[Nottingham] Firefox becomes an Iceweasel & abrowser!

[Martin]

Folks,

Long time no flame-fest, so just to fuel the fire a little, there is an
interesting current skirmish in full flow over on the Ubuntu forums
about ruffled fur for the Mozilla Firefox web browser:


####
AN IRRELEVANT LICENSE IS PRESENTED TO YOU FREE-OF-CHARGE ON STARTUP

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/269656

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

STARTING UP A CERTAIN 3.0.2 VERSION OF FIREFOX BROWSER MAKES AVAILABLE
TO YOU A VERY CAPITAL END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT. THIS AGREEMENT IS
OBNOXIOUS and largely irrelevant to Ubuntu users.

The license refers to installation and closed-source parts which ARE
COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO UBUNTU USERS.

THE LICENSE PAGE ALSO DOES NOT PREVENT ME FROM USING THE BROWSER WITHOUT
AGREEING TO IT.

It [also] deserves *capital punishment DUE TO EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPS*

----------
Come on Mozilla. This is just stupid.
####


The three main excerpts out of a looong (and fast growing) thread must be:

####

[...]

nullack  wrote on 2008-09-13:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/269656/comments/4

Brian, please allow me to explain my point of view with this.

Firstly, as William has noted, if I object or simply dont agree to the
licence what do I do? I can keep going on without in anyway indicating I
accept it.

My biggest objection though, and one I think would be shared by many, is
that I don't want to sit there, study and consider the license in any
detail. One of the chief attributes of Ubuntu is the licence it comes
with and I dont want to have to analyse how this effects me as a user
with firefox potentially changing the licence.

if the licence of firefox in no way limits what I can do in the same way
as the other software in a default ubuntu build there is no reason to
show the user it.

if the licence of firefox is different and requires special
consideration, then that alarms me.


Mark Shuttleworth  wrote on 2008-09-13:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/269656/comments/5

Mozilla Corp asked that this be added in order for us to continue to
call the browser Firefox. Since Firefox is their trademark, which we
intend to respect, we have the choice of working with Mozilla to meet
their requirements, or switching to an unbranded browser.

It's strongly our preference, and that of most of our users, to have
Firefox as the browser in Ubuntu.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for Mozilla to have requirements and
guidelines for the use of their trademark - we have the same for Ubuntu,
and many other free software projects do the same. I would in fact
consider it a best practice to have a good brand on a free software
project, which means having trademark guidelines.

That said, I would not consider an EULA as a best practice. It's
unfortunate that Mozilla feels this is absolutely necessary, but they
do, and none of us are in a position to be experts about the legal
constraints which Mozilla feels apply to them. We had extensive
conversations with Mozilla in order to find the best possible way of
meeting their requirements while preserving the flow of use of the
system for our users.

Please feel free to make constructive suggestions as to how we can meet
Mozilla's requirements while improving the user experience. It's not
constructive to say "WTF?", nor is it constructive to rant and rave in
allcaps. Your software freedoms are built on legal grounds, as are
Mozilla's rights in the Firefox trademark. To act as though your rights
are being infringed misses the point of free software by a mile.

I believe we have a new package in Intrepid, called abrowser, which uses
the codebase behind Firefox without invoking the Firefox trade mark.


[...]


SilverWave  wrote 16 minutes ago:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/269656/comments/378

Mozilla Re-Thinking Firefox EULA
-----------------------------------------------
http://www.internetnews.com/software/article.php/3771696

The Good News:
"In a conversation with InternetNews.com, Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of
Mozilla, admitted that Mozilla may not need both the EULA and open
source license, with the EULA the likely casualty."

The Not so Good News:
That said she does feel that an agreement behind just having the source
code licensed under an open source license is necessary.

"There is a need for something, something to explain the license I'm not
sure I would call it a EULA because that has a meaning to many people of
adding restrictions to software and we won't be doing that," Baker said.
"We'll be having a license agreement much as Red Hat has a license
agreement that says the software is available under the GPL and don't
use our trademarks etcetera. So we'll have a license agreement but we
won't think of it as a EULA."
-----------------------------------------------
SilverWave:
Hopefully a one-time tab opening on first use with this information will
be sufficient?

Got to say though that this has been a PR blunder of epic proportions.
If you're Mozilla you really have to work to stop Ubuntu users loving
you but they have managed it with this EULA demand...

And now we learn that all the months of negotiations and pressure put on
the distro's to kneel before the might of the Corporation was... a mistake?

I would be laughing if I wasn't crying.
####


And the significance...?


Before I comment, what do others think?

Cheers,
Martin


-- 
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Martin Lomas
martin at ml1.co.uk
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