File talk:Pale Moon 29.4.6 on Windows 7.png

 

Trolls

I just replaced a {{Screenshot}} with a {{Free software |license=MPL}}. Please excuse me for being new to wikimedia and not realizing there was a {{Free screenshot}} tag. I created this image as a successor to a previous image, which did NOT include a {{Free screenshot}} and had the exact same CC-BY-SA-3.0 license that I created this one under. The previous image, which is very nearly identical, has stood since 2016 without someone wrongfully deleting it.

In recent years, Pale Moon has been a target for various East European and Russian trolls who have been a focal point of drama surrounding the Pale Moon project. There are a variety of popular Pale Moon forks managed by such individuals, several of which have allegedly violated the MPL 2.0 license under which Pale Moon is released. Some of these violators, and/or some of their zealot followers, have responded by attacking the Pale Moon with bogus licensing claims. I have every reason to believe the claim attached to this image by "Артём 13327" (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:%D0%90%D1%80%D1%82%D1%91%D0%BC_13327&action=edit&redlink=1) is just as such.

Observe the previous image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:W10-PaleMoon26-Wikipedia.jpg (the one I mentioned in the first paragraph). Notice how it is functionally identical, as far as licensing goes, as this image. Notice how the troll has made no copyright claim on this image.

"Артём 13327" also attacked and successfully destroyed the companion screenshot to this one, located at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Basilisk_2022.01.27_on_Windows_7.png In the case of that screenshot, the claim is marginally less bogus, but still beyond uncalled for. The Basilisk project recently left the hands of the Pale Moon team and is now owned by a third party. The screenshot displayed the homepage of the Basilisk project, which similarly has changed hands. However, at the date of the screenshot's creation, the Basilisk project homepage was under the ownership of the Pale Moon team, who has never expressed quarrels about any wiki site using screenshots of their software in articles. Refer again to the previous image I mentioned in the first paragraph.

I was able to quickly save this file from deletion, but the companion screenshot was no so lucky. It was destroyed while I was in the process of adding the {{Free screenshot}} and writing this context. I will make a post on the talk page of the administrator who complied with the troll's bogus claim, since I have no other recourse left to me. FuzzleSnuz (talk) 18:27, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Just my two sense, but the deletion request makes sense to me. The source code for Pale Moon is MPL-2.0, but the binaries are proprietary. Which would lead me to believe that any screenshots of the interface would be copyrighted just like any other proprietary software. As for why the images have been fine on Wikipedia for years (I assume that's what your saying), they have a much more lenient system when it comes to hosting images then Commons does. To the point that they usually don't care about it if the image is being used in an article. That justification doesn't work for images that hosted on Commons though. So would either have to be free licensed, which it doesn't seem to be, or hosted on Wikipedia instead. At least that's my understanding of things. --Adamant1 (talk) 19:04, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I would have assumed that it's obvious any screenshot of a user interface to demonstrate the way a program looks would easily fall under fair use in an article directly describing the program. If that wasn't the case, then you can go on a C&D rampage for every single article, blog post, etc describing any branded open source software with visual examples of the UI.

For the record, I (the rights owner to the Pale Moon brand) have no issues with this kind of use, and this sudden attempt at removing common displays of software clearly is just an attack at trying to make presentation and description of a piece of software difficult. Wolfbeast (talk) 00:19, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

@Adamant1: Pale Moon's redistribution terms for binaries are essentially the same as Mozilla's for Firefox. Are you saying we should remove all screenshots of Firefox from Commons and move them to local wikis? pandakekok9 02:36, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

his sudden attempt at removing common displays of software clearly is just an attack.. I'd appreciate it if you skipped the personal attacks. Throwing a childish tantrum about this doesn't help anything. Not that it matters, but if you look through my edits you'll see that organizing screenshots of software and doing deletion requests for copyright violations are both things I've done a lot of work on. Honestly, I could really give care less about Pale Moon. Commons doesn't just host copyrighted images as a way to appease people's persecution complexes though. If you own the rights to Pale Moon and want the images to be hosted Commons then I suggest filling a COM:VRT permission request. I'm fine retracted the deletion request if you do.

Pale Moon's redistribution terms for binaries are essentially the same as Mozilla's That's patently false. in no way are Mozilla's trademark policy and Pale Moon's tradmark policy at all similar. Even if they were though, citing other software as a reason why it's OK for Commons to host the image is an obvious strawman. Sure though, lets allow people to upload whatever copyrighted images they want to just because there might be other copyrighted material hosted on the site. Sounds like a reasonable policy. Why not stick to the subject and actually address what I said instead of resorting to ridiculous non sequiturs? --Adamant1 (talk) 03:49, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Please don't waste VRT volunteer time for clear-cut cases like this. Moonchild doesn't have to send an email to the VRT just to satisfy your stricter-than-COM:L policy. You said that it's patently false that Mozilla's and Pale Moon's trademark policies are similar, but that's not even what I'm talking about (and it's a waste of time because we don't care about trademarks). I'm talking about the distribution terms for binaries because that's what you're arguing in the DR was making the Pale Moon screenshot non-free! My point is that both Pale Moon and Mozilla prohibit things like:

• Charging a fee for the binaries bearing the browser's official name
• Making unapproved modifications to the software while bearing the browser's official name
• Requiring installation of third-party software before being able to install the browser bearing the browser's official name

In fact Mozilla is a bit stricter here because they require distributing the latest version of Firefox when you're going the unaltered route. Pale Moon doesn't have any such clause AFAIK. But that's obviously irrelevant to Wikimedia Commons because we're not distributing binaries in the first place, so I digress. pandakekok9 04:06, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Please don't waste VRT volunteer time for clear-cut cases like this. I mean, this is literally the kind of thing that they exist to resolve. Wolfbeast says their copyright holder. If that's really the case then the filing a COM:VRT is the best way to have the images kept and for Russian trolls not to nominate them for deletion again. Really it's kind of weird that you don't support Wolfbeast filling a VRT if your so concerned about this. Or I guess alternatively we could just continue arguing over useless, off-topic minutia like how Mozilla does things. It's your call. Would you rather continue arguing about nonsensical, off-topic nonsense or actually have this dealt with? --Adamant1 (talk) 05:27, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

No they don't. VRT is for last-resort cases where the copyright owner has to send a permission statement privately for whatever reason. I and other users have already told you why this isn't such case. The UI is MPLv2 licensed (and has to be because it's not 100% original code by Moonchild), the redistribution terms for binaries don't even apply for Commons because we aren't distributing binaries for Pale Moon, and even if we say that's the case it's just a non-copyright restriction we can ignore. You are the one who doesn't want to resolve this situation, and want to make it worse by unnecessarily involving the VRT which already has a long backlog to deal with. pandakekok9 05:38, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

You seem to be under the impression that the UI itself has a trademark attached? That isn't the case, however. The trademark you're worried about would only be attached to the name and logo of Pale Moon. It's possible to build an unbranded version of the browser with no redistribution restrictions.

https://i.imgur.com/nAzX6QF.png

Would a screenshot like this be acceptable? I don't understand why you read the binary redistribution requirements as applying to screenshots, but if that's your policy, then that is a picture of a build you would be allowed to redistribute that has no branding whatsoever. It has the exact same interface and user experience as Pale Moon but with all branding removed. If that's the policy, then I can at least understand that (even if I think it's bizarre), but I don't see why a screenshot of the interface itself wouldn't be allowed or would be presumed under copyright. 47.184.130.136 05:29, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

You seem to be under the impression that the UI itself has a trademark attached? No. I said the UI is copyrighted. Nowhere did I claim that a UI can be trademarked. Pandakekok9 was the one that brought up trademarks as a strawman to what I said about screenshots of software being copyrightable. Screenshots of software being copyrightable isn't "my policy" either. It's the policy of Commons, and the law in general that screenshots of software can be copyrighted. Per COM:SCREENSHOT "Note that free programs generally are not free of intellectual property protections. Just as websites may be free to access, but still covered under copyright, simply because a software is free to download, run or play, does not mean that it is in the public domain or freely licensed in a way that is compatible with Commons. For those that are under a free license, you must still conform to the terms of the particular license, which usually means you must publish your derivative work under the same license." Personally, I'm not really sure what's ambiguous about that. It should be obvious to anyone who isn't a random, brigading single edit Andy that people can't just upload random screenshots of proprietary software to Commons. Maybe read up on the relevant policies before you comment next time. Thanks. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:56, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Okay, then that's where the confusion seems to lie. Your understanding is that the UI for Pale Moon is under copyright and that the browser is proprietary software. I'm not saying that UI cannot be copyrighted, but I am saying that in the case of Pale Moon, there is no copyright on the UI itself. If there were, then unbranded builds with the same UI would not be legally redistributable either. Pale Moon is licensed under MPL 2.0 (aside from the branding), and is not proprietary software. The reason the the logo and name are protected is because of a concern about people distributing modified versions of the software under the official name and confusing the project with a fork. So if this issue is to be resolved, then I presume what you need is to be convinced that you were mistaken, and that there are no applicable copyrights on the UI? 47.184.130.136 06:13, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I brought up trademarks because the restriction that you're complaining about that makes Pale Moon non-free is a trademark restriction. I've already told you many times that Wikimedia Commons doesn't care about these kinds of restrictions. There's no problem with including the UI, because that's licensed under the MPL. The only potential problem I see is the non-free browser icons being included, but they're again a case of de minimis. But if an admin thinks it's not, we can easily remove those from the screenshot, as they're not essential anyway (which is why I'm saying it's de minimis!). So in terms of copyright, there's essentially no problem. The screenshot perfectly adheres to COM:SCREENSHOT. pandakekok9 06:16, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Pale Moon is licensed under MPL 2.0 (aside from the branding), and is not proprietary software. That's patently false. To quote Pale Moon "Our source code is for the most part covered by the Mozilla Public License v2.0, but various parts and libraries included in the browser carry different licensing, and as a whole this project has a hybrid licensing model which is governed by various licenses outlined in about:license in the browser itself." Sure, some of their source code is, but only some and like I've said about 6 times now this discussion isn't about the source code. What part of "various parts and libraries included in the browser carry different licensing" and "this project has a hybrid licensing model which is governed by various licenses" are you having such a difficult time with or are otherwise unable to grasp? --Adamant1 (talk) 06:46, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I didn't make the claim that Pale Moon is only licensed under MPLv2; you're replying to the wrong person. But anyway, it's definitely true that Pale Moon is not proprietary software. Just because it says that it has a "hybrid licensing model" doesn't automatically mean it's unfree. Nothing in Pale Moon's licensing policy says you cannot modify, commercially use, nor redistribute (whether verbatim or modified) the browser. It does require you to change the name of the browser if you don't comply with the redistribution license for the binaries, but that doesn't make the software non-free. The GNU Project even says that's a perfectly acceptable restriction for free software:

Rules about how to package a modified version are acceptable, if they don't substantively limit your freedom to release modified versions, or your freedom to make and use modified versions privately. Thus, it is acceptable for the license to require that you change the name of the modified version, remove a logo, or identify your modifications as yours. As long as these requirements are not so burdensome that they effectively hamper you from releasing your changes, they are acceptable; you're already making other changes to the program, so you won't have trouble making a few more.

So really, I don't understand why you are still insisting that the software is non-free and therefore makes this screenshot unacceptable for Commons. pandakekok9 07:11, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand why you are still insisting that the software is non-free I don't really understand why your citing gnu.org when from as far as I know Pale Moon isn't licensed under a GNU license. That is unless, you mean "free software" as in software that is freely available. If that's the case, I think I've already covered that with the quote I've provided like 4 times already from COM:Screenshot that we still need permission to host images of free programs. Here it is again since you apparently missed it the first 4 times I cited it. "Note that free programs generally are not free of intellectual property protections. Just as websites may be free to access, but still covered under copyright, simply because a software is free to download, run or play, does not mean that it is in the public domain or freely licensed in a way that is compatible with Commons. For those that are under a free license, you must still conform to the terms of the particular license." --Adamant1 (talk) 08:35, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, after looking over all those licenses for the libraries, the only proprietary license I see that would potentially cause issues for the Wikimedia Commons requirements is the MSVC redistributable that is included with the browser on Windows. It seems that because Microsoft's CRT is distributed along with the browser on Windows, it's considered proprietary software and screenshots of the Windows version cannot be allowed here? I just want to understand your reasoning here. I respect your experience working on the Wiki, I know that you understand the policies better than I do, and that you're exasperated dealing with someone who is not a regular contributor and is affected by this decision. But I hope you'll respect that even people who don't work on the Wiki regularly are sometimes impacted by your decisions and want to figure out what they have to do to work within y'alls policies so that the software (and thus the screenshot) doesn't get flagged as proprietary and thrown into the bin. 47.184.130.136 07:29, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

You're exasperated dealing with someone who is not a regular contributor I don't really have an issue when it comes to dealing with people who aren't regular contributors. What I do have an issue with is when they are only here to act as backup for someone else and can't be bothered to read the guidelines or licensing terms. More so if their going to talk down to me about how I'm the one wasting volunteer time or whatever. On that note, I was pretty clear that the best way to keep this screenshot from being flagged is if Wolfbeast file's a COM:VRT request. What won't keep this or any other images of Pale Moon from being flagged is if people on your side continue doing the argumentative, bad faithed brigading. We can endlessly spin our wheels all day arguing about the nuances of what parts of the software are covered by what license, what it might mean for the copyright status of screenshots, and blah blah blah but if you really want this to be resolved then Wolfbeast filing a COM:VRT is the best way to do it. I can guarantee that this back and forth has been way more of a time suck on everyone involved then filling a VRT ever would have been. Having a COM:VRT on file would also guarantee in the future that the images won't just be re-nominated for deletion. Otherwise, there's nothing stopping the "trolls" from continuing their behavior. --Adamant1 (talk) 08:35, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, then I'm happy to end the discussion for my part on this note. It's clear to me that the attitude is of caution on your part precisely because you are not entirely sure which licenses cover the UI and therefore the screenshot, and so until the person in charge of the brand confirms his rights to distribute all elements of the UI and gives y'all explicit permission to do the same, any further screenshots will be likely taken down out of caution. I'm sorry that your position was not clear to me before and we had to have that whole discussion to arrive where we started, but I understand you now. Thank you for taking the time to explain all this to me, and I hope you have a nice day. 47.184.130.136 09:01, 7 August 2022 (UTC)