Official Firefox binaries non-free

[MJ Ray]

Alex Hudson wrote:
> Hmm, I thought Gerv had said that Debian had approach MoFo, not the
> other way around. [...]

Gerv was noticed once describing a New Maintainer applicant
as debian's view and it's not easy to trace this back to initial
contact, as I don't think Gerv was the original Mozilla replier.

> I agree. On the other hand, though, it's difficult for outsiders to
> figure out how debian does act though - I'm not sure debian developers
> always recognise that. [...]

It's difficult for debian developers to figure out how debian
does act, but sadly people assume instead of asking questions (and
I have been guilty of that many times), while others either don't
answer questions or give half-answers which are misunderstood.

> That trade mark (FIREFOX) isn't a trade mark on a web browser, so I
> don't see how your point stands - I think you're confused with tort law
> on passing-off, which is different. You still seem to be talking about
> the US situation, too. [...]

I can't remember exactly what it's a trademark for, but I'm pretty
sure it's not a trademark for a filename.

Sadly, US law is the main concern for debian on this one,
as both Mozilla Foundation and debian's holding corporation
(Software in the Public Interest, Inc) are US-based. Maybe
if Debian-UKSoc gets unbroken and gathers large assets, we'd
want to worry about being mugged in the UK, but I'm not as
worried yet (unless there are UK-based debian moz packagers...).

> As I already noted; no, they can't - at least, not in the UK - as far as
> firefox is concerned. They are licencees.

Who do they license from? Who do we LART to get them to stop 
enforcing the trademark against free software distributors?

Even so, all remember, Mozilla is far better than Netscape, for us.

-- 
MJR/slef