Odd Trademark Issues Arising

Sun's announced that they'll be releasing Java under GPLv2, but they'll be holding control of their Java trademark. There's been odd noises from RedHat and JBoss about having to remove the "JBoss" trademark from the code as well, which some thought may include package names in the code.

Now, I've finally gotten Firefox 2.0 on my Debian unstable box -- or should I say, IceWeasel. Apparently the Mozilla/Firefox people are making some assertion that Debian can't recompile and redistribute Firefox and still call it Firefox, so they've renamed it. They've taken similar actions renaming Thunderbird to IceDove. This is down-right odd and wasting the time of many talented developers.

I guess people are testing the legal limits of the licenses and the community using them. I must wonder if the GPLv3 will be addressing this, since it seems to be on people's minds.