Slashdot Mirror

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13604 9

A bug in Netscape/Mozilla/Thunderbird that was first reported ELEVEN YEARS AGO.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20451 9

A case where a programmer with a engo trip can veto a solution to what the user's (customers) demand.

The whole "anyone can checkout OSS code and fix it" is a crock -- only those with 1) the prorgramming skills to do anything 2) the urge to do anything to begin with and 3) no reason to leave their parent's basement.

I personally prefer software written and controlled by those with a profit motive and consequences for failure.

How freaking long did it take ANY form of *nix to support WPA (or wireless for that matter) YEARS after it was available out of the box for commercial OSes?

Heck I use OSS only because I have the patience and skills to mitigate the shortcomings, not because I can't get laid and have too much free time.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13604 9

A bug in Netscape/Mozilla/Thunderbird that was first reported ELEVEN YEARS AGO.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20451 9

A case where a programmer with a engo trip can veto a solution to what the user's (customers) demand.

The whole "anyone can checkout OSS code and fix it" is a crock -- only those with 1) the prorgramming skills to do anything 2) the urge to do anything to begin with and 3) no reason to leave their parent's basement.

I personally prefer software written and controlled by those with a profit motive and consequences for failure.

How freaking long did it take ANY form of *nix to support WPA (or wireless for that matter) YEARS after it was available out of the box for commercial OSes?

Heck I use OSS only because I have the patience and skills to mitigate the shortcomings, not because I can't get laid and have too much free time.

I'm curious, I've not heard of rel="microsummary" (is that bad, I'm a part-time web developer!??) before. Is this new. It seems that the tag is becoming a dumping point for new ideas.

I don't like the comment at http://wiki.mozilla.org/Microsummaries

>>> "The microsummary generator dialect and the use of the <link rel> element to specify microsummaries should be standardized by the appropriate bodies, which may include the microformats group and the WHATWG."

_should_ be standardised? Has there been an RFC for this with efforts to get comments from other browser writers? (Link please, no pun intended).

What will the effect be on servers if all browser bookmarks use this system?

This is the sorta thing that should be in an extension!

I agree with that, and so do the folks who made LiveClick https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2499.

This extension adds the most functionality to the broken, broken live bookmarks built into Firefox.

Also, it works with FF 2.0, too.

Actually, getting a trunk build won't help... yet. Now if you get a reflow branch build...

See http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nig htly/experimental/reflow-refactor/latest-trunk/

^^(Shit, wrong formatting!)

My Firefox on WinXP has been open about 8 hours and is using only 129 MB so far. I have 16 extensions loaded right now.

Generated: Sat Oct 07 2006 00:57:46 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061004 BonEcho/2.0
Build ID: 2006100403

Enabled Extensions: [16]
- All-in-One Sidebar 0.7 RC 4: http://firefox.exxile.net/aios/
- ChatZilla 0.9.75: http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/
- CoLT 2.2.1: http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/colt/
- Console 0.3.6: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3181 02
- DOM Inspector 1.8.1: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/inspector/
- FoxyTunes 2.0.2.1: http://www.foxytunes.com/
- Gmail Manager 0.5.3: http://www.longfocus.com/firefox/gmanager/
- Greasemonkey 0.6.5.20060727: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
- MR Tech Local Install 5.3: http://www.mrtech.com/extensions/local_install/
- Saved From URL 1.2: http://www.google.com/search?q=Bon%20Echo%20Saved% 20From%20URL
- Stylish 0.4: http://userstyles.org/stylish/
- Tab Mix Plus 0.3.0.61001: http://tmp.garyr.net/
- Talkback 2.0: http://talkback.mozilla.org/
- Update Channel Selector 1.0.1: http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/u pdatechannel/index.html
- userChrome.js 0.7: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3977 35
- XPather 1.0.1: http://xpath.alephzarro.com/

Disabled Extensions: [1]
- Free Download Manager plugin 1.0: http://freedownloadmanager.org/

Total Extensions: 17

Installed Themes: [3]
- Firefox (default): http://www.mozilla.org/
- Halloween 1.9.5: http://edhume.googlepages.com/home
- QuBranch 1.0.20060929: http://www.schrade.com/firefox/themes/

Installed Plugins: (10)
- Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 Update 8
- Microsoft® DRM
- Mozilla Default Plug-in
- OpenOffice.org Plug-in
- QuickTime Plug-in 7.1
- RealPlayer Version Plugin
- RealPlayer(tm) G2 LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In (32-bit)
- Shockwave Flash
- Shockwave for Director
- Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library

^^(Shit, wrong formatting!)

My Firefox on WinXP has been open about 8 hours and is using only 129 MB so far. I have 16 extensions loaded right now.

Generated: Sat Oct 07 2006 00:57:46 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061004 BonEcho/2.0
Build ID: 2006100403

Enabled Extensions: [16]
- All-in-One Sidebar 0.7 RC 4: http://firefox.exxile.net/aios/
- ChatZilla 0.9.75: http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/
- CoLT 2.2.1: http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/colt/
- Console 0.3.6: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3181 02
- DOM Inspector 1.8.1: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/inspector/
- FoxyTunes 2.0.2.1: http://www.foxytunes.com/
- Gmail Manager 0.5.3: http://www.longfocus.com/firefox/gmanager/
- Greasemonkey 0.6.5.20060727: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
- MR Tech Local Install 5.3: http://www.mrtech.com/extensions/local_install/
- Saved From URL 1.2: http://www.google.com/search?q=Bon%20Echo%20Saved% 20From%20URL
- Stylish 0.4: http://userstyles.org/stylish/
- Tab Mix Plus 0.3.0.61001: http://tmp.garyr.net/
- Talkback 2.0: http://talkback.mozilla.org/
- Update Channel Selector 1.0.1: http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/u pdatechannel/index.html
- userChrome.js 0.7: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3977 35
- XPather 1.0.1: http://xpath.alephzarro.com/

Disabled Extensions: [1]
- Free Download Manager plugin 1.0: http://freedownloadmanager.org/

Total Extensions: 17

Installed Themes: [3]
- Firefox (default): http://www.mozilla.org/
- Halloween 1.9.5: http://edhume.googlepages.com/home
- QuBranch 1.0.20060929: http://www.schrade.com/firefox/themes/

Installed Plugins: (10)
- Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 Update 8
- Microsoft® DRM
- Mozilla Default Plug-in
- OpenOffice.org Plug-in
- QuickTime Plug-in 7.1
- RealPlayer Version Plugin
- RealPlayer(tm) G2 LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In (32-bit)
- Shockwave Flash
- Shockwave for Director
- Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library

^^(Shit, wrong formatting!)

My Firefox on WinXP has been open about 8 hours and is using only 129 MB so far. I have 16 extensions loaded right now.

Generated: Sat Oct 07 2006 00:57:46 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061004 BonEcho/2.0
Build ID: 2006100403

Enabled Extensions: [16]
- All-in-One Sidebar 0.7 RC 4: http://firefox.exxile.net/aios/
- ChatZilla 0.9.75: http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/
- CoLT 2.2.1: http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/colt/
- Console 0.3.6: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3181 02
- DOM Inspector 1.8.1: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/inspector/
- FoxyTunes 2.0.2.1: http://www.foxytunes.com/
- Gmail Manager 0.5.3: http://www.longfocus.com/firefox/gmanager/
- Greasemonkey 0.6.5.20060727: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
- MR Tech Local Install 5.3: http://www.mrtech.com/extensions/local_install/
- Saved From URL 1.2: http://www.google.com/search?q=Bon%20Echo%20Saved% 20From%20URL
- Stylish 0.4: http://userstyles.org/stylish/
- Tab Mix Plus 0.3.0.61001: http://tmp.garyr.net/
- Talkback 2.0: http://talkback.mozilla.org/
- Update Channel Selector 1.0.1: http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/u pdatechannel/index.html
- userChrome.js 0.7: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3977 35
- XPather 1.0.1: http://xpath.alephzarro.com/

Disabled Extensions: [1]
- Free Download Manager plugin 1.0: http://freedownloadmanager.org/

Total Extensions: 17

Installed Themes: [3]
- Firefox (default): http://www.mozilla.org/
- Halloween 1.9.5: http://edhume.googlepages.com/home
- QuBranch 1.0.20060929: http://www.schrade.com/firefox/themes/

Installed Plugins: (10)
- Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 Update 8
- Microsoft® DRM
- Mozilla Default Plug-in
- OpenOffice.org Plug-in
- QuickTime Plug-in 7.1
- RealPlayer Version Plugin
- RealPlayer(tm) G2 LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In (32-bit)
- Shockwave Flash
- Shockwave for Director
- Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library

My Firefox on WinXP has been open about 8 hours and is using only 129 MB so far. I have 16 extensions loaded right now. Generated: Sat Oct 07 2006 00:57:46 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061004 BonEcho/2.0 Build ID: 2006100403 Enabled Extensions: [16] - All-in-One Sidebar 0.7 RC 4: http://firefox.exxile.net/aios/ - ChatZilla 0.9.75: http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/ - CoLT 2.2.1: http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/colt/ - Console 0.3.6: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3181 02 - DOM Inspector 1.8.1: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/inspector/ - FoxyTunes 2.0.2.1: http://www.foxytunes.com/ - Gmail Manager 0.5.3: http://www.longfocus.com/firefox/gmanager/ - Greasemonkey 0.6.5.20060727: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/ - MR Tech Local Install 5.3: http://www.mrtech.com/extensions/local_install/ - Saved From URL 1.2: http://www.google.com/search?q=Bon%20Echo%20Saved% 20From%20URL - Stylish 0.4: http://userstyles.org/stylish/ - Tab Mix Plus 0.3.0.61001: http://tmp.garyr.net/ - Talkback 2.0: http://talkback.mozilla.org/ - Update Channel Selector 1.0.1: http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/u pdatechannel/index.html - userChrome.js 0.7: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3977 35 - XPather 1.0.1: http://xpath.alephzarro.com/ Disabled Extensions: [1] - Free Download Manager plugin 1.0: http://freedownloadmanager.org/ Total Extensions: 17 Installed Themes: [3] - Firefox (default): http://www.mozilla.org/ - Halloween 1.9.5: http://edhume.googlepages.com/home - QuBranch 1.0.20060929: http://www.schrade.com/firefox/themes/ Installed Plugins: (10) - Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 Update 8 - Microsoft® DRM - Mozilla Default Plug-in - OpenOffice.org Plug-in - QuickTime Plug-in 7.1 - RealPlayer Version Plugin - RealPlayer(tm) G2 LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In (32-bit) - Shockwave Flash - Shockwave for Director - Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library

My Firefox on WinXP has been open about 8 hours and is using only 129 MB so far. I have 16 extensions loaded right now. Generated: Sat Oct 07 2006 00:57:46 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061004 BonEcho/2.0 Build ID: 2006100403 Enabled Extensions: [16] - All-in-One Sidebar 0.7 RC 4: http://firefox.exxile.net/aios/ - ChatZilla 0.9.75: http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/ - CoLT 2.2.1: http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/colt/ - Console 0.3.6: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3181 02 - DOM Inspector 1.8.1: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/inspector/ - FoxyTunes 2.0.2.1: http://www.foxytunes.com/ - Gmail Manager 0.5.3: http://www.longfocus.com/firefox/gmanager/ - Greasemonkey 0.6.5.20060727: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/ - MR Tech Local Install 5.3: http://www.mrtech.com/extensions/local_install/ - Saved From URL 1.2: http://www.google.com/search?q=Bon%20Echo%20Saved% 20From%20URL - Stylish 0.4: http://userstyles.org/stylish/ - Tab Mix Plus 0.3.0.61001: http://tmp.garyr.net/ - Talkback 2.0: http://talkback.mozilla.org/ - Update Channel Selector 1.0.1: http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/u pdatechannel/index.html - userChrome.js 0.7: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3977 35 - XPather 1.0.1: http://xpath.alephzarro.com/ Disabled Extensions: [1] - Free Download Manager plugin 1.0: http://freedownloadmanager.org/ Total Extensions: 17 Installed Themes: [3] - Firefox (default): http://www.mozilla.org/ - Halloween 1.9.5: http://edhume.googlepages.com/home - QuBranch 1.0.20060929: http://www.schrade.com/firefox/themes/ Installed Plugins: (10) - Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 Update 8 - Microsoft® DRM - Mozilla Default Plug-in - OpenOffice.org Plug-in - QuickTime Plug-in 7.1 - RealPlayer Version Plugin - RealPlayer(tm) G2 LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In (32-bit) - Shockwave Flash - Shockwave for Director - Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library

My Firefox on WinXP has been open about 8 hours and is using only 129 MB so far. I have 16 extensions loaded right now. Generated: Sat Oct 07 2006 00:57:46 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061004 BonEcho/2.0 Build ID: 2006100403 Enabled Extensions: [16] - All-in-One Sidebar 0.7 RC 4: http://firefox.exxile.net/aios/ - ChatZilla 0.9.75: http://chatzilla.hacksrus.com/ - CoLT 2.2.1: http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/colt/ - Console 0.3.6: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3181 02 - DOM Inspector 1.8.1: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/inspector/ - FoxyTunes 2.0.2.1: http://www.foxytunes.com/ - Gmail Manager 0.5.3: http://www.longfocus.com/firefox/gmanager/ - Greasemonkey 0.6.5.20060727: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/ - MR Tech Local Install 5.3: http://www.mrtech.com/extensions/local_install/ - Saved From URL 1.2: http://www.google.com/search?q=Bon%20Echo%20Saved% 20From%20URL - Stylish 0.4: http://userstyles.org/stylish/ - Tab Mix Plus 0.3.0.61001: http://tmp.garyr.net/ - Talkback 2.0: http://talkback.mozilla.org/ - Update Channel Selector 1.0.1: http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/u pdatechannel/index.html - userChrome.js 0.7: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3977 35 - XPather 1.0.1: http://xpath.alephzarro.com/ Disabled Extensions: [1] - Free Download Manager plugin 1.0: http://freedownloadmanager.org/ Total Extensions: 17 Installed Themes: [3] - Firefox (default): http://www.mozilla.org/ - Halloween 1.9.5: http://edhume.googlepages.com/home - QuBranch 1.0.20060929: http://www.schrade.com/firefox/themes/ Installed Plugins: (10) - Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 Update 8 - Microsoft® DRM - Mozilla Default Plug-in - OpenOffice.org Plug-in - QuickTime Plug-in 7.1 - RealPlayer Version Plugin - RealPlayer(tm) G2 LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In (32-bit) - Shockwave Flash - Shockwave for Director - Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library

Check out XUL here (Mozilla's XUL project page) and here.

I've done some experimenting with XUL, and I've actually found it to be an incredibly powerful (but rarely used) platform. The biggest problem when I used it was that the only way you could actually "get stuff done" was via XPCOM, which is a rather clunky interface from JS to C++. If they were to make XPCOM components much easier to write and install (and maybe add seamless support for languages like Java and Python - I wouldn't be surprised if this has already happened, actually), it'd be unstoppable (apart from the fact that you need to have Gecko installed before you can use it).

I dunno, I'm really looking forward to this. I usually get home from work and pop up a bunch of message boards to catch up. It'd be alot easier to save this to check back tomorrow instead of making a half-dozen bookmarks every night. It would also help when I'm just plain lost in ebay pages when it's time to hit the sack and want to pick up where I left off the next day.

For those of you still running IE who are ready to treat or cure your disease, the direct download page is here. For those of you who want to feed your masochistic disorder, this might be more appropriate.

Yeah, like I need my last open browser window coming back up on my screen.

... no correct ACID2, and no support for SVG images in CSS.

Everybody else (besides IE, of course) supports the first, and I'd love Firefox to be the first to support the second.

Just my $0.02, I'm sure everybody's got their own pet RFEs and bugs.

Personally I prefer WOT. It's a website reputation system, which lets me vote on the trustworthiness without leaving the site. More on their technology can be found on their blog. They say it knows over 10M sites already, which is quite impressive.

The problem isn't that Firefox doesn't have the option, it's just not very easy to setup unless you like playing around with your user.js file. See the Configurable Access Policies (CAPS) documentation on mozilla.org :)

Hoax or not, it made a lot of ff-users discover the https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/722/ noscript-extention : Total Downloads: 10088615 -- Downloads this Week: 223225. So noscript possibly made the 10 million download cape because of this hoax. I am sure not everyone installed noscript because of this so-called js-vulnerability, but a lot of people did, and discovered that a lot of useful websites (like /.) work perfectly without javascript. Other sites, however, will look like sh** without it. Web developers, think twice before you implement javascript, please, and provide a non-js alternative.

We got a chance to talk to Mischa Spiegelmock , the Toorcon speaker that reported the potential javascript security issue referenced earlier . He gave us more code to work with and also made this statement and agreed to let me post it here:

The main purpose of our talk was to be humorous.

As part of our talk we mentioned that there was a previously known Firefox vulnerability that could result in a stack overflow ending up in remote code execution. However, the code we presented did not in fact do this, and I personally have not gotten it to result in code execution, nor do I know of anyone who has.

I have not succeeded in making this code do anything more than cause a crash and eat up system resources, and I certainly haven't used it to take over anyone else's computer and execute arbitrary code.

I do not have 30 undisclosed Firefox vulnerabilities, nor did I ever make this claim. I have no undisclosed Firefox vulnerabilities. The person who was speaking with me made this claim, and I honestly have no idea if he has them or not.

I apologize to everyone involved, and I hope I have made everything as clear as possible.

Sincerely,

Mischa Spiegelmock

Even though Mischa hasn't been able to achieve code execution, we still take this issue seriously. We will continue to investigate.

-Window Snyder

We got a chance to talk to Mischa Spiegelmock , the Toorcon speaker that reported the potential javascript security issue referenced earlier . He gave us more code to work with and also made this statement and agreed to let me post it here:

The main purpose of our talk was to be humorous.

As part of our talk we mentioned that there was a previously known Firefox vulnerability that could result in a stack overflow ending up in remote code execution. However, the code we presented did not in fact do this, and I personally have not gotten it to result in code execution, nor do I know of anyone who has.

I have not succeeded in making this code do anything more than cause a crash and eat up system resources, and I certainly haven't used it to take over anyone else's computer and execute arbitrary code.

I do not have 30 undisclosed Firefox vulnerabilities, nor did I ever make this claim. I have no undisclosed Firefox vulnerabilities. The person who was speaking with me made this claim, and I honestly have no idea if he has them or not.

I apologize to everyone involved, and I hope I have made everything as clear as possible.

Sincerely,

Mischa Spiegelmock

Even though Mischa hasn't been able to achieve code execution, we still take this issue seriously. We will continue to investigate.

-Window Snyder

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=241 005

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/Seamonke y is currently using 351 MB of memory, according to Windows Taskmanager. That's after 5 days of uptime, and no exception. I know, it's not Firefox, but I suppose there is a large code base shared.

http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/200 6/10/02/update-possible-vulnerability-reported-at- toorcon/

"The main purpose of our talk was to be humorous."

Yes, they achieved it.

Or maybe he just read this.

Oh yes there is quite a lot about Lua's design that make it inherently much more efficient that JavaScript. Why do you think it's SO MUCH faster and smaller -- mere coincidence?

Have you ever looked at either the Lua source code or the SpiderMonkey source code, or compiled either of them yourself, or are you just pulling that statement out of your ass?

-Don

The firefox plugin, slashdotter, has OMG!!! Ponies!!! support you know. Just turned it on, the only drawback is that the stylesheet gets changed after page load.

So, they should have just retired the product, right....?

They did. Mozilla the product is dead.

http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/200 6/04/12/sunset-announcement-for-fxtb-10x-and-mozil la-suite-17x/

Firefox replaced it (from part of the same codebase - and note the JWZ doesn't say the code was bad) arguably precisely because they did exactly what JWZ says mozilla should have done and didn't - ie. shipped product early and often.

A simple fix would be to use the NoScript extension and just allow javascript on the few trusted sites you visit that require javascript. You can also block java, flash and other plugins with NoScript.

Logos are under trademark law.

1. Go to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/
2. File bug report
3. Submit patch

This is why I use NoScript. I decide whether or not I trust a site enough to run JavaScript or not. The only downside to this FF addon is that you really have to remember it is installed, or sometimes Flash sites or interactive menus just don't show up and you have no idea why... just remember to allow that site. ;p

If you say Firefox to virtually anyone on a college campus, they will know what it is.... OpenOffice? Not so much.

Of course, you and Debian are free to disagree on this point, which is fine with me and Mozilla - all they're asking Debian to do is to not call it Firefox if they're going to branch it.

Just how many people do you think wish to run older versions?

Linux users make up a small portion of non-server computer users.

I don't see a whole lot of money and time being wasted on Mozilla's part. They sent a basic message saying that Debian was quite intentionally out of compliance with the trademark terms and to please either become compliant or not use the trademark.

The Debian folk then proceeded to be the ones that waste everyone's time bickering on the subject.

If you say Firefox to virtually anyone on a college campus, they will know what it is.... OpenOffice? Not so much.

Of course, you and Debian are free to disagree on this point, which is fine with me and Mozilla - all they're asking Debian to do is to not call it Firefox if they're going to branch it.

Just how many people do you think wish to run older versions?

Linux users make up a small portion of non-server computer users.

I don't see a whole lot of money and time being wasted on Mozilla's part. They sent a basic message saying that Debian was quite intentionally out of compliance with the trademark terms and to please either become compliant or not use the trademark.

The Debian folk then proceeded to be the ones that waste everyone's time bickering on the subject.

Which is why it's smart to run NoScript. A Firefox extention that blocks the execution of any scripts on a webpage without user concent. So, if you're tired of Javascript taking over your Firefox, get NoScript.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/722/

use the noscript plugin...
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/722/ make a whitelist containing your REALLY trusted sites
never worry about this again...

Noscript is your friend. Been using it for a year or so now.
 
Yes, whitelisting sites is a pain, but Javascript is a remnant of a more innocent time and should probably be phased out anyway.

Bon Echo is the Firefox 2 code name for alpha/beta releases, just like Deer Park was Firefox 1.5's code name.

I am a SeaMonkey developer, and sometimes work on Gecko and occasionally Firefox. I spend a lot of time on IRC, and I've seen others complain. I personally haven't looked in detail at the distro patches, because when I tried to, I was overwhelmed by the number of changes they made.

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/31/

for anyone curious.

To be hones here, I have not the slightest idea what this sentence is supposed to mean. What on earth is a "tri-license"? Are these three identical? If they are, why are all three needed? If they aren't which one applies in a case where they disagree? Who gets to decide?

You do. The code is licensed under all three licenses, and you can pick one or more of the licenses you want to follow at your own digression. (Very roughly, and IANAL, so don't take this as legal advice: MPL: upon publication you only have to show your modifications to the source of the MPL-ed files. Completely new files can be kept closed. LGPL: upon publication you only have to show your modifications and additions to the source of the part of the program that functions as a separate library; you can link other things against this and keep this closed. GPL: upon publication you have to show all your modifications and additions.) This is so projects which are GPL-only or LGPL-only can just incorporate Mozilla code without any worries (and the MPL is an evolution from the N(etscape)PL, which is basically good for keeping some proprietary stuff proprietary, and thus very favoured by businesses).

The only constraint is that if you want your modifications accepted back into the main Mozilla tree, they need to be licensed under all three licenses as well.

For more, see the Mozilla pages on this.

actually, worse, they are communists

So how's that different from Firefox? Firefox has the official-use logo (fox humping the Earth), and the open-use logo (Earth unmolested by giant wildlife). So Debian complains about the Firefox logo policy, when they have the same policy themselves? PKB.

Huh. We used Debian on the crappy WYSE clients they give us as first years in grad school and I always wondered why the icon was different and IMHO ugly. The new icon did not cause any confusion at all. While I used Debian on my laptop it was still Firebird and I don't think they were using different icons then.

Theres no need to overreact and rename the damn thing FartingFox or some such. Debian can name it some like Firefox for Debian and be done with it.

If you make a damn community edition and then Mozilla tells you NOT to use the bloody logo. So renaming it really does solve this problem. http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/commu nity-edition-policy.html

However, most of us will agree that this is a stupid problem to begin with.

Changing a desktop icon is trivial. Here is a happy Mozilla page giving you instruction on how to change the titlebar icon and a number of other things. http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips#app_ic on Also trivial.

So, Mozilla Foundation exactly why can't Debian change your damn icons (even if I couldn't care about their reasons for doing it) when you even tell us all how to do it. Are you going to start going after users because they choose to change your icon.

Most Debian users will know how to change the damn icons back but a quick google search reveals
http://downloads.mozdev.org/iconpacks/toolsandreso urces/firefox-icon-restorer.xpi
Frankly I liked the old Ships Wheel from Navigator the best.

My personal opinion is that both parties involved should shut up and code and provide people with a great browser and a robust distro, and more people will use both without nearly as much posturing.

Huh. We used Debian on the crappy WYSE clients they give us as first years in grad school and I always wondered why the icon was different and IMHO ugly. The new icon did not cause any confusion at all. While I used Debian on my laptop it was still Firebird and I don't think they were using different icons then.

Theres no need to overreact and rename the damn thing FartingFox or some such. Debian can name it some like Firefox for Debian and be done with it.

If you make a damn community edition and then Mozilla tells you NOT to use the bloody logo. So renaming it really does solve this problem. http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/commu nity-edition-policy.html

However, most of us will agree that this is a stupid problem to begin with.

Changing a desktop icon is trivial. Here is a happy Mozilla page giving you instruction on how to change the titlebar icon and a number of other things. http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips#app_ic on Also trivial.

So, Mozilla Foundation exactly why can't Debian change your damn icons (even if I couldn't care about their reasons for doing it) when you even tell us all how to do it. Are you going to start going after users because they choose to change your icon.

Most Debian users will know how to change the damn icons back but a quick google search reveals
http://downloads.mozdev.org/iconpacks/toolsandreso urces/firefox-icon-restorer.xpi
Frankly I liked the old Ships Wheel from Navigator the best.

My personal opinion is that both parties involved should shut up and code and provide people with a great browser and a robust distro, and more people will use both without nearly as much posturing.

Mozilla still has a draft policy allowing people to name modified versions of "Mozilla Firefox" as "Firefox Community Edition." What happened to this? Many distributors have been following this. Why can't Debian use the name "Firefox Community Edition, Debian" as the new name fro their browser? Or will Mozilla be going after all of the other distributors they had previously granter permission to as well?

Note also that the "community editions" also forbade use of the official logo!

This logo or a modified version may be used by anyone to refer to the Debian project, but does not indicate endorsement by the project.

Bon Echo is the Mozilla project's code name for FireFox2 betas. ( http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox2 ) I don't know what whether or not Mozilla and Ubuntu will be working out some kind of deal or just changing the name, but the Bon Echo branding was just a side effect of them planning to use Firefox 2 for Edgy Eft.

Mozilla was under GPL/MPL (dual licensed). I believe that SeaMonkey is also. FireFox has a different license. The license terms are "near GPL", but aren't the same at all.

This is close, but not quite true. All Mozilla, SeaMonkey and Firefox code is tri-licensed (MPL/GPL/LGPL), no exceptions. (Actually it used to be that a small percentage of code wasn't under the GPL yet, and Mozilla spent a couple of years tracking down the owners and acquiring permission to really make it all GPL-ed.)

And then there's the Firefox binary, which is licensed with the Mozilla EULA.

But yeah, as you said, the issue at hand here is purely about trademarks, which (sadly?) need to be strongly protected for legal reasons.

Mozilla also wants Debian patches to be submitted to them before distribution, and claims that's what others (Red Hat and Novell) are already doing.

This is only the case if the Firefox trademark will be used. Now that Debian is changing the name, they don't need to have their patches vetted.

There's been complaints for years and years at Mozilla over the dubious quality of some of the Debian patches, not to mention the very large amount of them (Debian users have a hard time getting support in the Mozilla IRC channels because there's a thousand and one new weird issues that are unique to Debian), and that's directly helped shape the policy that the trademarks can only be used with unaltered products, or with the alterations directly vetted. This is not unreasonable. The actual code is still completely free and available for everyone to do with as they please - it's purely the Firefox branding (and its meaning as a high-quality product) that's being protected here.

Read the Mozilla Trademark Policy.