Will Firefox no longer be named Firefox?

Jan Moren jan.moren at lucs.lu.se
Tue Sep 26 02:47:48 BST 2006


mån 2006-09-25 klockan 21:32 -0400 skrev Michael V. De Palatis:
> On 9/25/06, m c <markc.lists at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Mozilla have to enforce their trademarks or they will lose them, same
> > for all companies, including the Ubuntu and Debian trademarks and
> > logos.
> 
> Okay, but this is supposed to be free software. Free as in freedom.
> Free as in no trademarks, copyrights, etc. Free as in you can do with
> it what you wish, provided whatever you do with it is also free (well,
> at least when a GPL or similar license is used). It's really a deeply
> important issue, and Mozilla here is acting ridiculously. It should
> either be free or it should not be, not something outrageously "in
> between."

Um, say what? You aven't actually checked that idea with the FSF, have
you?

GPL depends for its very existence on the enforcement of IP rights.
"Free" is emphatically _not_ "no trademarks, copyrights, etc." It is the
vigorous enforcement of copyrights that enables the GPL to enforce
sharing of improvements or changes to distributed code. You're possible
thinking of "public domain" style non-licences, which is a whole other
(and legally rather suspect) kettle of fish.


-- 
Dr. Jan Morén (mr)              
Japan:  090-3622 8920      jan.moren at lucs.lu.se
Sweden: 031-360 7723       http://www.lucs.lu.se/people/jan.moren/log/current.html




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