Firefox, Bon Echo, IceWeasel and trademark issues
Recently upgrading the mozilla-firefox package on my Gentoo box, from the 1.5.0.9 version to the 2.0.0.1, I noticed that the Gentoo developers have changed the logo (new one) and the name shown on the About box: Bon Echo (which is the development name of Mozilla Firefox 2.0).
This is not a new story in the Firefox world; the mantainers of the Debian distribution, for instance, have renamed their version of Firefox to IceWeasel some time ago.
This is mainly a matter of trademark.
This topic, found on the Gentoo forums website, confirmed my assumptions. The Mozilla license allows to:
- redistribute the official build, complete and with no edits (same name, same logo)
- distribute unofficial sources and compiled binaries, provided that the application name and the logo are modified
- deliver unofficial versions of Firefox, mantaining the name and/or the logo, after Mozilla’s direct approval
While the Debian developers, much more involved in the Free Software cause (IMO), decided to fork their own software (retaining, anyway, many of the features of the official version – they removed artwork and plugins classified as non-free), Gentoo mantainers changed name and logo and plan to continue to apply their own patches. A proper use flag, anyway, forces the compilation to use the old denomination and image:
www-client/mozilla-firefox:mozbranding – Enable official branding
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Add comment January 17th, 2007