5 ms·

So which part of replacing the Firefox brand with Iceweasel is coherent branding?

yebyen 11y ago
It's not just replacing the Firefox brand, it's replacing the onus of responsibility for the package. When Debian packages your software, they insert their own patches, they do their own disparate issue tracking and release archive management, they are quite effectively a separate product. If they called it Firefox, by Debian, it would be equally damaging to the Mozilla mark (in a sense of trademark law.) If they didn't do their usual Debian thing with the patches and the release management, it would be similarly damaging to the Debian mark, so-to-speak. (All packages get this treatment, no upstream software release vendor gets special privileges.)
- davidgerard 11y ago
  This goes way back - I was a documentation volunteer in the run-up to the Mozilla 1.0 launch in 2002, and Debian did all manner of weird things to their Mozilla package that we then had to sort through to distinguish from the mozilla.org binaries (e.g. someone had to make a list of Debian Mozilla useragents so we weren't specifically checking their behaviour).
sp332 11y ago
Mozilla wants people to be able to trust the Firefox brand. They don't even use "Firefox" branding on their own nightly or dev builds. They only put it on software that's been through their own QA. So you're free to use the code, but they won't let you put the name or logo on any forks or even builds they haven't signed off on.
- epoch1970 11y ago
  I think at this point that the Firefox brand has been tarnished, unfortunately. For many average users, the term "Firefox" reminds them of the slow browser they used to use before switching to Chrome. For more advanced users, the term "Firefox" reminds them of the browser that includes ads (even if these are being removed), has unnecessary functionality built in (Pocket, Hello), and has undergone questionable UI changes (Australis). For web developers, the term "Firefox" reminds them of the extra effort they still need to expend to test their creations in a browser that fewer and fewer people are using. For others, the term "Firefox" will now remind them of this failed mobile OS project. "Firefox" as a brand had a great reputation 5 years ago. But that reputation has eroded away since then.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    I disagree. Most "normal" users who used Firefox before Chrome came around are savvy enough to understand that software improves and evolves. There's no doubt that Chrome gave Firefox a much-needed shot in the arm. Many developers/advanced users, including myself, see Firefox as a bastion of freedom in what is otherwise a land grab by major OS vendors, an attempt to further increase their lock-in. Users remember Firefox as the browser that was so flexible, Firebug was possible, which sent every browser vendor into a tizzy to try to clone the featureset natively. Users remember Firefox as the browser that gives them control over their experience, unlike Chrome which babysits and won't let you interfere with Google's need to harvest data. The first 2 years that Chrome was out, it trounced Firefox all around. I switched back to Fx around that time. These days, Firefox's JavaScript performance is comparable if not better than Chrome's [0] and its extension ecosystem and extreme configurability make it a much better option than Chrome for me. The only reason I use Chrome now is to take advantage of the proprietary extensions that allow me to use Netflix or Flash on Linux. Mozilla has always and will always be a tinkerer's vendor. These people are not going to be offended when reasonable experiments are conducted, nor when reasonable experiments fail, as Firefox OS did. The biggest grudge I hold against Mozilla is really more about the community than the company itself, and that's the Brendan Eich debacle. [0] http://arewefastyet.com/ http://arewefastyet.com/
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      Users remember Firefox as the browser that gives them control over their experience Power users, or users? Among the crowd here, sure. But in the rest of the world? unlike Chrome which babysits and won't let you interfere with Google's need to harvest data. Firefox has been getting more and more nannyish and chromelike with every release. * There's the "let's throw out semantic versioning since Chrome already did it" * There's the UI rework which sacrificed information density and usability for what I evaluate as a weak attempt to look more like Chrome. * There's the "thou shalt not install plugins from places other than we say is okay" rule that was recently implemented - which Chrome did first. * There's the upcoming "all your plugins are going to break, many permanently" when XUL gets thrown out and the new hotness won't have feature parity at release (in other words, Firefox plugins will be as limited as Chrome plugins)
- matzipan 11y ago
  That's kinda ironic, cosnidering Firefox OS was a pos.

It's not just replacing the Firefox brand, it's replacing the onus of responsibility for the package. When Debian packages your software, they insert their own patches, they do their own disparate issue tracking and release archive management, they are quite effectively a separate product. If they called it Firefox, by Debian, it would be equally damaging to the Mozilla mark (in a sense of trademark law.) If they didn't do their usual Debian thing with the patches and the release management, it would be similarly damaging to the Debian mark, so-to-speak. (All packages get this treatment, no upstream software release vendor gets special privileges.)

davidgerard 11y ago
This goes way back - I was a documentation volunteer in the run-up to the Mozilla 1.0 launch in 2002, and Debian did all manner of weird things to their Mozilla package that we then had to sort through to distinguish from the mozilla.org binaries (e.g. someone had to make a list of Debian Mozilla useragents so we weren't specifically checking their behaviour).

sp332 11y ago

Mozilla wants people to be able to trust the Firefox brand. They don't even use "Firefox" branding on their own nightly or dev builds. They only put it on software that's been through their own QA. So you're free to use the code, but they won't let you put the name or logo on any forks or even builds they haven't signed off on.

epoch1970 11y ago
I think at this point that the Firefox brand has been tarnished, unfortunately. For many average users, the term "Firefox" reminds them of the slow browser they used to use before switching to Chrome. For more advanced users, the term "Firefox" reminds them of the browser that includes ads (even if these are being removed), has unnecessary functionality built in (Pocket, Hello), and has undergone questionable UI changes (Australis). For web developers, the term "Firefox" reminds them of the extra effort they still need to expend to test their creations in a browser that fewer and fewer people are using. For others, the term "Firefox" will now remind them of this failed mobile OS project. "Firefox" as a brand had a great reputation 5 years ago. But that reputation has eroded away since then.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  I disagree. Most "normal" users who used Firefox before Chrome came around are savvy enough to understand that software improves and evolves. There's no doubt that Chrome gave Firefox a much-needed shot in the arm. Many developers/advanced users, including myself, see Firefox as a bastion of freedom in what is otherwise a land grab by major OS vendors, an attempt to further increase their lock-in. Users remember Firefox as the browser that was so flexible, Firebug was possible, which sent every browser vendor into a tizzy to try to clone the featureset natively. Users remember Firefox as the browser that gives them control over their experience, unlike Chrome which babysits and won't let you interfere with Google's need to harvest data. The first 2 years that Chrome was out, it trounced Firefox all around. I switched back to Fx around that time. These days, Firefox's JavaScript performance is comparable if not better than Chrome's [0] and its extension ecosystem and extreme configurability make it a much better option than Chrome for me. The only reason I use Chrome now is to take advantage of the proprietary extensions that allow me to use Netflix or Flash on Linux. Mozilla has always and will always be a tinkerer's vendor. These people are not going to be offended when reasonable experiments are conducted, nor when reasonable experiments fail, as Firefox OS did. The biggest grudge I hold against Mozilla is really more about the community than the company itself, and that's the Brendan Eich debacle. [0] http://arewefastyet.com/ http://arewefastyet.com/
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    Users remember Firefox as the browser that gives them control over their experience Power users, or users? Among the crowd here, sure. But in the rest of the world? unlike Chrome which babysits and won't let you interfere with Google's need to harvest data. Firefox has been getting more and more nannyish and chromelike with every release. * There's the "let's throw out semantic versioning since Chrome already did it" * There's the UI rework which sacrificed information density and usability for what I evaluate as a weak attempt to look more like Chrome. * There's the "thou shalt not install plugins from places other than we say is okay" rule that was recently implemented - which Chrome did first. * There's the upcoming "all your plugins are going to break, many permanently" when XUL gets thrown out and the new hotness won't have feature parity at release (in other words, Firefox plugins will be as limited as Chrome plugins)
matzipan 11y ago
That's kinda ironic, cosnidering Firefox OS was a pos.