Quoting MJ Ray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
"Jon Grant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 11 Jun 2007 19:17:25 +0100, Ciaran O'Riordan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I think the reason GPLv3 isn't tackling trademarks is that they haven't
> become a big problem, and there aren't clear signs that they will.
That's good then. It seemed possible trademarks could be used to exert
some "control".. [...]
Imagine if a toolkit vendor said all the "Zt" had to be removed, and
all the classes have the trademark "Z" name prefix removed on anyone's
redistributed copies. [...]
More than possible - it's already happened. As one example, to get
trademark permission to call a Firefox-based browser Firefox, IIRC you
have to:
- include proprietary graphics, which is a problem for debian;
- use their approved configuration that points at a site which offers
to install proprietary plugins for you, which is a problem for GNU; and
- obey some MozCorp release policies, which is a problem for both.
This is different from the case that was being discussed.
Debian's refusal to distribute Firefox because of trademark issues is
different from if they were being prevented from distributing
unmodified versions of Firefox by trademark misuse.
I'm surprised if GPLv3's authors are ignorant of the problems this has
caused for the GNU and debian projects, or think it's not worth
addressing when the more limited (at present) problem of swpat is.
Trademarks exist to protect consumers by marking products as having
come from an identified source. Debian taking Firefox and hacking on
the code but still releasing it under the Firefox trademark clearly
breaks this. And it breaks it for the consumer, not for the Mozilla
Foundation.
You cannot use trademarks to prevent modification of software in the
same way as copyright or as patents. Trademarks are therefore not the
same potential or actual threat as patents. You can remove them,
although it may be very inconvenient to do so.
Given that trademarks can be a considerable inconvenience when
releasing modified code I agree with Debian's position if not with
their reasoning. But the nature of trademarks means that this isn't a
licence issue.
- Rob.
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