If Debian infringes the rust trademark, will it be exempted by compromising and renaming?

Arrangement | Phoebe         Coordinating editor | Du min

Produce | CSDN（ID：CSDNnews）

In recent days, ,Debian  Rust The maintainer released a 《Debian Error report record 》 The mail , It has caused a lot of controversy , Mentioned ,Debian A violation of the Rust The trademark of , This will lead to an extremely serious consequence . 

Mozilla In order to maintain adequate control over trademarks , Make sure it becomes the guarantee of quality and safety , Therefore, it is stipulated that Rust Our trademark policy ：“ We must obtain our explicit permission before distributing the patch ”. So it's distributing Rust or Cargo（Rust Build system and package manager ） Patch for , And call it Rust or Cargo Before , get Rust The core team makes clear that written permission is an essential process . and Debian There are dozens of such patches （https://sources.debian.org/patches/rustc/1.36.0+dfsg1-2/）, Unless one by one Rust Grant license , Otherwise, I'm afraid it's all against Rust Trademark policy .

Dilemma “ Trademark dispute ”

It is legal to have a trademark in free software , And under this trademark policy ,Rust（ and Cargo） Is non free software . and Linux The kernel is merged upstream Rust, It is possible to make the whole Linux The kernel relies heavily on a non free compiler .

Even though Debian Maybe to Rust Seek a clear trademark license to distribute its patches , But it's just Debian Unique immunity . in other words ,Debian If the user wants to modify this package again , If you publish it later, you need to get it again Rust Written permission of , This interferes with the freedom of users to distribute the modified software package to others .

thus , Things will develop with DFSG（Debian Free Software Guide ） Of the 8 Article conflict . This requirement Debian project Cannot have only needle for Debian Privileges and content , All software must be open to everyone, including all users , And use the same protocol .

therefore , Compared with getting Debian Unique immunity , The better result is to let Rust Revise your trademark policy To solve this problem , perhaps Debian After distributing copies or modifications Rust and Cargo when , Give them Rename .

Will history “ Repeat ”？

Many years ago ,Debian I once chose the latter approach .Debian The planned release is more suitable for Debian demand （ Including customizing the default search engine , Home page, etc ） Of “ Revised edition ” Firefox, But according to Firefox The agreement （Mozilla Public License agreement ）, In addition to being used for native Mozilla Firefox Outside the compiled version of the code , Didn't get Mozilla Authorization of , No organization can use Firefox Name and Logo. therefore Debian As a last resort Firefox Renamed Iceweasel. But ten years later ,Debian Convinced Mozilla allow Debian Use Firefox Reference generation Debian Of “ Revised version ”,Iceweasel Vanished .

Mozilla Abandoned its original trademark policy proposition ,  And accepted Debian Clause , This is because Mozilla To realize , be applied to Iceweasel/Firefox The patch will not affect the quality of its products . in fact Debian Not an enemy but an ally , With the support of such powerful allies, it will be more interesting to become the browser with the largest market share in the world .

So today's Mozilla Whether it will be the same as that year , Give Way Rust Also with the Debian“ Shaking hands ” Well ？

Developers' voices

Aim at Debian and Rust The current stalemate , Many developers are Hacker News（https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32130850） Published their views on .

One developer said ：“ For a compiler , This seems to be a reasonable policy . If the patch version of the compiler you release is not from the upstream , Then it is absolutely necessary to let users know this fact , So they can decide whether to trust you . It's a security issue , Because the impact of using a broken compiler is huge .

in addition ,Rust Some legal mechanisms are needed to shut down malware . otherwise , Someone can throw a bad thing for compiling products “Rust” structure , And they will have no legal means to close it .”

meanwhile , Some developers are expressing understanding Rust At the same time of Trademark Law , Put forward their own solutions , He said ：”Mozilla I hope to completely control the official Rust Binary , And Google also wants complete control Chrome Binary file , I think this is reasonable .

In my submission Debian Should put the Rust Move to “ non-free ” In the field of software . Most people can accept installing non free software . And those who are unwilling to install may also have enough technology to compile their own Rust Binary .

As for the Linux The kernel uses Rust, I think it's either necessary Mozilla Special permission , Or there should not be in the kernel Rust. stay Linux Using non free products in the kernel will make people feel uncomfortable .“

However, other developers believe that it is not in line with the spirit of open source to enforce trademark policies in open source projects , He thinks that ：“ It is strange to try to enforce such trademark policies through broad copyright terms in open source projects . If this trademark policy is in Rust In commercial distribution , Then copyright restrictions make sense . Because the abuse of this trademark will confuse consumers , Think it's related to Rust The project has a formal connection , Or get Rust Project approval , This is the real legal consequence of copyright infringement .

but Debian It's open source. , The patches applied are also public , And don't declare it in any way Rust Upstream “ official ” Distribution version , Nor does it claim that these patches are upstream official patches . I don't understand why anyone thinks Debian The project has some kind of malicious behavior in law , Its purpose is to confuse consumers , Or damage Rust The reputation of the project , Even cause economic losses .

Such a statement only sets a bad precedent in the open source ecosystem . This seems to be a way to take advantage of both the benefits of the open source community , At the same time, the method of protecting intellectual property rights through copyright requirements .Rust The possibility of abusing trademark policy exists , And it is absolutely not in line with the spirit or intention of open source software .”

that , in the light of Rust And Debian The trademark dispute of , What do you think ？

Reference material ：https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1013920

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