Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Licensing pitfalls with net-www/mozilla-firefox

[Karl Trygve Kalleberg]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 06:18:58PM -0500, Chris Gianelloni wrote:

> I'm just curious, but wouldn't this only possibly affect the *-bin
> ebuilds for mozilla/firefox/thunderbird?  If so, is it even really an
> issue, since we provide the original binary distribution from mozilla?

Yes, it only affects binary redistributions of mozilla stuff, and yes, our
*-bins are safe, since they're unmodified.

> I know that we would need to look into this for GRP, but for the regular
> distribution, it seems to be a moot point.  Am I just wrong here?  Can
> we simply start providing mozilla-bin in GRP rather than mozilla?

The GRP includes our binary redistribution of the mozilla stuff, and is 
modified (if only with arch-specific patches), so it requires a stamp 
of approval.


However, one of the main selling points (or "giving away points") of Gentoo
is that you can use it, for instance in combination with catalyst, to build
your very own binary distro. 

Looking strictly at the mozilla licensing scheme, it means *every* user of
catalyst that builds a mozilla project with trademarked logos needs to 
obtain their own stamp of approval before redistributing their binaries.

This hampers easy deployment of a catalysted Gentoo on any organisation; 
people are not even allowed to build livecds that they copy to their 
neighbour, strictly speaking.


One very appealing alternative is making our own artwork, and renaming the
package to direfox or something (or firef*x, but * is very problematic in
filenames), to avoid this nuisance.

Another, would be for the mozilla organisation to have a completely 
open-sourced version, in addition to their own restricted version.


Kind regards,

Karl T

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