271466 - [Policy] Approval of Extension, Theme, and Plugin Names

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 245198

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Administration, defect)

Description

[Chris Beard]

As part of the administrative approval process to ADD or CHANGE entries, the
name of the entry must be approved before it is posted or modified. 

In particular, we're looking to review the naming of extensions which
incorporate trademarks of the Mozilla Foundation, or are potentially confusing
with respect to the source of goods.  

I will provide a set of guidelines for this review.  The result of which will be
a YES, NO, or MAYBE.  Escalations of MAYBE's will be to the Trademark and
Licensing Team at [e-mail].

Comment 1

[alanjstr]

Would this be related to bug 245198?

There are no extensions or themes with "mozilla" in their name currently.

Comment 2

[Wolf [:wolf]]

Moving more bugs to new component.

Comment 3

[Wolf [:wolf]]

Waiting for guidelines to be provided for this one.
Code-wise, at most this requires a new field and option for approval queue. With
text refering to a fairly straightforward list of guidelines.

cbeard, do you have an ETA for the guidelines for this?

Comment 4

[alanjstr]

I don't think we really need code for this, just a set of guidelines.  Nor do I
think this should be blocking the release, since the site is already live. 
Editors/Admins just need to be sensitive to the issue.

Comment 5

[Wolf [:wolf]]

IMO, the only code would be adding a note to the approval page w/ a link to the
licensing document when its provided. With the implication of course that the
approving editor/admin is responsible for making sure the naming complies with
that documented guidelines as a condition of approval.

cbeard?

Comment 6

[Wolf [:wolf]]

Attachment: Add Trademark Document link/notice

Add Trademark Document link and notice that names must meet its guidelines.

This should be checked in with the document when it's provided. The patch
assumes it'll be /policies/trademark.php

Comment 7

[Wolf [:wolf]]

This'll be checked in as soon as the materials are available.

Comment 8

[Chris Beard]

This has been blocking on the revised Trademark Policy for Mozilla.  A new draft
has been put forth, and is currently under review.  

The proposed revision as it relates to naming of Extensions and Themes, reads:

---
Firefox and Thunderbird are designed to be extended, and Mozilla recognizes that
community members writing extensions need some way to identify the Mozilla
product to which their extensions pertain. Mozilla’s main concern about
extensions is that consumers not be confused as to whether they are official
(meaning approved by Mozilla) or not. To address that concern, Mozilla requests
that extension names not include the word “Mozilla,” and include the words
“Firefox” or “Thunderbird” either in part (e.g., in the case of your Frobnicator
extension, “FireFrobnicator” or “ThunderFrobnicator”) or, if in whole, in a way
that suggests no connection between Mozilla and the extension ( “Frobnicator for
Firefox,” rather than “Firefox Frobnicator”).
---

Further, I would suggest that we have all trademark policy and usage documents
and language exist within the http://www.mozilla.org/licensing/ structure so
that there is one authorative source and reference, to keep versioning in place
and to limit confusion.  We could have a blurb on the UMO site, but it should
link into the appropriate official Trademark Policy and FAQ documents.

Comment 9

[alanjstr]

Now that the trademark policy is out, what do we do?  Do we start talking to all
the violators?  Can a regex of some sort be written to automatically detect these?

Comment 10

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

Not sure what to do with this bug -- should this be a dupe of bug 245198?  Or, should it be a bug specific to the trademarking problem (which kind of discussed in bug 294292).

Also, should we reassign this to shaver?

Comment 11

[Cameron]

IMHO this bug is about getting some policy up so and then getting rid of existing addons that violate trademarks, and bug 294292 is about implementing a way to review addons' names in future?

Comment 12

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 245198 ***