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IceWeasel — Why Closed Source Wins
engtech writes, "There's been some hype about the Debian fork of FireFox called IceWeasel. Politics aside, this is a bad idea because it fragments the user base, divides the focus, and opens the path for Microsoft and Internet Explorer 7 to regain marketshare."
There are tons of "unofficial" builds of Firefox. And Linspire claims to make HUNDREDS of changes to the Firefox code. So long as you don't use the official artwork, and make it clear that your version is different and unofficial, you don't have to rename or fork.
They're fine with you calling it an "unofficial" build of Firefox.
Debian isn't willing to use the word unofficial, so out of stubbornness they're going to fork. Open source loses in this regard, because while GPL code is open if you ask for it, often it is very difficult to find all the patches and changes people make to projects in all these splintered forks. They never go upstream, and very few people benefit. If everyone submitted their fixes upstream, then everyone would benefit.
If you want to do an unofficial build that is fine. I don't see why everyone has to be so childish though.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I have no idea how in freaking fuck IE7 will be gaining marketshare on a platform it doesn't even run on, due to a distribution issue with a completely different browser on a different operating system.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
So let's see here... The Mozilla foundation provides an open source browser. A good one. For free. And basically says, do what you want, just don't change our logo, since it's our logo. And Debian has a problem with that. Sounds like some Debian developers need to be hit with a cluestick.