[gentoo-dev] Licensing pitfalls with net-www/mozilla-firefox

[gentoo-dev] Licensing pitfalls with net-www/mozilla-firefox

[Karl Trygve Kalleberg]

Hi gang.

As reported on Slashdot today, it appears that there are some hidden
licensing hassles with the trademarked products of the Mozilla project,
such as Firefox.

Some details can be found at:
http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html

In brief, it appears that:

1) The source code is completely free and open, and can be redistributed
   in modified form.
2) The artwork and names, such as "Mozilla", "XUL", "Firefox" and firefox
   logo are generally trademarked, and not redistributable if the product
   has been modified.

They specifically state that the pre-build binaries are freely
redistributable, and I guess we can infer that compiling from unmodified
sources is also okay, but from the following thread, it seems they want
some control over which patches we apply if we are to name it "Firefox":
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/debian-legal-200403/msg00006.html

I wonder if this means that:

1) We need to have our GRPs sanctioned, since we apply arch-specific patches.
2) Our users should be thoroughly notified that they cannot redistribute 
   binaries they build of Firefox (and other trademarked mozilla projects).
   (Which kinda shoots catalyst in the foot for making a customized
    internal desktop-distro using mozilla or firefox).

Is this something we should start worrying about?


Kind regards,

Karl T

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Licensing pitfalls with net-www/mozilla-firefox

[Luke-Jr]

On Wednesday 17 March 2004 03:49 pm, Karl Trygve Kalleberg wrote:
> Is this something we should start worrying about?
Have the Mozilla people been contacted? They could probably grant special 
permission for certain patches or perhaps even a blanket "ok" that covers 
most patches the ebuilds might use...

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Licensing pitfalls with net-www/mozilla-firefox

[James H. Cloos Jr.]

>>>>> "Luke" == Luke-Jr <luke7jr@yahoo.com> writes:

Luke> Have the Mozilla people been contacted? They could probably
Luke> grant special permission for certain patches or perhaps even a
Luke> blanket "ok" that covers most patches the ebuilds might use...

I read through most of the thread on debian-legal.  There they
(the mozilla foundation) started out saying they wanted a list
of the patches applied and would 'probably be able to approve'
them....  Obviously that didn't fly, but I didn't see a final
resolution to the problem there.

The alternative is to call it something else and use gentoo-
specific artwork.

Note that this also applies to the mail client (was it thunderbird?)
and the artwork that is part of mozilla.

One hopes they come to a reasonable compromize that will work for the
dists, since I'm sure every dist includes patches.

-JimC


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Licensing pitfalls with net-www/mozilla-firefox

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Thu, 2004-03-18 at 12:45, James H. Cloos Jr. wrote:
> >>>>> "Luke" == Luke-Jr <luke7jr@yahoo.com> writes:
> 
> Luke> Have the Mozilla people been contacted? They could probably
> Luke> grant special permission for certain patches or perhaps even a
> Luke> blanket "ok" that covers most patches the ebuilds might use...
> 
> I read through most of the thread on debian-legal.  There they
> (the mozilla foundation) started out saying they wanted a list
> of the patches applied and would 'probably be able to approve'
> them....  Obviously that didn't fly, but I didn't see a final
> resolution to the problem there.
> 
> The alternative is to call it something else and use gentoo-
> specific artwork.
> 
> Note that this also applies to the mail client (was it thunderbird?)
> and the artwork that is part of mozilla.
> 
> One hopes they come to a reasonable compromize that will work for the
> dists, since I'm sure every dist includes patches.

I'm just curious, but wouldn't this only possibly affect the *-bin
ebuilds for mozilla/firefox/thunderbird?  If so, is it even really an
issue, since we provide the original binary distribution from mozilla?

I know that we would need to look into this for GRP, but for the regular
distribution, it seems to be a moot point.  Am I just wrong here?  Can
we simply start providing mozilla-bin in GRP rather than mozilla?

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Games Team

Is your power animal a penguin?

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Licensing pitfalls with net-www/mozilla-firefox

[Karl Trygve Kalleberg]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 06:18:58PM -0500, Chris Gianelloni wrote:

> I'm just curious, but wouldn't this only possibly affect the *-bin
> ebuilds for mozilla/firefox/thunderbird?  If so, is it even really an
> issue, since we provide the original binary distribution from mozilla?

Yes, it only affects binary redistributions of mozilla stuff, and yes, our
*-bins are safe, since they're unmodified.

> I know that we would need to look into this for GRP, but for the regular
> distribution, it seems to be a moot point.  Am I just wrong here?  Can
> we simply start providing mozilla-bin in GRP rather than mozilla?

The GRP includes our binary redistribution of the mozilla stuff, and is 
modified (if only with arch-specific patches), so it requires a stamp 
of approval.


However, one of the main selling points (or "giving away points") of Gentoo
is that you can use it, for instance in combination with catalyst, to build
your very own binary distro. 

Looking strictly at the mozilla licensing scheme, it means *every* user of
catalyst that builds a mozilla project with trademarked logos needs to 
obtain their own stamp of approval before redistributing their binaries.

This hampers easy deployment of a catalysted Gentoo on any organisation; 
people are not even allowed to build livecds that they copy to their 
neighbour, strictly speaking.


One very appealing alternative is making our own artwork, and renaming the
package to direfox or something (or firef*x, but * is very problematic in
filenames), to avoid this nuisance.

Another, would be for the mozilla organisation to have a completely 
open-sourced version, in addition to their own restricted version.


Kind regards,

Karl T

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Licensing pitfalls with net-www/mozilla-firefox

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Fri, 2004-03-19 at 04:39, Karl Trygve Kalleberg wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 06:18:58PM -0500, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> 
> > I'm just curious, but wouldn't this only possibly affect the *-bin
> > ebuilds for mozilla/firefox/thunderbird?  If so, is it even really an
> > issue, since we provide the original binary distribution from mozilla?
> 
> Yes, it only affects binary redistributions of mozilla stuff, and yes, our
> *-bins are safe, since they're unmodified.
> 
> > I know that we would need to look into this for GRP, but for the regular
> > distribution, it seems to be a moot point.  Am I just wrong here?  Can
> > we simply start providing mozilla-bin in GRP rather than mozilla?
> 
> The GRP includes our binary redistribution of the mozilla stuff, and is 
> modified (if only with arch-specific patches), so it requires a stamp 
> of approval.

I think I was saying that we could instead provide the *-bins in GRP,
rather than our patched up ones, but then I realized that we might not
have nearly as many *-bins available as we have supported arches, so I
can see the problem here already.

> However, one of the main selling points (or "giving away points") of Gentoo
> is that you can use it, for instance in combination with catalyst, to build
> your very own binary distro. 
> 
> Looking strictly at the mozilla licensing scheme, it means *every* user of
> catalyst that builds a mozilla project with trademarked logos needs to 
> obtain their own stamp of approval before redistributing their binaries.
> 
> This hampers easy deployment of a catalysted Gentoo on any organisation; 
> people are not even allowed to build livecds that they copy to their 
> neighbour, strictly speaking.
> 
> 
> One very appealing alternative is making our own artwork, and renaming the
> package to direfox or something (or firef*x, but * is very problematic in
> filenames), to avoid this nuisance.
> 
> Another, would be for the mozilla organisation to have a completely 
> open-sourced version, in addition to their own restricted version.

...or simply allowing redistribution of their artwork provided it is
distributed with their packages would meet the need, I think.  I would
love to see a non-restricted set of mozilla packages, though.

Unfortunately, this is starting to become a very unwelcome trend in the
open source world with some very large and important packages.  No good
can come from this.  ;]

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Games Team

Is your power animal a pengiun?

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Licensing pitfalls with net-www/mozilla-firefox

[Karl Trygve Kalleberg]

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I guess perhaps http://www.cosmicat.com/software/firesomething/ would be
of some assistance here:)


Kind regards,

Karl T

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