Using Firefox or Mozilla Firefox as application name of web browser in Linux
gokcen
Linux distributions like Fedora, Ubuntu and Suse use "Firefox" as the
application name in their application menus(like this[1]). So, using
just "Firefox" instead of "Mozilla Firefox" as the application name,
legally valid or is this a legal issue about trademarks? As a Linux
distribution (Pardus Linux[2]), we are discussing about this and can
not decide what to show our users about the name of the web browser
(Firefox or Mozilla Firefox). What is the valid application name to
use in menus?
Cheers.
[1] http://www.linewbie.com/upload/linewbie.com/attach-diy/images/kick_app.jpg
[2] http://www.pardus.org.tr/eng/index.html
--
Gökçen Eraslan
Benjamin Smedberg
> Hi,
>
> Linux distributions like Fedora, Ubuntu and Suse use "Firefox" as the
> application name in their application menus(like this[1]). So, using
> just "Firefox" instead of "Mozilla Firefox" as the application name,
> legally valid or is this a legal issue about trademarks? As a Linux
> distribution (Pardus Linux[2]), we are discussing about this and can
> not decide what to show our users about the name of the web browser
> (Firefox or Mozilla Firefox). What is the valid application name to
> use in menus?
In order to distribute something called "Firefox" in any form, you need to
request a trademark agreement. See
http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/faq.html and
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Marketing&format=trademark
Assuming that you aren't making modifications to the Mozilla codebase, these
agreements are pretty easy to come by: it's mainly a legal requirement to
make defending the trademarks possible.
--BDS
Uli Link
> Benjamin Smedberg wrote:
>> [...]
>> In order to distribute something called "Firefox" in any form, you
>> need to
>> request a trademark agreement. See
>> http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/faq.html and
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Marketing&format=trademark
>
> "If you are redistributing unchanged official stable binaries downloaded
> from mozilla.org, to anyone in any way and for any purpose, no further
> permissions are required from us"
>
> So this should read : "In order to *recompile* and distribute something
> called "Firefox" in any form, you need to request a trademark agreement"
I recently asked for recompiled source to be distributed via the
contributed builds directory of mozilla.org. A port to a today not
widespread commercial UNIX platform.
It was rejected because Mozilla Corp. cannot QA these contributed builds.
So I don't think it easy. It should read:
"In order to recompile and distribute something in any form, you have to
convince Mozilla Corp. for QAing your builds. If your builds are
successfully QA'ed the same way as the official releases, you may ask
for permission for using the trademarks."
Or in shorter terms: "you may ask, but don't expect anything but a
polite answer why it's impossible. Except you're representing a big
company."
What does unaltered source from Mozilla.org mean?
I consider backporting/applying trunk patches to stable branches is also
a modification of source code.
When I rebuild a SRPM of RedHat Enterprise Linux on CentOS is this
unaltered source?
Altered against Mozilla.org: Yes, altered against RH SRPM: No.
Even more funny: Everyone can download my contributed Seamonkey builds
from Mozilla.org, for building Seamonkey I need to build Firefox and
Thunderbird too, if I want to successfully file bugs and get the patches
into the repository. Zero bugs filed by users in the last two years.
Legally Seamonkey is a Mozilla trademark same as Thunderbird or Firefox.
--
ULi