The future of the mozilla ebuilds. [Updated]

F16PilotJumper · Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 3:36 pm Post subject:

Because it's more important to confuse users by having everyone call it something different then it is to let a distro make a few changes to a really important core app that there is no way they will break.

Yay for the Mozilla Foundation! Er.... not.

adammc · Apprentice Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 230 Location: Europe

to be fair, it wasn't the mozilla foundation who made the extension
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F16PilotJumper · Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 7:43 pm Post subject:

It's a response to their decision regarding the use of the Firefox name, though.

gurke · Apprentice Joined: 10 Jul 2003 Posts: 260

mine is called seawhale now. :roll:

lamaistres · Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 8:04 am Post subject:

I'm using Mozilla Waterspider.

EdSchouten · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Oct 2003 Posts: 79

Mizzalo FoxFire

wdreinhart · Guru Joined: 11 Jun 2003 Posts: 569 Location: 4QFJ12345678

Abiword has always had a similar policy of seperating official builds from community versions by requiring different names ("Abiword Personal" vs "Abiword") and artwork. Why is trademarking names and logos evil when Mozilla does it, but not when Abiword did?

Anior · Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 5:47 pm Post subject:

I'm not trying to revile the mozilla project, they've done a lot for the community and I'm using firefox as my primary browser and thunderbird as my primary mail reader. I do understand their policy, servers and bandwith costs money afterall. But it is a hassle. If everyone used this policy there would be quite a lot of stuff to rename in the portage tree which would be a lot of work and would confuse a lot of people when they can't find their applications anymore. To see what I mean, just run this:

F16PilotJumper · Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 6:59 pm Post subject:

Free software should have free documentation, names, and artwork.

Obviously, mozilla =! free software.

It's in the limbo zone that is open source, between propritary and free software.

There is a "foundation" in control of some parts of mozilla, and they can (and have) made decisions that make it difficult for users to freely modify the code for their own use, by forcing them to change the name/artwork.

Malakai · Apprentice Joined: 24 Dec 2002 Posts: 299

I build my own firefox builds so I can get nice fresh nightlies, there are a few options you just add to the .mozconfig to get the new icons.

It's really very simple, I'm sure said options can be added to the ebuild.

Personally, I think the artist who created the (admittedly beautiful) icons is just being an ass by not allowing the mozilla foundation to put the icon under it's open source lisence, but hey, not everybody believes in the higher goals and philosophical mission of the open source world

F16PilotJumper · Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 7:16 pm Post subject:

But if you add those options to the ebuild, the Mozilla Foundation can tell Gentoo to "cease and desist" because Gentoo patches against the Mozilla Foundation code - so it's no longer official and cannot use the artwork. Just because it's there doesn't give us the right to do it.

Mnemia · Guru Joined: 17 May 2002 Posts: 476

While it is pretty lame not to be able to get the pretty artwork in there, and it seems like a trivial thing at first glance, in some ways I sympathize with them. The problem is that the legal system is forcing their hand: if they want to be able to enforce their trademark rights, then the legal system actually forces them to take steps to protect it or risk losing it.

It sucks for the ideal of the "community", and it shows the messy way that F/OSS interacts with intellectual property laws at times. They want to be able to operate on a level playing field legally with the proprietary software companies and enforce their trademark against assholes who don't want to give anything back, but they don't want to have to stop the community from being able to use and modify their software. Hopefully they will be willing to grant rights to the artwork to at least the more recognized non-commercial Linux distros like Debian and Gentoo. I would think that they would realize that both these distros are going to be respectable with how they treat the Mozilla software, especially now that Gentoo has the non-profit set up.

Personally, I think this just shows how lawyers ruin everything they get involved in. Alternatively, it shows that the IP laws need an overhaul in their basic concepts and assumptions.

erwan · Apprentice Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 150 Location: Tokyo

Well, I guess that when Gentoo installs a patched software it's like:
* Download the official source package
* Download the patchs
* Apply the patch on user's machine

So Gentoo is not distributing a patched version of Firefox, but it's like the user patching the software himself. So there is no technical problem.

As for the ideological problem, I think Gentoo's policy is to give ebuilds and let user decide what should go or not on his own computer. There are even proprietary software!
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Mnemia · Guru Joined: 17 May 2002 Posts: 476

yngwin · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 11:10 am Post subject:

Malakai · Apprentice Joined: 24 Dec 2002 Posts: 299

Us unofficial optimizing builders at the mozillazine have been using the "official unofficial" artwork by nexx and hosted by scragz located here:

http://scragz.com/tech/mozilla/firefox-unofficial-branding.php

It's extremely easy, even in windows, to have a build script for firefox which automatically replaces the default cvs icons with the unofficial ones. Admittedly they aren't quite as nice as the real official ones, but they get the job done.

I just realized that my build script on windows is actually a bash script under cygwin, so auto-icon-replacement could definately be easily done.

There were a dozen debates at mozillazine with the dev's about the naming scheme and icons, and the copyright issues involved. It came down to people modify the code a lot and release unofficial builds, which are sometimes rather unstable, and the mozilla foundation wants to avoid people dl'ing those builds thinking they are official ones. To be honest I don't agree with this, I personally think it's silly, but it is a valid reason for what they are doing. There are no malicious intentions involved

I'm sure that if the gentoo foundation asks for permission to use the official icons and names in their ebuilds, they would be happy to allow it. If the gentoo foundation would like, I can submit a request to the necessary parties, and explain exactly what the ebuilds do and how they work, ect.

yngwin · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 12:19 pm Post subject: