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Re: [LUG] Pondering upon Debian

 

On Wed, 2008-03-19 at 19:48 +0000, Simon Avery wrote:
> Alan Pope wrote:
> 
> > I personally use Ubuntu over Debian for two main reasons:-
> > * I like regular releases - Ubuntu releases a new version every 6 months, 
> > which works for me.
> > * I like the community around Ubuntu.
> 
> That is something that annoys me about Debian sometimes - the anality of 
> its contributors.
> 
> I'm not going to get into an arguement with a hardcore debianite, but 
> IMO rebadging Thunderbird and Firefox as Icedove and Iceweasel is just 
> STUPID. Sorry - there's no other word for it!

Please read the bug report before blaming Debian for that - this was
FORCED onto Debian by the Mozilla Foundation under trademark
restrictions. (All other distributions do the same, only Debian was
sufficiently open about the issue that Mozilla came calling with their
"restrictive practices" hat on.)

Yes, it was a stupid situation but it is not something that Debian
wanted to do - the compulsion came from Mozilla, not Debian.

Basically, it comes down to code audit (similar to the other thread)
because to retain the Firefox name, Mozilla required that even security
fixes had to be rubber-stamped by Mozilla and the Debian maintainer was
not allowed to apply them within Debian. The problem is not the code, it
is the trademarks. If anyone is being anal about all that, it is
Mozilla.

See the discussions in Ubuntu:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=267642

I don't know why Ubuntu are getting away with this - to me all the blame
for this has to laid at the door of Mozilla.

You really cannot blame Debian for taking this route - we have to ensure
that the distro remains legal and everyone knows that lawyers are
fastidiously anal.

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/



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