Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

Tomone · 2009-12-20 06:57:29

What is the reason for wanting branded versions of Firefox and Thunderbird (and maybe other apps)? It seems like a lot of people want that, which makes me wonder if it's for more than just looks.

jongkind · 2009-12-20 07:14:39

Not sure whether this is what you mean, but when I approach my bank site with Shiretoko it starts complaining that I don't use Firefox or Internet Explorer. Now I manually change the "general.useragent.extra.firefox" value in something like "Firefox/3.5.6".

grtz, Herman

dcc24 · 2009-12-20 09:25:57

It all started with Debian and their rebranding of Firefox as Iceweasel:

Mozilla Corporation enforces trademarks and claims the right to deny the use of the name "Firefox" and other trademarks to unofficial builds.[5] Unless distributions use the binaries supplied by Mozilla or else have special permission, they must compile the Firefox source with an option enabled which gives Firefox the codename of the release version of Firefox on which it is based, and which does not use the official logo or other artwork.[5] The Debian Free Software Guidelines are used by the Debian project to determine whether a license is a free license, which in turn is used to determine whether something can be included in Debian. As the logo does not meet these requirements, it could not be used by software which was to be included in Debian. This effect of the Mozilla trademark policy led to a long debate within the Debian Project in 2004 and 2005. During this debate, the name "Iceweasel" was coined to refer to rebranded versions of Firefox. The first known use of the name in this context is by Nathanael Nerode[6], in reply to Eric Dorland's suggestion of "Icerabbit".[7] It was intended as a parody of "Firefox".[8] "Iceweasel" was subsequently used as the example name for a rebranded Firefox in the Mozilla Trademark Policy[5], and became the most commonly used name for a hypothetical rebranded version of Firefox. By January 1, 2005, rebranding was being referred to as the "Iceweasel route".[9]

Debian was initially given permission to use the trademarks, and adopted the Firefox name.[10] However, because the artwork in Firefox has a proprietary copyright license which is not compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines, the substituted logo had to remain.

Tomone · 2009-12-20 09:42:41

jongkind wrote:

Not sure whether this is what you mean, but when I approach my bank site with Shiretoko it starts complaining that I don't use Firefox or Internet Explorer. Now I manually change the "general.useragent.extra.firefox" value in something like "Firefox/3.5.6".

Thanks. That's what I was looking for. I had figured that the user agent was set to "Firefox" (since I've never had any problems with it) but I just checked and now see that it's set to "Shiretoko."

JGC · 2009-12-20 11:07:13

Websites checking for "Firefox" are bad and should be fixed. They should check for gecko and its engine version instead.
As for the branding, mozilla forbids shipping unofficial builds with branding enabled. We can apply for permission to get branding in our builds, but that means we have to ask them to check every build before releasing it. This limits our freedom so much that we give up our "rights" to ship firefox with branding enabled.

Pierre · 2009-12-20 11:22:19

Can't we at least set the useragent to firefox? Sure, websites depending on this are bad but we cannot influence this. I don't think we would need permission from Mozilla for this change.

JGC · 2009-12-20 11:40:26

The useragent setting should be filed upstream at mozilla. They also suffer from this with their trunk builds which have only minefield in the user agent string.

jwwolf · 2009-12-20 12:05:04

ITT:Corporate bullshit that FOSS was supposed to get away from.

Anikom15 · 2009-12-20 17:18:14

jwwolf wrote:

ITT:Corporate bullshit that FOSS was supposed to get away from.

Yes. I've moved away from Mozilla products, as they seem to care more about market share at this point.

Cotton · 2010-03-14 11:31:19

From recent personal experience with Namoroka, unless the user agent is changed to show Firefox, the addons update function refuses to acknowledge that there are updates available and marks them as such.
Which kind of affects all Arch Firefox users...

rent0n · 2010-03-14 12:25:50

Perhaps, the most interesting thing about Arch Linux and Mozilla products is that installing i18n packages for language support (namely firefox-i18n and thunderbird-en-gb for example) automatically turns the branding on. This branding affects the names (Namoroka becomes Mozilla Firefox and Shredder becomes Mozilla Thunderbird), but not icons or logos.

I am wondering if this is an expected behaviour or a little "bug" in Arch packages.
This forced and partial branding might also be against Mozilla policy and somehow "illegal", though I am not into legal stuff and I actually don't know.

What do you think?

drcouzelis · 2010-03-14 13:45:52

Tomone wrote:

What is the reason for wanting branded versions of Firefox and Thunderbird (and maybe other apps)? It seems like a lot of people want that, which makes me wonder if it's for more than just looks.

When I started using Arch Linux, I used the unbranded Firefox, and then started using the unbranded Thunderbird. The icon for the unbranded Firefox looks fine, but the icon for the unbranded Thunderbird was hideous. So, I now install branded versions of both from the AUR.

By icon, I mean both the GNOME menu icon and the application icon. (seen when switching between windows...) It's kind of a hassle to compile after every update, but I spend a lot more time looking at those icons on my desktop than I do compiling.

JGC · 2010-03-14 17:56:39

rent0n wrote:

Perhaps, the most interesting thing about Arch Linux and Mozilla products is that installing i18n packages for language support (namely firefox-i18n and thunderbird-en-gb for example) automatically turns the branding on. This branding affects the names (Namoroka becomes Mozilla Firefox and Shredder becomes Mozilla Thunderbird), but not icons or logos.
I am wondering if this is an expected behaviour or a little "bug" in Arch packages.
This forced and partial branding might also be against Mozilla policy and somehow "illegal", though I am not into legal stuff and I actually don't know.
What do you think?

We use the official translated .xpi files from mozilla, so if they translate a string with "Firefox", that string will show up as "Firefox" also. I think that's more or less a bug upstream: translations should never translate the product name.

rent0n · 2010-03-14 19:03:53

JGC wrote:

rent0n wrote:
Perhaps, the most interesting thing about Arch Linux and Mozilla products is that installing i18n packages for language support (namely firefox-i18n and thunderbird-en-gb for example) automatically turns the branding on. This branding affects the names (Namoroka becomes Mozilla Firefox and Shredder becomes Mozilla Thunderbird), but not icons or logos.
I am wondering if this is an expected behaviour or a little "bug" in Arch packages.
This forced and partial branding might also be against Mozilla policy and somehow "illegal", though I am not into legal stuff and I actually don't know.
What do you think?
We use the official translated .xpi files from mozilla, so if they translate a string with "Firefox", that string will show up as "Firefox" also. I think that's more or less a bug upstream: translations should never translate the product name.

Thank you, that's a very good answer!

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-20 06:57:29

Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#2 2009-12-20 07:14:39

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#3 2009-12-20 09:25:57

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#4 2009-12-20 09:42:41

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#5 2009-12-20 11:07:13

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#6 2009-12-20 11:22:19

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#7 2009-12-20 11:40:26

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#8 2009-12-20 12:05:04

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#9 2009-12-20 17:18:14

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#10 2010-03-14 11:31:19

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#11 2010-03-14 12:25:50

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#12 2010-03-14 13:45:52

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#13 2010-03-14 17:56:39

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

#14 2010-03-14 19:03:53

Re: Branding Firefox/Thunderbird

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