4 ms·

Why isn't this a problem for Linux? Or Perl, Python, Drupal or many of the other packages that exist under their trademarked names in Debian and other distribut

Why isn't this a problem for Linux? Or Perl, Python, Drupal or many of the other packages that exist under their trademarked names in Debian and other distributions?

perlgeek 11y ago
There are several options: * The logos might be under a free license * The logos might not even be shipped (not a big deal for Perl and Python, which are primariliy command line applications) * The trademark protection only includes the name, not the logo, and so it doesn't force the owner to defend its usage to keep the trademark. For example https://www.drupal.com/trademark https://www.drupal.com/trademark mentions a drupal icon which is subject to traemark, and a logo, which is not (unfortunately the log link is a 404).
- ajsalminen 11y ago
  Trademarks that are only for the name are actually handled differently? If that's the case it would explain it I suppose. First time I hear of this being a special case. Yeah, Drupal has the wordmark branding and the community branding as separate things. I just brought up these examples because all of them have Debian packages that apparently have no issues being named after the project but there are of course numerous others.
martius 11y ago
Firefox is a brand present in a highly competitive market. It's a brand known by consumers who are used to associate a name and a logo to an experience and can easily get confused (such as people seeing the "blue E icon" as the way to "start google" for instance). Mozilla protected more agressively its Firefox brand to cope with malware-stuffed clones which were hijacking the name. Projects such as VLC or Android protect their brand too, Chrome is only available through official closed-source builds, many linux distributions only package chromium.
- ajsalminen 11y ago
  I am aware of the reasoning they might have for this and was mostly asking about the parent's claim that Firefox is legally obligated to do this. VLC is still gets packaged by Debian as VLC and even branding intact I believe. Chrome is a little different since you can't even build it so Debian's interest in including it instead of Chromium isn't probably all that high anyway.

Why isn't this a problem for Linux? Or Perl, Python, Drupal or many of the other packages that exist under their trademarked names in Debian and other distributions?

perlgeek 11y ago

There are several options: * The logos might be under a free license * The logos might not even be shipped (not a big deal for Perl and Python, which are primariliy command line applications) * The trademark protection only includes the name, not the logo, and so it doesn't force the owner to defend its usage to keep the trademark. For example https://www.drupal.com/trademark https://www.drupal.com/trademark mentions a drupal icon which is subject to traemark, and a logo, which is not (unfortunately the log link is a 404).

ajsalminen 11y ago
Trademarks that are only for the name are actually handled differently? If that's the case it would explain it I suppose. First time I hear of this being a special case. Yeah, Drupal has the wordmark branding and the community branding as separate things. I just brought up these examples because all of them have Debian packages that apparently have no issues being named after the project but there are of course numerous others.

martius 11y ago

Firefox is a brand present in a highly competitive market. It's a brand known by consumers who are used to associate a name and a logo to an experience and can easily get confused (such as people seeing the "blue E icon" as the way to "start google" for instance). Mozilla protected more agressively its Firefox brand to cope with malware-stuffed clones which were hijacking the name. Projects such as VLC or Android protect their brand too, Chrome is only available through official closed-source builds, many linux distributions only package chromium.

ajsalminen 11y ago
I am aware of the reasoning they might have for this and was mostly asking about the parent's claim that Firefox is legally obligated to do this. VLC is still gets packaged by Debian as VLC and even branding intact I believe. Chrome is a little different since you can't even build it so Debian's interest in including it instead of Chromium isn't probably all that high anyway.