Mozilla Cracks Down On Merchandise Sellers 565
An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine reports that the Mozilla Foundation is cracking down on those selling unofficial Mozilla-branded merchandise. This takes the form of an open letter addressed to retailers of goods that bear the Mozilla name or logos. The letter suggests that the Foundation are willing to work with those selling Mozilla wares, as long as they get a cut and the retailer isn't operating in the US, Canada or Mexico, where they would be competing with the Foundation's own Mozilla Store. Threats of legal action for non-compliance are issued, albeit with friendly overtones. This open letter is part of the Mozilla Foundation's campaign to better enforce its trademarks, an effort that began when the Foundation was launched in July. In a related move, the Foundation announced that the new Firefox artwork is not open-source and can only be used in official builds or those sanctioned by the Foundation - this has led to debates about whether Firefox is free enough to be included in the Debian Linux distribution."
Um... (Score:5, Interesting)
What are they trying to do? Copyright a generic name?
Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
so is it ok.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Good for Them (Score:5, Interesting)
That's cute (Score:5, Interesting)
(I mean, I am all for Moz, but the irony is unignorable)
Re:Um... (Score:2, Interesting)
Relax (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes that's right kids... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, all this litigation, threats of lawsuits, license clauses in software, logos and so on - it's starting to make "Open" look a heck of a lot more like "Closed" to me; imagine what it looks like to the Clueless Observer.
Re:so is it ok.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good for Them (Score:1, Interesting)
Now, if thugs had broken in Mozilla HQ and made off with a truck full of boxes of T-shirts to sell, maybe that would be "stealing".
Hollywood Not Out of Ideas? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Free (Score:3, Interesting)
This is wrong. The point of free software is to provide a common base from which all people can profit. Read the GNU Manifesto... the goal is to have software available for free. This would allow someone to setup an internet cafe, setup computers running a Linux distro, provide Mozilla to users for web browsing, and charge for access. In such an example, the internet cafe owner would be profiting from Open Source works, and there's nothing wrong with that.
What people tend not to understand is that Open Source gets written as a contribution to society. Mozilla wasn't written so that the developers could profit from releasing it -- because it's GPL'd, they are specifically opting out of the ability to profit from selling licenses.
Re:If this were Fark (Score:3, Interesting)
No free brand/goodwill (Score:5, Interesting)
Some might argue if you're doing something for free, why do you want to protect your branding. Well, branding is what consumers look for in making a decision (most of the time), and if a company can maintain a strong branding, it is able to continue pushing its mission/objective using the same brand, and consumers will continue to use products based on that mission/objective.
If Sun didn't control the use of naming of Java, we might have too many different version of *Java*, and eventually consumers couldn't find one to stick to and the standard might be lost.
Imagine if people start printing Slashdot logo all over all kind of vibrators...
Alternate Default Theme (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't all the artwork in the chrome themes? Even the default?
So why not replace the default theme with a "free" theme?
Or would that substitution somehow break the license?
Yeah, it'd mean it couldn't be directly included, but once the theme
Hell, if it's really that simple, I'll learn how to make themes and make a "free" (beer+libre) theme and a script to replace the default with it prior to distribution.
Of course, there is the issue of the icon on win32, but that's neither here nor there.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem with Mozilla Store... (Score:2, Interesting)
Do we need a TGPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps something that lets other people use the a trademark in most cases, so long as the guy using it doesn't use it in ways that invalidate the trademark..
Doesn't appeal to "average user" anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
Just one man's opinion, but scary icons and unfortunate names (GIMP comes to mind) probably have a much bigger impact on adoption than people realize.
Its not free advertising people.. (Score:2, Interesting)
RTFA, RTFL, 2 seperate issues (Score:5, Interesting)
The Debian issue is due to the fact that Mozilla.ort does not want people taking the Mozilla icon data and using it other things - for example, they don't want me writing a Bittorrent program and using the Mozilla icon in it.
However, that means that part of the Mozilla source tree is NOT freely reusable - not even in a GPL style context. I can take a chunk of Mozilla *code* and put it in my GPL program, but not the Mozilla *artwork*.
---------------<hr type="poor mans">-----
Now, the second, seperate issue is this issue of folks making Mozilla mugs, hats, jackets, license plates, doggie dishes, and what have you, and selling those. THAT IS NOT A CODE ISSUE!
That is a STRAIGHT trademark issue - if Mozilla.org does not control such issues they will lose the trademark.
Now, first of all I think it's a pretty damn good sign that people feel it is worth making Mozilla branded whatnots - it is a sign we are winning, REJOICE!
However, it IS pretty scummy to cash in on the Mozilla name and not give back. Sure, I'd buy a Mozilla patch for my jacket, but I'd want to know that at least SOME of the money was going back to Mozilla.org!
So chill out, folks. Take a breath, read the letter, engage brain.
Mozilla Store (Score:3, Interesting)
A sellers opinion (Score:2, Interesting)
As for Debian, I agree with them. Mozilla is now non-free!
That is quite subjective (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe those items are what Open Source is about for you. You seem to have more pragmatic concerns in mind. However, other people feel differently. OSS, for me, is an idealistic venture as well as a pragmatic one. I really like the idea of freedom of ideas and information. OSS seems likes the best implementation yet of my ideals. However, pressing legal action for trademark violation is certainly not something that I can support in good conscience.
I respect your viewpoint of OSS and its purpose, but realize that many would disagree.
Re:Alternative (free) artwork is being provided (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a simple option for those that don't get official permission from the Mozilla Foundation to use the trademarked artwork.
A simple "--enable-official-branding" flag can be used when building to include the official artwork. Otherwise, generic versions of the artwork are included (which are free/open).
This seems like a good compromise. I hope you also let the distributions use FireFox or in the icon names, such as "FireFox (Mandrake)" or "FireFox (Debian ed.)"
My main concern is for "Mozilla Coffee" though. This is the best mail order coffee I've tried, I doubt any other dealers can offer that level of quality. I've ordered a few other coffies online from vendors such as Gevalia, Cafe Britt, and my SO got some Gourmet Garage coffee with a donation to the local NPR station. These were all undrinkable, we tossed it all. But I put in a standing order for the Mozilla Coffee from R.J. Tarpleys, it's not quite as good as the same day roasted stuff I get from my local roaster, but it's good and they tell me some of the proceeds go to Mozilla. If you can get a fair licensing deal that keeps the quality as high, I implore you to make a US distributor excemption for them. Roasted coffee doesn't last many days, no one else online seems to be able to deliver it still fresh enough to drink.
I may be a coffee snob in your estimation, but you will profit more from 25 cents a pound on coffee I can drink than $2 a pound on lesser coffee.
I feel like I'm at fault... (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably dumb luck, but it's interesting that this happens less than 48 hours after I put this page [paulcouture.com] and sent it to the licensing and marketing folks at Mozilla - mainly because as they mention in the letter they don't offer much in their store. God forbid the community try to continue this grass roots movement that is OSS an get the word out that there is something on the planet besides IE to use.
I sent a request to their licensing folks to see if I can continue to offer the free graphics I spent a few hours on (reworking the FF logo as a vector, etc.) for download, but I'm not feeling too good about the reply I'll get. I guess that no one in this industry can work on something for the love of working on it, everything has to boil down to a f*ck!ng paycheck. I guess it's true that everyone has a price, and everyone that has a product used by more than 3 people HAS to have a team of lawyers to make being a fan/supporter hell... pretty damn disappointing.
Re:Why should the artwork be open "source"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I feel like I'm at fault... (Score:3, Interesting)
Cut of what, I'm offering the graphics on that page for download for free, I don't make a red cent off of it, hell - it costs me money if it becomes a popular graphic because I have to pay for the hosting costs. It was my way of giving back to the developers with no intention of raking in any cash, but rather providing something useful in getting brand awareness out there.
I'm not able to contribute to the code, that's above my skill level, I built these graphics so I could make some tee-shirts for myself and a couple of friends to wear - and decided to offer them to others with similar interests - with the goal of raising the awareness of Firefox, and was polite enough to inform Mozilla's team about their existance - and offered to provide them with color seperated graphics for use in silk-screened tees with nothing other than a good feeling in my gut as reward. Somehow this hurts Mozilla?
Re:They just want to be able to use the name (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider the following:
If you put a supercharger on your f150, is it still an f150, or "random guy's truck (powered by ford)"
Re:Debian: Didn't mozilla.org think this through? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because it will cause confusion. The same browser, that looks the same and works the same, will have different names depending on where you get it.
I think debian would be complaining if Lindows had just called their distro "debian". It is, after all, a modified debian.
Debian isn't proposing to change the way the software works. They need two things: the ability to distribute the software under their own free software guidelines, and the ability to make slight tweaks to the source code--for example, if the code as written doesn't compile on 68000, they need to be able to patch it so it works.
mozilla.org's plan will work; consider that you can buy "Pink Tie" Linux from cheapbytes.com (which is Red Hat Linux without any Red Hat logos or Red Hat proprietary software). The world didn't end.
But the situations aren't identical: Pink Tie Linux isn't quite the same as Red Hat (as I said, anything proprietary is gone), and Red Hat doesn't want people who buy the cheapbytes.com product calling them for tech support. Debian's Firefox will be the same as mozilla.org's Firefox, and Debian users tend to post bugs on the Debian bug database so there shouldn't be much pressure on mozilla.org's bug database.
I don't think the mozilla.org guys are trying to insult the Debian guys, claiming they won't do a good job or something. It's just that the current mozilla.org policy has no flexibility: if you change anything, all bets are off.
And very possibly, even if Debian got special permission to change things and build with the Firefox logo, the result would not be "free enough" under Debian's own free software guidelines, so Debian still wouldn't be able to ship it. (Remember, Debian is obsessive about license details so we don't have to be.)
steveha
Stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Open Source Implode. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:1, Interesting)
As long as the merchandise being sold is using the trademark to refer to the trademarked product there should be no risk of losing the trademark. Theres not much the Mozilla Foundation can do to prevent that usage of their trademark. However if the term "Mozilla" is being misused to refer to a different piece of software - for instance Microsoft creating a Linux port of IE and calling it mozilla - that needs to be defended.
The images on the other hand are copyrighted and the Mozilla Foundation has the legal right to restrict their use.
Oh yeah, here we go with the money... (Score:1, Interesting)
Little bits and peices breaking away and becoming unfree as the money starts to peek it's little head into the mix of things....
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good for Them (Score:4, Interesting)
It's in everyones best interest for Mozilla.org to assert its trademarks. Except for people who'd sell Mozilla merchandise without paying royalties. And for those that would call their own product "Mozilla".
How Long Until (Score:3, Interesting)
Or are the Toronto Raptors supposed to send the letter, since they existed first.
mini-rant on open source licensing (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe, just maybe, a bunch of people with a lot more influence than I have could put aside their differences and egos and accept that there are a variety of rational views, and we should have a small set of standard licenses that is varied and general enough that just about everyone should be able to pick one and be almost completely satisfied.
Creative Commons got it right. Look at their list of licenses. It's not very long. I was actually considering publishing something under a creative commons license recently, and couldn't find any license that perfectly described what I wanted, but I found one that was close enough for practical purposes. I recall reading that Linus Torvalds used the GPL for Linux in deference to the GCC project, rather than an absolute devotion to the FSF's ideals. If accepting a "pretty good" license works for him, it ought to work for most of the rest of us.
Choice and uniformity both have value, but striking a balance between them requires either some organization or evolutionary dumb luck, which I don't think we should wait for. So, how about it, people?
Re:Firefox artwork (Score:3, Interesting)
Except that their is a company [phoenix.com] that writes BIOS code that would probably object to other software being called Phoenix.
Re:Um... (Score:4, Interesting)
If that's the feature you are using, yes. You should always use feature detection [jibbering.com] rather than user-agent sniffing when you want to actually use those features.
For instance, all the people who sniffed out Netscape to use layers back in the 4.x days weren't very happy when they found out that 6.x had dropped layers for a more standard approach. Had they used feature detection, nothing would have broken.
Re:They just want to be able to use the name (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the automotive equivalant (eg, "Clairion" splashes across the top of the windscreen, or the custom symbols or words put elsewhere) would seem to apply here.
Where one draws the line... well, I think that would need to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
Re:Mozilla Firefox's plan (Score:2, Interesting)
Just install the Firesomething [cosmicat.com] extension and your browser will be renamed every time you run it!
Re:Um... (Score:3, Interesting)
What happened to the idea of giving accurate nifo in protocols?
Re:Debian can just call it... (Score:3, Interesting)
We are trying to achieve two things: maintain our trademarks (i.e. do what is required by trademark law) and maintainq quality (so Gator don't release a browser with built-in spyware branded Firefox, for example.)
I sure hope the foundation doesn't become _overly_ concerned with legal matters; that is the path to boorishness.
We'll be as concerned with them as the actions of others force us to be
I think that the foundation shouldn't restrict domestic, unofficial merchandise.
Even if it falls apart the first time you wash it?
Gerv