Re: mozilla thunderbird trademark restrictions (original) (raw)

Alexander Sack asac@jwsdot.com wrote:

(Cc:ed because I've no idea if you read the list)

"People distributing works derived from the default Debian package of Thunderbird will have to also comply with the mozilla.org trademark policies, or remove the trademarks entirely from the package. Obviously, if it's a just a copy of the package, no permission would be needed."

A /requirement/ that we add that to the copyright file is fairly unreasonable unless it's actually in the license. On the other hand, I don't think it's non-free - if it was in the license, it would be unnecessary but not non-free. The law already requires that provision.

So my question ... Is thunderbird still free and suitable for main with these restrictions?

Think about it this way - if we started writing a new MUA from scratch, trademark law would prevent us from calling it Mozilla Thunderbird, even if the Mozilla people hadn't asked for us to make this change. If it's not possible for us to produce something with that name from scratch, I don't think it's non-free to ask us to change the name of derived works. Short-sighted, yes. An excellent way of losing community good-will, yes. But I think we can ship it in main.

-- Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.legal@srcf.ucam.org

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