Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Tue, Sep 14, 2004 at 11:33:59PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: > >>>I don't think many people are seriously advocating that the DFSG only >>>applies to restrictions made under copyright law. >> >>In that thread, several people suggested that a restriction such as "You >>may not use this logo, or any confusingly similar logo, to refer to >>anything else in a way which might cause confusion with Debian." was >>Free, and furthermore that it was as free as a trademark license could be. > > With a straight face? I believe so, yes. :) Try the subthread starting at http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/07/msg00657.html for some examples. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
On Thu, Sep 09, 2004 at 01:42:03AM -0700, tom said > Maybe I should know much about buld_deb packaging, but from what I can > read from mozilla [0], dealing with logos and trademark are allowed if > there is no change in the code. Building a .deb is a change of the > code, or is just an adaptation best fitable for a different platform? Packaging software for Debian often requires changing the software, sometimes to work around build system bugs, sometimes to fix bugs in the code itself, sometimes to just make things use Debian-specific features. I would extremely surprised if Debian's mozilla packages didn't alter the source in any way. > [1] http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html on the middle of the page -rob -- Words of the day:e-bomb Leitrim rs9512c Ron Brown security Albright spy DES signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
On Tue, Sep 14, 2004 at 11:33:59PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: > > I don't think many people are seriously advocating that the DFSG only > > applies to restrictions made under copyright law. > > In that thread, several people suggested that a restriction such as "You > may not use this logo, or any confusingly similar logo, to refer to > anything else in a way which might cause confusion with Debian." was > Free, and furthermore that it was as free as a trademark license could be. With a straight face? -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Thu, Sep 09, 2004 at 06:18:08AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: >>Andrew Suffield wrote: >>>On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 10:30:55PM -0700, Paul C. Bryan wrote: >>> Are there any other examples of restrictions placed on open-source licenses that Debian has had to deal with in the past? When a package is resricted by trademark usage, does Debian have a policy to effectively deal with it? >>> >>>There's no difference between trademark law and anything else, and >>>nothing special about copyright law. We are interested in what you can >>>do with the work, for *whatever* legal reasons. It is significant that >>>the DFSG does not talk about copyrights. >> >>Agreed entirely; unfortunately, this logic does not seem to be applied >>in the case of the discussions of the license for the Debian logo. See >>the "Free Debian logos?" thread. > > The Official Use logo is not, as far as I understand, intended to be > DFSG-free at all, and is not intended to be used in main; I don't think > this is considered a bug. The Open Use logo should be, but isn't; this > is a bug, but I think it's an acknowledged one. I understand that. The thread in question was primarily discussing the Open Use logo license. > I don't think many people are seriously advocating that the DFSG only > applies to restrictions made under copyright law. In that thread, several people suggested that a restriction such as "You may not use this logo, or any confusingly similar logo, to refer to anything else in a way which might cause confusion with Debian." was Free, and furthermore that it was as free as a trademark license could be. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
On Thu, Sep 09, 2004 at 06:18:08AM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: > Andrew Suffield wrote: > > On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 10:30:55PM -0700, Paul C. Bryan wrote: > > > >>Are there any other examples of restrictions placed on open-source licenses > >>that Debian has had to deal with in the past? When a package is resricted > >>by trademark usage, does Debian have a policy to effectively deal with it? > > > > There's no difference between trademark law and anything else, and > > nothing special about copyright law. We are interested in what you can > > do with the work, for *whatever* legal reasons. It is significant that > > the DFSG does not talk about copyrights. > > Agreed entirely; unfortunately, this logic does not seem to be applied > in the case of the discussions of the license for the Debian logo. See > the "Free Debian logos?" thread. The Official Use logo is not, as far as I understand, intended to be DFSG-free at all, and is not intended to be used in main; I don't think this is considered a bug. The Open Use logo should be, but isn't; this is a bug, but I think it's an acknowledged one. I don't think many people are seriously advocating that the DFSG only applies to restrictions made under copyright law. -- Glenn Maynard
Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
Andrew Suffield wrote: > On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 10:30:55PM -0700, Paul C. Bryan wrote: > >>Are there any other examples of restrictions placed on open-source licenses >>that Debian has had to deal with in the past? When a package is resricted >>by trademark usage, does Debian have a policy to effectively deal with it? > > There's no difference between trademark law and anything else, and > nothing special about copyright law. We are interested in what you can > do with the work, for *whatever* legal reasons. It is significant that > the DFSG does not talk about copyrights. Agreed entirely; unfortunately, this logic does not seem to be applied in the case of the discussions of the license for the Debian logo. See the "Free Debian logos?" thread. - Josh Triplett signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 10:30:55PM -0700, Paul C. Bryan wrote: > Has anyone at Debian sought permission from the Mozilla Organization to use > the Mozilla trademarks in its packages? In your legal opinions, would it > make a substantive difference? To my knowledge, no one associated with the Mozilla trademark has had anything bad to say about anything anyone even vaugely associated with the Debian trademark has done with the browser nor plans to do with it. And, with trademarks, use which the trademark holder does not object to is OK -- at least that's the way U.S. law works, and I imagine we're talking about U.S. trademarks here. -- Raul
Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
On 2004-09-09 06:30:55 +0100 Paul C. Bryan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Has anyone at Debian sought permission from the Mozilla Organization to use the Mozilla trademarks in its packages? In your legal opinions, would it make a substantive difference? I feel that Debian uses MF's trademarks to honestly identify the goods as those of the Mozilla Foundation. Under English law, that seems to mean that we do not need permission to use the trademarks because this is not an infringing use (Trade Marks Act 1994, s10(6)). I suspect that international agreements mean the US has a similar situation, but I don't know that. I am not a lawyer, neither. Nathaneal Nerode disagrees with my interpretation, according to http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/02/msg00279.html - he thinks it must be the official unmodified version. That probably is a restriction on modification. The Firefox icon may be a more obvious problem, but I don't remember its full license details. [...] When a package is resricted by trademark usage, does Debian have a policy to effectively deal with it? Trademark registrations are annoyingly peripheral to the package, like patents. With copyright, it is an property put in all software that we can't ignore. Trademarks can exist, but someone could have a licence covering everyone redistributing debian and we need not know about it. It is only when we discover a holder who successfully enforces trademarks that it becomes clear-cut. In the recent past, we've been pretty lucky that agressive trademark holders use non-free copyright licences too. Here's a fun idea: Trademarks are also limited by field of use. If I remember correctly, there are only live firefox US trademarks covering internet software, fire suppression systems and boats. I encourage everyone to search their local trademarks, then sell other firefox merchandise and promise to donate profits to the Mozilla Foundation when they issue blanket trademark licences to all free software. Of course, this is not legal advice: you get that from lawyers, not devious hackers. -- MJR/slefMy Opinion Only and not of any group I know http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing Visit the AFFS stand, .org village LinuxExpoUK, 6-7 Oct
Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
On Wed, Sep 08, 2004 at 10:30:55PM -0700, Paul C. Bryan wrote: > Are there any other examples of restrictions placed on open-source licenses > that Debian has had to deal with in the past? When a package is resricted > by trademark usage, does Debian have a policy to effectively deal with it? There's no difference between trademark law and anything else, and nothing special about copyright law. We are interested in what you can do with the work, for *whatever* legal reasons. It is significant that the DFSG does not talk about copyrights. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Debian and Mozilla Trademarks
Maybe I should know much about buld_deb packaging, but from what I can read from mozilla [0], dealing with logos and trademark are allowed if there is no change in the code. Building a .deb is a change of the code, or is just an adaptation best fitable for a different platform? In the former case debian could not violate the mozilla logos and trademark policies. In the letter if the redistribution is with no changes, then everybody are allowed to deal with. Waht in any case i find problematic, is that the mozilla pubblic license-sections trademark (I think we should start thinking as just one license) is probably not dfsg free becouse of what requires in dealing with logos and trademarks [1] [0] http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html [1] http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html on the middle of the page Tom --- "Paul C. Bryan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Dear Debian Legal Gurus: In February 2004, the issue was raised [1] on the debian-devel mailing list regarding the trademark issues surrounding the Mozilla Firefox browser (which, in actual fact, is not limited to just Firefox). A brief flury of messages followed, which didn't seem to actually address the issue that was originally raised. The Mozilla Organization tightly restricts the use of the Mozilla name and logos. My non-legal interpretation of their licensing page [2] is that it requires written permission to use Mozilla trademarks for any modified versions of their software. I believe all of the Mozilla packages in Debian would fall under this restriction. I've searched the mailing lists for any other references to this issue, but haven't found any further discussions. Technically, Debian is probably already using Mozilla trademarks. This is a murky area, in which copyright meets trademark, because most of these usages appear to be included with DFSG-free licensed source code. When Mozilla.org releases source code under open-source licenses, which includes trademarks it purports to restrict the use of, which takes precidence? Has anyone at Debian sought permission from the Mozilla Organization to use the Mozilla trademarks in its packages? In your legal opinions, would it make a substantive difference? Even if Debian had permission to use Mozilla trademarks in its packages, I doubt that the original issue of using the Mozilla Firefox icon could be adequately addressed. The icon itself would not be DFSG-free, therefore not suitable for inclusion in the Debian distribution. Are there any other examples of restrictions placed on open-source licenses that Debian has had to deal with in the past? When a package is resricted by trademark usage, does Debian have a policy to effectively deal with it? [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/02/msg01877.html [2] http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html Yours truly, Paul C. Bryan [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ <---o0o---> Aconsegueix [EMAIL PROTECTED] gratuÏtament a http://teatre.com :-))-: signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
