Firefox outcome (Re: Is Ubuntu going to adapt Ice Weasel?)

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Mon, Oct 23, 2006 at 09:46:52PM +0100, Toby Smithe wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-10-23 at 13:37 -0700, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 23, 2006 at 07:25:34PM +0100, Toby Smithe wrote:
> > > Indeed, I think it is a good outcome. I am still a bit peeved by the
> > > lack of freedom this represents.
> > 
> > The Mozilla folks have every right to protect their trademark, and to
> > request that it be used only in ways which meet with their approval.  The
> > practical issues associated with this will not, I expect, be nearly as
> > problematic as has been supposed, and Ubuntu and Mozilla will both benefit
> > tremendously from a closer working relationship.
> 
> Yeah. I'm on the fence. Whilst I understand and appreciate that vendors
> need to protect their trademarks, I think that they should be more
> lenient. It's not as if the modifications that distributions were making
> to the product were changing it significantly. But then again, what is
> "significantly"? When do you enforce the trademark and when not? It's
> rather open-ended, and in this case, the decision to co-operate was the
> wise choice.

To have open dialog and consensus about the changes that we make benefits us
all.  They stay better informed about distro modifications, we get review
from the experts on the code base, and changes move upstream more
efficiently.  It's a win for both projects and for their users.

-- 
 - mdz