Sean Kellogg writes: > On Tuesday 05 December 2006 13:57, Jeff Carr wrote: >> I notice that recently you have complied with Mozilla's request to not >> use their trademarks for your browser packages. However, you can't >> also use their trademark to switch users to a competing product. >> ("bait-and-switch") The same trademark issues are why there is not a >> package called openoffice. It must be called openoffice.org. > > First off, whoa. These are awfully specific facts and directions you are > giving here, and unless you are a licensed lawyer or a representative of > Mozilla, I would strongly avoid the use of the term "must" and "can't." > Suggest all you want, but directives such as the above are tantamount to > practicing law without a license. > > That having been said, I am inclined to agree that this presents a very murky > issue made complicated by the debian packaging system. If 'apt-get install > firefox' is functionally equivalent to 'apt-get install iceweasel' then you > likely have either plan old "consumer confusion" or "initial consumer > confusion." Both are bad.
When and in what particulars do you propose this confusion would occur? Neither the desktop icon (as the most promiment entry point) nor the package (in data or metadata) leave much room for confusion. Wikipedia has an entry for a phrase[1] that seems to apply. [1]- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry Comparably, "apt-get install pgp" (PGP trademark owned by Network Associates, Inc) is functionally equivalent to "apt-get install pgpgpg". There are deprecation-related reasons to get rid of the pgp virtual package, but it seems that your argument applies to it as well. The term for "made up term" you were looking for is fanciful mark. However, if you enumerate the features provided by both Iceweasel and Mozilla Firefox, I suspect that most consumers who identify anything by the word "Firefox" would identify the feature set -- and not the particular software packaging -- as Firefox. On that basis, the functionality doctrine is apposite. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]