Re:Helping law enforcement lawfully access the Signal app
by spijdar on Monday December 14, 2020 @05:50PM
(#25424443)
Mozilla most definitely has exclusive ownership of their property. Ask the people who've tried to repackage Firefox without fully stripping the branding, and get prodded by Mozilla's lawyers.
Here it's a case of semantics, whether you're talking about the open-source software or the full package including services from Mozilla and the Firefox branding. Firefox as a whole is certainly proprietary to Mozilla, even if the code is not.
I suspect the intent re: signal is similar, where the code is indeed open-source, but IIRC signal doesn't network with non-official clients?
Probably best to avoid using the word "proprietary" because of the confusion/connotations, but I don't think it's entirely wrong.
I don't buy it. Can you find any instances where it's used like that? According to that definition, you could also say "SpiderMonkey is Mozilla's proprietary javascript engine", which is obviously absurd.
Furthermore, the definitions listed on wiktionary and merriam-webster both seem to incorporate some sort of exclusivity. Just because it's your own variation doesn't make it proprietary.