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."

Comments

Seamonkey

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Just like how Firefox fragmented the Mozilla userbase?

Re:Seamonkey

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux users talking about fragmentation? Never heard of that before. Anyway, I'm off to distrowatch to download my 643rd distro. See you guys later.

Re:Seamonkey

[rolfwind]

But Firefox is installable on a ton of platforms.

Ice Weasel sounds like it will be only installable on Debian, perhaps Debian-descended platforms like Ubuntu. Of course, since it's open source, anyone can port it to other platforms, I suppose. But why bother, all Ice Weasel is, is Firefox devoid of any nonfree trademarked art. And any updates to Firefox will be bought to Iceweasel.

But there are already other variations of Firefox, like Swiftfox. Firefox will be the main flavor for a long time.

The only way a fracture in the community will happen is if the releases are not compatible with each other, but the projects don't sound like they will develop on their own, but always staying with the main branch of Firefox. They can't really afford not to.

Re:Seamonkey

[Anonymous Coward]

How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?

It's not that nobody reads them. It's just that the intersection of (dotters who read the articles) and {dotters who post} is the empty set.

Err

[republican gourd]

Exactly *how*, is Microsoft going to capitalize on a fracture of Firefox... within *Debian*? This doesn't touch the userbase that is competing with IE etc whatsoever.

Missing the point...

[roster238]

The point of open source software is to allow users the freedom to modify the code to meet their needs. If you restrict users to one single unmodified browser for the sake of unity then we have met the enemy and he is us.

marketshare?

[teslar]

and opens the path for Microsoft and Internet Explorer 7 to regain marketshare

Pray, do tell me again, what exactly is the current marketshare of IE7 on debian?

Not exactly related, but...

[suparjerk]

That is a disturbing logo.

Re:it's bad either way

[XanC]

Debian's goals are to quickly patch security problems, and to backport fixes to versions declared stable for the benefit of their users.

Both these goals a) good, useful, helpful, and worthwhile, and b) in conflict with the wishes of the Mozilla Corporation.

Perhaps Mozilla could give a little here, instead of Debian. Hmm?

Debian vs. Mozilla.COM

[Bruce Perens]

Unfortunately, the Firefox.com folks didn't leave Debian a choice. The current terms under which they distribute Firefox make it not Open Source at all as long as you call it "Firefox". The Mozilla.com folks are using trademark law to enforce that no versions of Firefox can be modified and still called "Firefox".

Debian can't carry the browser in their distribution under the "Firefox" name if they are to have any ability to tune it for their distribution or to fix bugs before the Firefox team makes their own release.

The software will be essentially identical to Firefox. I think we may see other distributions doing the same thing, as it's just not tenable for ANY distribution to contain software that it can't service.

And then hopefully we'll see the Firefox team go back to the policy they negotiated with the Debian organization only a year ago, before their new .com folks took charge, which was that they would agree to trust some people to modify the code and not make a fuss about it.

The author of the quoted piece is being absurd to say this is "Why closed-source wins". It's not about fragmenting the user base, it doesn't have much effect on the brand and won't be very visible to naive users. It's just turning an obnoxious trademark policy that is flagrantly in conflict with the purportedly Open Source nature of the product on its head.

Bruce

Re:Missing the point... Yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mozilla Foundation doesn't have a problem with Debian modifying FireFox. What they have a problem with is Debian modifying FireFox fairly significantly, yet continuing to call the product "FireFox". FireFox(tm) is a specific codebase, maintained by the Mozilla Foundation. I think they have every right to ask Debian to rename their fork, so that end users are not confused, thinking that bugs in Iceweasel are general FireFox bugs (in some cases, they may be, in other cases, not).

I don't see anything wrong with asking someone who forks your codebase to use a different name to avoid confusion. What's the problem with that?

Plus, there is this thing about Trademark law. If you don't actively police it, you can lose the right to the mark.

Polarising the argument

[delire]

If it is to be renamed then why not do it with some reference to the reason. A name like FreeFox or similar would at least maintain symbolic connection to the parent while underscoring that it is a wholly non-proprietary distribution of that parent. 'IceWeasel' sounds directly antagonistic of FireFox itself. If FireFox is hot, then it's alternative must be cold. It itself reads as a childishly extremist 'reaction' to what should otherwise be understood as a wise and considered move, for real and sane reasons.

The sheer lack of foresight amazes me. For years afterward we'll be hearing damaging myths that "FireFox doesn't install on Linux". Newbies coming into IRC to ask how to install FireFox will be pointed to what's later knows as the longest running $TOPIC in history. 'IceWeasel' just adds needless noise for all those millions considering switching to a Linux OS. FireFox is arguably the most important FOSS application for the desktop, if only because of it's notoriety. The name itself is larger than the software it represents. fscking with this reveals new depths of disregard for the adoption of Desktop Linux more generally.