Firefox Official Branding

Poprocks · 2005-03-23 18:35:00

Just out of curiosity: Have the Arch Linux package maintainers received permission from the Mozilla License Team to package Mozilla Firefox with the official branding enabled (eg: Firefox Logo, application icon, etc.)?

I know that Debian has had conflicting views regarding this issue, and due to a mutual disagreement, they will probably never be using the official branding, at least not until further notice/for the team being. Even if Mozilla let them, it would probably end up in non-free if they did. Arch seems to be less strict about little things like this, but I'm just curious, that's all. FreeBSD has been granted permission because their builds are built so closely to the Foundation's, and they seem to have a similar attitude to Slackware and Arch alike when it come to what's free and what is not.

phrakture · 2005-03-23 18:37:50

hmmm I didn't even know this was an issue...

eerok · 2005-03-23 21:37:32

Making an issue out of everything is kinda the Debian Way.

I switched from debian to freebsd partly because the freebsd community wasn't so uptight. I don't mean this as an insult to debian, and I acknowledge they've done a lot of good things for linux -- but I'm just too laid-back by nature to take all that fussing as seriously as they do.

skoal · 2005-03-23 21:49:57

branding?

must...resist...temptations...

i3839 · 2005-03-23 22:04:40

The official Firefox icons aren't free, so may not be distributed without their permission. The --official-branding build options includes those icons and may not be used without their permission.

So Debian is right to not enable that option, as such binaries aren't really free (some icons are embedded I think). For more info see:

http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trade … olicy.html
http://bugs.archlinux.org/?do=details&id=883

So no, Arch may not use that option...

iBertus · 2005-03-23 22:11:55

WTF? This sounds like something that Debian would make into a big deal. Perhaps we should get permission if it's required by the license but I really don't see a reason to call mozilla non-free software due to this fact.

Poprocks · 2005-03-23 22:37:33

FYI: here's an article that should clear things up for those who aren't up on the Debian vs. Mozilla case: http://www.debianplanet.org/debianplane … hp?id=1186

It pretty much explains where both parties stand.

phrakture · 2005-03-23 22:42:15

why don't we make some arch specific icons and whatnot (whatever the branding entails)

i3839 · 2005-03-23 23:51:09

phrakture wrote:

why don't we make some arch specific icons and whatnot (whatever the branding entails)

Very good idea. And that branding entails just that: some non-free icons...

Firefox is free software, only the binary may not be distributed if it has the nonfree icons.

neotuli · 2005-03-24 00:03:10

No offence to anyone involved, but this is the stupidest argument I've heard since my teammates argued over whether or not Bennigan's is a bar&grill.

Why, exactly, would someone add a catch like that to something that is generally distributed as free software. This is about as bad as if tux the penguin were held under tight wraps by Larry Ewing, such that it couldn't be distributed with the kernel tarballs, but yet was the official Linux logo.

My suggestion:

bool answer = arch.request(permission,mozilla_foundation);
if (!answer){
disable_branding(firefox);
brand(sexy_arch,firefox);
}

i3839 · 2005-03-24 00:17:49

neotuli wrote:

No offence to anyone involved, but this is the stupidest argument I've heard since my teammates argued over whether or not Bennigan's is a bar&grill.

So you actually followed all links and read the argument? ;-) I didn't even bother and already assumed Arch would follow your code snippet, with the minor adjustment that the answer will be most likely false, or "true, if you promise not to patch", which Arch probably won't do because sometimes it's needed to get the thing compile or work.

neotuli · 2005-03-24 00:26:02

Err...I was too lazy to follow all the links, but i got the jist of it just reading the posts.

aCoder · 2005-03-24 01:48:16

I am a little concerned at the discussion I was reading in debian-legal regarding Mozilla trademark issues within Debian provided Mozilla packages.

Wow, I am a little concerned at the fact that debian has a '-legal' list. If Arch ever gets one that's not just a joke, I will abandon it forever. Really, Mozilla just wants to make sure every pkg distributed is quality and they don't get a bad rap because some new to Linux person tries debian, and I can respect that. Debian sucks, their pkg management system sucks, and they do some really dumb things to some pkgs. Mozilla's fears are totally justified, and if I understand them right, they wouldn't care about Arch using official branding, since we're cool and don't screw up everything we package.

Mozilla's goal for 2005 is for further adoption and distribution of Firefox and Thunderbird. Making it difficult for distributions to incorporate them easily will limit that effectiveness.

You can tell this is a debian site right off here, since it really isn't difficult for any distro to package these, unless you're debian, or possibly Mandrake. Even Fedora Core doesn't do anything objectionable to their packages!

Well, there's my little rant for the day...

iphitus · 2005-03-24 01:51:42

aCoder wrote:

I am a little concerned at the discussion I was reading in debian-legal regarding Mozilla trademark issues within Debian provided Mozilla packages.
Wow, I am a little concerned at the fact that debian has a '-legal' list. If Arch ever gets one that's not just a joke, I will abandon it forever.

And debian's list isnt a joke?

phrakture · 2005-03-24 01:56:38

i3839 wrote:

Very good idea. And that branding entails just that: some non-free icons...

ok, so ummm mozilla does not allow free distribution of some icons? wtf? what a bunch of asshats... i think that's almost the single most inane thing i've ever heard

Dusty · 2005-03-24 02:11:47

phrakture wrote:

i think that's almost the single most inane thing i've ever heard

Windows will outlast Linux.

shadowhand · 2005-03-24 05:33:27

Dusty wrote:

phrakture wrote:
i think that's almost the single most inane thing i've ever heard
Windows will outlast Linux.

Phrak got PWNED!!!!11

Why not just rebrand Firefox? Arch has good artists available....

woodstock · 2005-03-24 23:43:31

We could always do exactly the same thing Slackware did to get permission. Here is the source package.

It would seem (by reading this) that the firefox bin packages are i686 anyway. So it should fit right in nicely with Arch.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

p.s. Don't be hating on Debian. I also find it very annoying sometimes when I read about what extents they go to for things sometimes. Still, I think its a good distro.

#!/bin/sh
CWD=`pwd`
TMP=${TMP:-/tmp}
PKG=$TMP/package-mozilla-firefox

# This is not a source build script.  Rather, it builds a Slackware
# package from the official binary tarball available from mozilla.org.
# Using the official binaries seems like the most direct way to satify
# the Mozilla project's concerns about quality control (and thus to
# provide the most quality-certified package possible), and therefore
# be able to use the official trademarks and logos.
#
# Thanks to the folks at the Mozilla Foundation for permission to
# distribute this, and for all the great work!  :-)

VERSION=1.0.1
ARCH=${ARCH:-i686}
BUILD=2

if [ ! -d $TMP ]; then
  mkdir -p $TMP
fi
rm -rf $PKG
mkdir -p $PKG/usr/lib
( cd $PKG/usr/lib
  tar xzf $CWD/firefox-$VERSION.tar.gz
  mv firefox firefox-$VERSION
  ln -sf firefox-$VERSION firefox
  cd firefox-$VERSION
  zcat $CWD/mozilla-firefox-simple.diff.gz | patch -p1 --verbose --backup --suffix=.orig
  zcat $CWD/mozilla-firefox-thunderbird.diff.gz | patch -p1 --verbose --suffix=.orig
  rm -f defaults/pref/firefox.js.orig
)
mkdir -p $PKG/usr/bin
( cd $PKG/usr/bin
  ln -sf /usr/lib/firefox-$VERSION/firefox .
  chown -R root:bin .
)
mkdir -p $PKG/usr/share/applications
cat $CWD/mozilla-firefox.desktop > $PKG/usr/share/applications/mozilla-firefox.desktop
mkdir -p $PKG/usr/share/pixmaps
cat $CWD/firefox.png > $PKG/usr/share/pixmaps/firefox.png
mkdir $PKG/install
cat $CWD/slack-desc > $PKG/install/slack-desc

cd $PKG
makepkg -l y -c n $TMP/mozilla-firefox-$VERSION-$ARCH-$BUILD.tgz

JGC · 2005-03-29 08:56:26

I mailed the mozilla foundation about this issue. We will either get permission or not, in the 1st case 1.0.2 of thunderbird and firefox will have the branded logo's, or, when we don't, the new 1.0.2 versions will be released with either arch-specific branding or the default unofficial branding.

JGC · 2005-04-02 17:51:56

Got a yes, the next versions of mozilla firefox and thunderbird will include legal official branding. The changes we make to vanilla firefox and thunderbird are so small (and are only additions to their versions) that they don't care about it so much.

neotuli · 2005-04-02 17:53:21

yay!

woodstock · 2005-04-02 19:20:54

Good work.

phrakture · 2005-04-04 14:17:36

wow, GJ - doesn't that make us like the second or third to get official permission?

Gullible Jones · 2005-04-04 19:56:19

Woohoo!

As for Mozilla's packages... They may be for i686, but what about the optimizations? Arch Linux uses -O2 AFAIK...

woodstock · 2005-04-04 19:57:09

That I'm not totally sure about.

Arch Linux

#1 2005-03-23 18:35:00

Firefox Official Branding

#2 2005-03-23 18:37:50

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#3 2005-03-23 21:37:32

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#4 2005-03-23 21:49:57

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#5 2005-03-23 22:04:40

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#6 2005-03-23 22:11:55

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#7 2005-03-23 22:37:33

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#8 2005-03-23 22:42:15

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#9 2005-03-23 23:51:09

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#10 2005-03-24 00:03:10

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#11 2005-03-24 00:17:49

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#12 2005-03-24 00:26:02

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#13 2005-03-24 01:48:16

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#14 2005-03-24 01:51:42

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#15 2005-03-24 01:56:38

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#16 2005-03-24 02:11:47

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#17 2005-03-24 05:33:27

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#18 2005-03-24 23:43:31

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#19 2005-03-29 08:56:26

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#20 2005-04-02 17:51:56

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#21 2005-04-02 17:53:21

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#22 2005-04-02 19:20:54

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#23 2005-04-04 14:17:36

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#24 2005-04-04 19:56:19

Re: Firefox Official Branding

#25 2005-04-04 19:57:09

Re: Firefox Official Branding

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