozilla Foundation trademarks granted in this document fall under an over-arching requirement that the use of the trademark be non-confusing and non-disparaging." Non-confusing is fine and good, of course. We love non-confusing. Non-disparaging is a unpleasant free speech infringment, and I don't like it one bit. It's probably included because of some stupid legal precedent.... "By non-disparaging, we mean that (outside the bounds of fair use) you can't use our marks to be rude about us." If I remember correctly, the bounds of fair use in the US say you can pretty nearly always use the marks in criticism. What the heck is going on here? Is this referring purely to (the equivalent of) having a package labeled "Mozilla" with deliberate trash in it? Or is it actually about stifling criticism? These are trademarks with fairly strong restrictions on use claimed. The question is whether trademarks with such strong restrictions on use should be used under license by Debian in main, or considered non-free and stripped from main. I am not going to pretend to answer that question since I'm not sure. I'm inclined to say "yes, it's free", but... > If _not_, the only option left would be the iceweasel way mentioned in [1]. Which would have the advantage of not requiring a second round of work if the Mozilla Foundation decided to revoke permission to use the Community trademark license. So I would be inclined to do this.... Heh. I'm a fence-sitter. ... >[1] - http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy.html More nasty points: Addon packages should not, according to the trademark policy, be called "thunderbird-enigmail", for instance. "enigmail-for-thunderbird" is fine though. (Whew.) >[1] - http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/policy.html --Nathanael Nerode