25 September 2008
Google manages to “do evil”, even whilst releasing open source browser
Image by EditorB
Since Chrome was released a few weeks ago (see Bloggle’s Chrome coverage) there have been a number of sites apeared spreading the word about Chrome. It seems however that Google isn’t so happy about people recommending their products - one such site, chromeplugins.org has just received a ‘cease and desist’ letter from Google. On their blog, the author of ChromePlugins writes:
Back on the 9th September i received an Email from Terri Chen who’s title is “Senior Trademark Counsel” for Google.com regarding a snapshot of the Google Chrome comic, the Google Chrome icon and the Google Chrome logo being displayed on this site and i was told i could not display them.
The author goes on to explain that on his site he used pictures of the Google Chrome comic which was released under a creative commons license, making sure to give credit to Scott McCloud every time. However he was told by Google’s Terri Chan:
“I believe that the link to the Creative Commons license may not have been showing on the online version of the comic book. This has now been corrected, and here is the link: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/small_00.html. I’ve checked with the team, and they do not want to allow uses of the comic book per the license at this time.”
In summary, the author writes, “we have an open source project that nobody can display the image for, this is a problem”. There has been interesting reaction on the blog, many in support of the site, wondering why on earth Google is suddenly being like this after all the open source love they dish out and their ‘do no evil’ statements. However one commenter who wished to remain anonymous sides with Google claiming that the author has misread the creative commons license and misunderstood the nature of the Chrome project. According to this commenter, the use of the comic was prohibited because the author altered the pictures. More importantly, on the nature of the Chrome project they explain:
You seem to be confused about Chrome vs Chromium. Chromium is an open source project, with its own logo (the one you see on ). Chrome is a branded, trademarked browser based on the open-source project. You act like this is somehow against the philosophy of open source, but it’s almost exactly the same as what Firefox does: the Firefox logo and name are protected by the Mozilla Foundation, and unless you can use them *only* as allowed by Mozilla (thus the existence of IceWeasel and the like).
Personally I feel that there is little disctintion between Chrome and Chromium. In fact, all the news has been about Chrome and Google have said very little about Chromium. All the talk has been about Google released Chrome, the open source browser. I find Google’s attitude very strange and quite out of keeping with their normal character. We might well hear more about this in the coming weeks. I doubt it will go down well with the community.
2 Comments currently posted.
WDF says:
ed hardy t shirts says:
i believe you are a good writer, but have you erver thought to write some special artcals for peopel who likes shopping very much.
I’m of the opinion that it’s a waiting game. We’ll just wait and see what happens.