Debian, Ubuntu, and Firefox
September 27th, 2006 | by Kennith |
Mozilla, the foundation that hosts Firefox, told the Debian community that the usage of the name and the logo of Firefox are required.
Firefox (the name) is equally protected and controlled by the same trademark policy and legal requirements as the Firefox logo. You’re free to use any other name for the browser bits, but calling the browser Firefox requires the same approvals as are required for using the logo and other artwork.
However, since the logo and the name are copyrighted and the Debian community would like to have the Debian packages to be free from copyrighted material, the Debian community decided to drop the logo. There are a lot of legal complication going on. You can read it yourselves in here.
My personal opinion on this issue is no one is responsible for the conflict. It was just the stand point of each side has stand firm on what they build on.
Hopefully things can get ease out soon. It will be nice to see the Firefox browser running on Debian.