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Titel:
 Verfasst am: 24.09.2006, 13:08 Uhr
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| or why not even Debian use the old code name "DeerPark", as that's what FF 1.5 was called during its development. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 24.09.2006, 21:33 Uhr
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The problem here is that firefox/mozilla.ORG set out to create a genuine alternative to MSIE. They succeeded in this. This was their core mission. And now normal users from many walks of life know and trust the name Firefox.
This is why I consider that exchange not reasonable at all, despite the illusion that the mozilla representative is trying to create. The bottom line is that mozilla.COM is now more concerned with corporate type issues like preserving trademarks than it is with its original core mission, which was 'get and spread firefox'.
I should have realized that this name change from .org to .com was far more meaningful than I wanted to believe.
For debian, or any other distro, that has not made significant core changes to firefox - which it hasn't, all the core features except self updater works - to now be forced to use another, unknown and unrecognized name for this globally known open source project is absolutely absurd.
This is like apache forcing you to use another name to use apache if you do any changes or modifications of hte code base.
The fact that the discussion is even happening shows how far down this slippery slope mozilla.com has fallen.
If the mozilla, firebird, phoenix, etc that I tested and used happily as a real alternative to MSIE as soon as it came out had pulled this kind of crap I seriously doubt I would have promoted it as heavily as I did.
Obviously, since mozilla has decided to pursue this nonsense in this way, debian will have no choice but to change the name, but you'll notice that the previous respresentative from mozilla had no problems being flexible and following reasonable common sense. So this decision comes from higher up, and it's guaranteed it's all about the money, no matter how they try to deny it.
And, by the way, the mozilla respresentative if full of it, he says that debian does the same thing, which is bull, you're using a distro branded with debian and it's not getting cease and desist orders.
This situation is total crap, pure and simple, and it's yet another example of how much and how fast money can corrupt things. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 24.09.2006, 22:58 Uhr
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| Very good post h2...seems whatever the corporates touch turns to CRAP. FF development model was working very very well until the suits came along. Now Mozilla.com is going to hop into bed with M$...another bad sign. Something needs to be done to prevent FF from falling into a morass |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 24.09.2006, 23:27 Uhr
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I thought this might be of interest vis-a-vis Debian and
trademarks.
http://necrotic.deadbeast.net/~branden/ ... emark.html
NB:
"Firstly, disclaimers about unofficial status may be unnerving to users who aren't schooled in the vagaries of trademark law, in which — at least in the United States — you are expected to aggressively defend your mark lest you lose a future infringement case you bring against a well-heeled defendant. Users may mistake strident proclamations of unofficial, unendorsed status in a piece of software as a warning that it is unsuitable for use, or has known severe flaws."
and the link to Title 15, Chapter 22 of the United States Code.
It looks to me as if US law straitjackets either side of the dispute. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 24.09.2006, 23:36 Uhr
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linux is a trademark, registered, owned by Linus Torvalds.
Think about it. He has decided to own it but let it be used freely. This is a decision he made. Even though Linus is becoming increasingly disappointing in his position against the GPL 3, he is still better than what mozilla is doing.
If linus had enforced this trademark like mozilla is trying to do no altered kernel could ever be labelled linux, ever, anywhere, no matter how small the changes.
This is how you can see what total crap mozilla is spouting. This is a choice they are making, and the way they are trying to defend this choice is pathetic.
And the cause is that steady stream of google ad dollars mozilla.com is receiving. This issue never came up before that google money stream started. And you can see what nonsense the fundamental presumptions are by simply looking at other familiar branded items like the linux kernel, apache, and so on. The debian people are right to p*ssed off, this is total nonsense.
When somebody starts hiding behind the cloak of bad laws to defend their bad decisions that is a major warning sign. And corporate types are the last ones on Earth I'd expect to actually be honest about what the real cause of their decision making process is. Even to themselves. Happily there are exceptions to this, although unfortunately rare.
I'm seeing the same thing by the way happen on the linux kernel with Thorvald's position against the FSF and the GPL 3, same exact logic, same arguments, and the same cause. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 01:37 Uhr
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| It seems to me that what mozilla is asking is simple: don't use our name without our logo/artwork. You are free to use both but not to use just one or the other. I think that's reasonable. I think what is free for me to use but not to own should be respected. But you may be right, h2, that this is merely the opening salvo for corporate mozilla to protect what they eventually want to monetize. And what they want to monetize will probably grow. That will be sad. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 01:45 Uhr
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stryder, that's not actually what they are saying at all. What they are saying is that you cannot use the firefox name OR icon/image if you have changed the firefox code in anyway. That's the core of the problem, and that's the decision firefox/mozilla made, that they did not need to make. That's why I gave the linux trademark as an example of a better way to handle that issue. In other words, let the name flow freely so it can spread.
And the previous mozilla rep had no problems being flexible and doing the right thing the right way.
In other words, firefox continues its windows centric, increasingly profitable path. So because windows uses the incredibly insecure binary installers, and almost all windows users just download the binary from mozilla.com, this issue doesn't come up at all for almost all windows firefox users. But it does come up for almost all primarily source based package systems like apt, rpm, etc, where the code is modified to fit into the packaging system and distro paths, security model, etc.
To make it clear: debian could package in one directory the files for mozilla/firefox, make that a deb, and have it install unchanged, and they could then legally use both the firefox name and image. The reason debian does not use the image but does use the name is that the previous mozilla rep did the right thing and cut debian some slack on this stuff. So now what mozilla is saying is: no more slack, either use unmodified code, which debian can't do, or stop using BOTH the name and the image.
However, debian won't use images that have this type of trademark restriction on them in the first place, which I think is why debian didn't use the image either in the first place. Confusing situation I'll admit. So I assume debian actually could have used the image too but decided not to.
The code change issue also comes up when security patches to no longer supported mozilla versions are back ported from current security patches to the older versions. Since the code doesn't come from mozilla, they consider it a change to the program, and then the restriction on using the name kicks in. This is really a nasty situation, and I actually never thought I'd see mozilla go this route, but I'm also not surprised to see it I'm sad to say.
Firefox doesn't want to monetize in the future, they have already monetized, and quite heavily, every time you use the google search box in your upper right corner mozilla makes a little bit of money from google. Opera made the same deal, by the way, which is why opera is now also ad free and free as in beer. It's a lot of money by the way. First year it was reported to be around 70 million US dollars, although I haven't seen that number confirmed for sure. But it was a lot, whatever the exact number is.
You can see this because when you run a search through that box it's flagged as coming from firefox in the search url, this is so google knows how much to pay mozilla. Same goes for Opera. One subtle benefit of this flagging, by the way, is that from what I can see, firefox users are given slightly more sophisticated responses to technically oriented queries by google. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 01:59 Uhr
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h2 hat folgendes geschrieben::
stryder, that's not actually what they are saying at all. What they are saying is that you cannot use the firefox name if you have changed the firefox code in anyway. That's the core of the problem, and that's the decision firefox/mozilla made, that they did not need to make. That's why I gave the linux trademark as an example of a better way to handle that issue. In other words, let the name flow freely so it can spread.
I have quoted sections of the discussion a few posts ago that quite clearly spell out the issue
Zitat:
I've confirmed that this isn't acceptable usage of the trademark. If you are going to use the Firefox name, you must also use the rest of the branding.
As I said, you could be right and there's more on the plate than is stated so far. However, it would seem illogical for corporate mozilla to want a debian fork since, I guess, they will not get search revenue from forked users. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 02:00 Uhr
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I'd have to reread it, you could be right, but I think the general idea is what I said, but this stuff is so annoying to follow that it's hard to actually pinpoint.
<added>
I reread some of it, now I see the source of the confusion, both things are being said from what I can gather.
Debian objects to the requirement that in order to use the branding, which they can't actually use because of the debian rules about not using trademarked images, they have to change slightly one component of firefox, and mozilla says it's fine to change the code, but only as long as you first submit it to mozilla, then wait for mozilla to approve it as a valid change, then debian can release its security updates for firefox. Which obviously will add a week or more to the security update process.
This situation should not exist at all, it's ridiculous. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 02:04 Uhr
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| Yes, it's sad when greed starts to cloud the picture. I'm just hoping that this isn't the case yet and that the issues are resolvable. However I think in this case the problem is with the debian maintainer who wants to strip out copyrighted graphics. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 02:09 Uhr
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But in order to use those copyrighted graphics, which he has to strip out by the debian rules, he has to modify the code, and that's what the mozilla guy is harping on. This is a total technicality, and absolutely one hundred percent outside of the spirit of anything open source is about as far as I'm concerned, but it is sadly predictable.
The problem here is that while the mozilla guy has the rules and law on his side, he doesn't have what is right on his side, and that's the real issue. And the fact is, mozilla previously allowed this, and now suddenly won't allow it. And that's something that even the mozilla guy had to grudgingly admit was correct, before justifying and rationalizing that fact. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 02:23 Uhr
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| No - well, at least from what I can understand, and I'm no programmer. Remember debian includes source code. You can build regular firefox. After all that's the code from mozilla. But the maintainer has included a switch which builds a "vanilla" firefox (less firefox graphics). Which is also OK by mozilla BUT vanilla firefox cannot be named firefox. Mozilla is saying, I don't see why you need for people to be able to build vanilla firefox, but it's your choice. Merely make sure that that end product is not called firefox or have the firefox name inside. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 02:26 Uhr
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I can't read any more of that stuff though, it's just too annoying, when I see someone talking like that mike connor guy is talking I get depressed, it's like listening to a machine, not a human being.... mozilla.com must maintain full control over its marks because they are very powerful and profitable... what a bunch of total crap.
Zitat:
Given your subsequent comments indicating that the Mozilla Foundation
reserves the right to revoke trademark grants for released versions of
Debian, I don't see that we have any choice but to discontinue our use of
the marks.
For my part I think your trademark handling is unprecedented in Free
Software and really rather unreasonable, and it's certainly far removed from
the understanding that we had with Gervase previously, but it's your
trademark to manage as you wish and Debian will certainly take appropriate
steps to ensure we aren't infringing it.
that's by steve langesek, and that about sums it up perfectly. Basically: yes, you can be and act like a corporate a@@hole, we can't stop you, but we most certainly do find it very sad, and fairly unprecedented. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 03:10 Uhr
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| So there is a bigger agenda on the plate as you suspected. Which is why I say that debian should just fork firefox and be done with it. But you're right, it's sad when two groups committed to a similar cause cannot find ways to agree. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 03:17 Uhr
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Zitat:
t's sad when two groups committed to a similar cause cannot find ways to agree.
stryder: that's exactly what makes me sad about this. In fact, when mozilla was committed to this cause, this issue did not come up, but from reading that thread, it was made completely, explicitly clear, that only once mozilla became mozilla.inc did this issue come up.
And that's the real problem, it's not the technicalities being discussed, it's the fundamental attitude behind the decisions that are made, and why they are made. That's why no matter how many words mike types in that and any future exchanges, that core issue will remain as the real problem. And if there was a will to make the process easier, cleaner, less problematic for debian, the premier free software distro on the planet, mozilla could easily have found many ways to go that extra mile to make it work. And they did do this, until this guy took over. He even admits this explicitly, saying that this was not a real issue before mozilla became .com. So I assume that this guy, and his supervisors, are the actual real problem.
Debian can't fork firefox though, since that's a huge pile of code, too much, all they can do is package it and maintain that package. I really feel sorry for the debian firefox package maintainers though, this must really be annoying for them. When an organization that is making lots of money can't take some of that and use it to help the open source projects that are truly non commercial, that's a very sad comment on where they are.
But I am glad you clarified and corrected what I said since it wasn't right. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 08:10 Uhr
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Anmeldung: 05. Okt 2004
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Welcome to the world of shareholder value!
That's how it works:
1) Build the name of a non existing animal by combining 2 common words;
2) Add a mediocre drawing showing the animal surrounding a globe;
3) Take a bunch of old crap abandon-ware code;
4) Motivate talented people around the world to contribute to a free and open project;
5) Base your marketing on the David vs. Goliath myth and make the animal famous;
6) Found a corporate entity and let it own "just the trademarks and copyrights";
7) Start talking about "intellectual property", "intangible goods" and other interesting stuff;
8-10) "Protect" your corporate values by bothering everybody who adapts your product to his needs (yes, you have promised this right to everybody in the beginning, but who cares - people forget fast).
Congrats - after reaching 20% market share you have built a multi-billion $ business on the shoulders of talented and - mostly - unpaid people, and on the shoulders of all those lemmings around the world who could not resist your "little foxy". Now start charging for "support", "corporate branded versions", "special extensions" and "artistic themes". If you feel the moment is right, go and have dinner with Bill Gates and ask him for his famous "offer you could not deny".
Greetings,
Chris |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 16:06 Uhr
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slam,
This is a really minor point and does not in any way detract from the rest of what you stated (nor do I want to) but there is an animal called firefox. It's a little red panda and looks a lot like the raccoons that eat the apples out of my apple trees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Panda |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 17:42 Uhr
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| The answer - rename "firefox" "redpanda" or "bearcat" or "wah"? |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 18:45 Uhr
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| LOL@those names...ought to be some sort of vote for a new name for the FF browser in debian. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 18:47 Uhr
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| Besides the fox in the FF logo resembles a red panda |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 18:56 Uhr
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tinker hat folgendes geschrieben::
slam,
This is a really minor point and does not in any way detract from the rest of what you stated (nor do I want to) but there is an animal called firefox. It's a little red panda and looks a lot like the raccoons that eat the apples out of my apple trees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Panda
Thanks for the info - I love to learn something new.
Actually RedPanda would make a great corporate brand name again ....
Greetings,
Chris |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 20:53 Uhr
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h2 hat folgendes geschrieben::
I'm seeing the same thing by the way happen on the linux kernel with Thorvald's position against the FSF and the GPL 3, same exact logic, same arguments, and the same cause.
Not too sure what you mean here h2, when Linus and 11 other kernel developers voice opinions against GPL3 then I think there must be some reason. I understand ( I think) what the GPLv3 is trying to do but why the resistance from the key people developing the core element of all versions of Linux |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 21:27 Uhr
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If you read especially linuses comments in groklaw on this topic you'll find that their position is not nearly as rational and reasonable as mundo makes it sound in the current lwn.net thread.
You're absolutely right there's a reason, but I don't think that the kernel developer's themselves actually understand what that reason is. Self understanding is not a quality I expect to see in very high level engineers, to put it mildly, they are immersed in engineering problems all day and begin to lose perspective, this is a danger of doing that kind of work. And if this is suggested they get very defensive without actually even reflecting on the reality of their positions in terms of their daily work and existence.
The core of their arguments is that it will scare away their corporate patrons, which to me simply reveals the presence of the very same slippery slope. Not to mention how shrill and hysterical linus sounds when he discusses this. When you compare the level of coherence and rationality between Stallman/Moglen and linus it's not a flattering picture in my opinion, and I've found that the anti gpl 3 arguments almost all seem to disintigrate upon closer examination. Linus in fact became so hysterical and abusive in the groklaw thread that the moderator had to edit his comments. If he was trying to impress anyone with his cool reasoning skills he failed, to put it mildly. Bottom line is that the core kernel developers are currently far too close to major corporations, and have formed what is essentially an circle made up of only high level engineers, not a group well known for its visionary abilities.
Again, reading stallman/moglen vs the core kernel developers is like night and day, and not in the kernel developers favor. It's the same situation as firefox from what I can see, and will probably have to be dealt with in some major way in the future.
What is interesting is how mundo takes the apparently calm, rational approach here:
http://lwn.net/Articles/200422/
but when you compare that to the leader of the project here:
http://www.groklaw.net/comment.php?mode ... 04#c466084
It's hard to link to the actual page, but if you expand that one using the 'nested' option you can read the whole nasty exchange, and believe me, the public tone linus and the kernel guys are now deciding to take has nothing to do with the tone linus really has, and it's not a pleasant thing to see. I've read and heard tons of interviews with moglen and stallman, and as far as I'm concerned, they are showing just who it was who had the vision to create the gpl, and why it was that linus grabbed onto the vision created by them. Linus does not appear to have the ability to generate any particularly adult vision of his own from what I can tell.
You can see the radical difference. Linus basically hates the whole idea behind free software, thinks that the only opinions that matter are those of the core 11 kernel developers, most of who are I assume employed by some corporation, and none of who seem able to grasp the simple concept that you tend to absorb the values of the people around you, and when those people are corporate types, and that's who pays your bills year in and year out, that's the values you will start having. You can pretend to yourself that this won't happen, but that's fairly naive, that suggests that one can float unaffected above your daily work without being influenced at all by it, sort of like a buddha or something.
This concept appears to be incomprehensible to any of the core kernel developers, especially Linus himself, who from what I read appears to be starting to have some very significant ego problems, and a disconnect from the reality of the growing world of free software. Despite the fact that an entire spanish state, for example, just decided to move to Free as in Freedom software, Linus appears to think and believe that only the corporate takeup of linux matters and is real. Very narrow view, almost blind, which is what I expect from him now.
It's an interesting situation, all I can say is I have now lost a tremendous amount of respect for Linus, but he really is just showing that he just an engineer, a good one, with no vision at all. The core mistake he's making however is not realizing that he got where he is by using Stallman's vision. But now he wants to not do that, but his only vision, in his own words, is 'to have fun', to deal with a tiny group of 11 guys daily, and nothing outside of that.
I had a friend who is a very high level microsoft engineer, and I've seen this process before, I can basically plugin the basic attitude behind Linuses current words, and just by replacing the freesoftware/gpl 3 attacks with unix/linux, I can recall almost identically narrow conversations with my microsoft engineer friend. Literally, almost the same exact mental process. And that's how it happens, year in and year out, you're around a certain type of person, a certain group, a certain value system, so of course it seeps into you more and more, especially as you get into your 30's and your ability and energy to resist it decreases [a sad fact of life...]. This is why I freelance, I've seen the process too often to pretend to myself I can resist it.
I even recognized the increasing shrillness and near hysterical quality of the tone of voice linus is taking, same exact thing I saw with my now ex friend. And the fundamental circling of wagons, and the assuming that only the core group of engineer developers could possibly grasp the larger picture, item for item, it's the same process.
Not to mention how absurdly naive Linus is to think that the core group of developers, the ones he's essentially allowed in over the years, would have anything but the same worldview that he himself has, dugh... obviously, the leader of the project sets the overall tone, and attracts people he can relate to. But this simple principle too is apparently incomprensible to these guys, who actually think doing a poll of a group of people who by definition already more or less agree with you has any meaning at all.
both of those threads are very long, far too long, and the arguments against the position the kernel guys are taking, which in my opinion tend to get buried because they rely on basic common sense and some understanding of human psychology, which are most telling and most revealing tend to get ignored or scornfully rejected, without of course any real discussion of those points. Which to me shows even more clearly that the kernel guys are just engineers, with the limits engineers have. Sad but I think more and more obviously true.
We'll see how it turns out, to me as long as the kernel guys stick to engineering we'll be fine, but when they start trying to create any vision, watch out, linus makes his vision, or total lack thereof, painfully and explicitly clear in the groklaw thread.
And I strongly suspect that the entire DRM thing, which if you read the lwn.net thread you should gain a very clear understanding of, is in fact just what Stallman/Moglen are saying: it has to be stopped now in order to keep software open and free. Imagine a motherboard that will only run signed version of windows for example.
Linus, because of his fundamentally irrational position I'm fairly convinced, even starts saying patently absurd things in defense of himself, like: you can make your own hardware. That's the stupidest response I've yet seen, but it's what he came to to try to defend his position. I don't know about you, but I can't make my own hardware, I don't have a chip fab plant and a team of design engineers at my disposal. Maybe Linus does, I don't know. But you'll see this type of mental slip up over and over if you read their positions carefully, and it's my opinion that these errors reveal that fundamental emptiness of the kernel developer's position, as well as the irrationality of Linuses heated opposition to the gpl 3 and its process.
I think stallman was right when he created the gpl 2, and I think when the gpl 3 is finalized, that will also be fairly close to right, if by right you mean defending the rights of the users long term by envisioning the events that would remove them, then placing barriers against those events. It's my opinion that Linus has now clearly shown that he is completely incapable of envisioning anything at all in this sense, so to listen to him attack Stallman and freesoftware as if he were is getting sort of sad.
Stallman may be a nut case, but I think he's a nutcase in the sense that most visionary geniuses are nut cases. You don't have to be friends with them, but you can appreciate the results of their foresight and genius. Linus clearly does not have this genius from what I can see. Which was fine when he didn't pretend he did, but now it may not be so fine any more. We'll see.
Another huge, but predictable, mental error the kernel guys are making is in believing that taking a 'pragmatic' approach, in other words, an approach that does not scare off major corporate linux kernel supporters, is somehow value neutral. As if corporations are apolitical. This is phenomenally naive, but it's exactly what the kernel guys claim. They think that what they consider normal, pragmatic is completely apolitical, which is ridiculous, but that's what they are trying to convince themselves of. This fact is also pointed out quite clearly by some posters in the lwn.net thread, but the point simply floats over mundoes head, like most of the other key points do.
Keep in mind here though that drm in this context is not about media protection, it's about locking down hardware so only your code can run on it. |
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Titel:
Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 22:45 Uhr
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h2, thanks for the insightful post!
I heard that some of the linux kernel developers were on the payroll of large corporates, and sure enough:
http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/2006080303126NWCYKN
What will the big corporates gain from this? It surely isn't charity, but an investment for the future of the firm? Google will be trying to influence the kernel developers towards business goals, right? |
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Verfasst am: 25.09.2006, 23:07 Uhr
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In my opinion the process is far far more subtle than that.
Google is a corporation. By law it must make money for its shareholders. That's not optional. So it will always be pressed to make decisions that will result in some kind of expansion and growth. Those decisions may or may not be in accord with the spirit of open source and free software.
Google itself is a very insular place, very much like microsoft used to by back in the day. I just read a book on them, and they will suffer the same problems other enclosed environments face, corporate culture begins to blind people in the company to outside realities when day to day all you see is the culture you work in.
And of course, with high level computer programming, this is even more extreme a case, since you tend to do it 12 hours a day, and to think about it the rest of the time, and to dream about it when you sleep. As most any programmer can tell you. So you lose even more of your ability to step outside your narrow world and try to see any larger picture in even a remotely objective sense.
This is why I never listen to the political, social, economic etc opinions of most corporate types, by the way, I don't care how they justify the end result of the process, as long as they remain blind to the facts of the process there's not much for them to really say to an outsider. With the exception of other corporate types, who generally will understand them fine, since they share the same core values.
While the OSDL is one step removed, it's directly funded by the major IT companies, so the values are simply filtered and made more generic, not company specific.
This results in one's worldview slowly but surely being distorted away from larger realities and towards the narrower reality of the place you spend most of your waking hours, surrounded by other people who spend their time in the same exact way.
it's almost impossible to avoid this trap from what I've seen. So no explicit intention or scheme or plan is required, it just sort of happens.
this is why it's so dangerous to allow only those types of voices to set policies that affect people outside of that environment. And the problem is, this process is so subtle, and creeps up on you piece by piece, so you don't even know it's happened to you. And then you get outraged when someone suggests that you may no longer be as objective and clear sighted as we'd all like to believe we are....
Re the direct cause of Google hiring this guy, it's partly status, partly because as he says, google does heavy work on its own version of the kernel, so having a top kernel guy is clearly a wise move in terms of locking down a valuable resource, partly them recognizing that they owe open source a massive debt which can essentially never be adequately be repaid, since google generated basically all their billions using linux and other open source products like python. Even the first google logos were made on the gimp, way back in the day. So they do have a sense of this obligation, but as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I have absolutely no doubt that google, like most other big IT companies, will prove the truth of that saying to everyone's complete satisfaction. |
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