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Mozilla Demanding Firefox Display EULA In Ubuntu
TRS-80 writes "Users of the upcoming Ubuntu release, Intrepid Ibex, are being confronted with an EULA the first time they launch Firefox. Mark Shuttleworth says 'Mozilla Corp asked that this be added in order for us to continue to call the browser Firefox... I would not consider an EULA as a best practice. It's unfortunate that Mozilla feels this is absolutely necessary' and notes there's an unbranded 'abrowser' package available. Many of the comments say Ubuntu should ditch Firefox as this makes it clear it's not Free Software, hence unsuitable for Ubuntu main, and just ship Iceweasel or Epiphany, the GNOME browser." A few comments take Canonical to task for agreeing to Mozilla's demand to display an EULA without consulting the community.
I wonder what further bad will come out of Mozilla being too corporate. It starts to look like an elegant way of getting a paycheck and less like about making a good browser.
It is inconcievable that Mozilla would face any legal problems due to a lack of EULA.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
In any negotiation, it's important to think about one's alternatives. At least in the open source case, there's a good alternative -- recompiling without the restrictive / undesirable parts. Sure, branding power will suffer, but this community in particular will understand.
Ever heard of BATNA?
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What a dumb move in light of all the recent activity around webkit based browsers.
Like Google Chrome, that doesn't yet run on Linux? Who does this matter to, exactly, aside from the vanishingly small number of people who take offence to the concept of accepting a license agreement? Certainly not the general masses to whom Ubuntu is targeted. Those general masses are more concerned with having a decent, well known web browser.
I write bullshit
when you get a big enough user base, there will be alot of people that complain no matter what you do, they could make it only use 8 mb of ram and someone would complain about that for some reason.
I myself find EULAs extremely offensive. I have no problem with a distribution license, particularly in light of the fact it's required by copyright law if one wishes to grant (re)distribution rights. But the idea of a license accompanying a piece of data which governs its use is not something I can, in good conscience, support.
I say fork. EULAs have no place in a Linux distribution. We have come so far as a community. Why back down on our principles now?
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
When Mozilla asked Debian to stop redistributing Firefox, many people complained about Debian being too idealistic. (I.e. they really didn't look into the issue at all.) Let's hear the same chorus now about Ubuntu! (Hint: It's not Debian or Ubuntu that is the problem here folks!)
Is it just me or is Mozilla becoming rather user hostile of late? I can't get over the way they forced through the "awesomebar" even though a lot of users have complained and don't like it. (In fact people dislike it so much there are extensions dedicated to trying to get something like the old address bar back. See oldbar and hideunvisited). It just seems that every time I hear about Mozilla and/or Firefox lately it's a valid complaint someone has that the company refuses to address or thinks it knows how to handle better and is shouting down the user. Not that they've been an example of how to listen to the community but lately it feels like Mozilla has been taken over from the inside. I was really happy with Firefox pre 1.0, and have steadily gotten less happy. I still use it because I'd rather have my nuts crushed than go back to IE. However it's become more of a pain in the arse with each release. I guess the choice is between sore nuts and a sore arse.
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You're thinking beer, perhaps? Forcing end users to agree to a EULA before using a particular piece of software explicitly claims limitations on that software. I don't believe Opera (which isn't free either) required an agreement to a EULA. Though they of course retain all their copyrights and trademarks, they are non intrusive about it.
I haven't read Mozillas take on it, and why they require it to use their trademark. But it's annoying. One reason I prefer FOSS is the lack of EULAs, serial number entry and general 'stay out of the users way' attitude.
I have to admit that I scoffed when debian spun iceweasel, thinking them overly concerned with *any* encumbrance. I'm glad they did now. I don't care what name my browser takes, if it's compatible with the addons I use and works without trying to annoy me... even if it's just the first time it's used.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
Its typical for people to use brand names in regular conversation without even recognizing that they are brand names, it doesn't diminish the value of it. It was a stupidity of Mozilla to force a EULA on the Firefox name. For example, whenever I talk about Kleenex, Nintendo, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, etc, people know I am talking about a brand name and it doesn't diminish the value. For Mozilla to force an EULA is pure stupidity.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm not really convinced. There must be *something* that they can do. For example, take the iPhone. Someone's iPhone melted the owner's pocket and burned his skin. Some magazines showed that the iPhone would occasionally drop the connection during a phone conversation. The iPhone platform is not open and is strictly regulated by Apple. Despite all this, the iPhone hype still exist and everybody still wants one. This shows that it is possible to market a product so that people still want it despite all the problems. On the other hand, I've seen people who are absolutely determined to see Firefox's demise in the coming few months, and this for a product that's essentially free.
Agreed. Python is a trademark. And it isn't even GPLed. And it even comes installed on Ubuntu by default. How come I don't need to accept a Python EULA?
Hell, Ubuntu itself is a friggin' trademark. I don't need to accept a EULA when I install Ubuntu.
OTOH, the trademark holders of Python and Ubuntu don't require its users to accept EULAs.
Anyway, I wonder if this means that Firefox is violating the GPL? After all, Firefox itself is offered under the GPL (and other licenses) and uses GPL code, right? Doesn't the GPL state that you can't force additional restrictions?
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Then we should all start filing it as a bug until it gets fixed or they put iceweasel in.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
The trademark issues with Firefox are not new. I don't think, that it is a big problem as long as I get a choice to use it or not. There are plenty of alternatives. I personally gave up on it some time ago.. Well, on the rebranded Iceweasel anyway. Pulling it up when I need to but using another browser most of the time.
Mod parent up.. +1 insightful
Requiem for the American Dream
The unbranded package will have the same functionality as Firefox, and Ubuntu can cut most of the ad money Mozilla gets from Google by using it as its primary search engine. I say this is a stupid move by Mozilla, antagonizing users for no apparent gain. Besides, I still prefer Konqueror.
To do list for Windows
If the program does terminal interaction, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode: Copyright (C) This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html#howto
Not only that, but as you state, no Windows user would think twice about clicking through a EULA. As a long time Ubuntu user, I myself never realized until today that there are no EULAs present.
>Mozilla is quite understandably protective of its Firefox trademark,
I think you mean "insanely overprotective of it's Firefox trademark". Mozilla has restrictions that no other FOSS project I know of has, all to "defend their trademark". But Linux, Apache, Gnome and KDE, to name a few, are all trademarked and they don't have those restrictions. Combine that with pointless EULAs, and non-free artwork, and you have a project that doesn't measure up as FOSS.
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
"The answer of course is B."
Is that so? I've seen plenty of people who criticize that open source software will never succeed on the desktop until it's more business-like.
I think those people mean "business-like in their approach to development" and not "business-like in their efforts to spread FUD and screw-over their customers".
but this is a bit much.
I remember when Mozilla first decided to add an EULA to Firefox, and the coders weren't sure what the point was, except that a lot of other Windows software also had them.
My worry is, is this going to extend to the Firefox that is on the live CD (which will affect people more, due to the limitations of running anything on a live CD)?
I think the Mozilla guys are asshats about this. I'm surprised that they felt this was absolutely necessary.
Looks like the lawyers have taken over mozilla.org.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
No need to fork. You can use the non-branded versions (Iceweasel, Icedove) that are available in Ubuntu/Debian/et al. There are also other builds available for most platforms of Swiftweasel, which IMO has nicer branding than the non-official builds of Firefox and Thunderbird.
Actually... yes, that is the way it happened. Debian thought they had an agreement (which they cite in that thread) from Mozilla which would let them continue to use the "Firefox" name while avoiding certain aspects of the branding requirements which proved too onerous for the DFSG. And all was well until one day a guy from Mozilla Corporation (which, ironically, is not the entity which owns the trademark) came along and started the threat process.
Once again: Mozilla's done this before. They're doing it again. Isn't it about time we had a Free browser?
However, I do have a very real drive to put the Microsoft monoculture out of action, since that would make for a much more interoperable world. I am actively troubled by people trying to send me MS Office files and people writing IE-only web pages. And getting people to use Linux is probably the best way to achieve the goal of avoiding that.
Mac OS X would work, too, though, so I try to evangelize Apple as well. However, if I'm getting people to switch, I would rather see them using a free system, and I don't think that the BSDs or Plan9 would be a good choice for very many end users. (Though to be sure, that goes for most Linux distros as well. If I evangelize anything, I'm trying to make it Ubuntu.)
Whoever keeps modding this tard up as insightful should have their mod points revoked indefinitely. Nothing is insightful about what they're saying. It's all trivial bullshit geared towards hatred of the non-techie people, who believe it or not, might like something that works better than Windows and is free.
Making something easier to use doesn't mean dumbing it down.
As a KDE user I think it does....see Gnome.
Clearly...all the bells & whistles that go with dumbing it down and making it more "user friendly", if anything, make it less usable, waste system resources, and get in the way.
Yeah, but for a distribution trying to get people to try Linux it is an issue. It is correct that those people who are trying Ubuntu are willing to choose something other than the big brand. It is also true that, for a lot of those people, while they may consider Firefox to be cool, they don't consider it to be the big brand. One of the big hangups people have when trying a new operating system is the adjustment of having to use new applications. Having things as familiar as possible helps to make people more relaxed with the idea of using a new OS.
Branding is a big thing for a lot of people. Especially people who aren't the technically proficient types. You know, the ones who call any digital audio player an iPod. Or who think Microsoft invented the internet or the GUI. A lot of those people can't name a reason a particular program is good off the top of their head, except saying something about the established (deserved or not) brand of the product and the company that makes it. The functionality for a lot of those people is very possibly a secondary concern. Considering how Ubuntu wants to be one of the major desktop OS contenders (and is closer to that goal than any OS not produced by Apple or Microsoft), having some appeal to those people is definitely in the best interest of everyone involved.
Now, if some other group wants to shove their EULA in everyones face on a default Ubuntu install, should Mark cave? Probably not, unless not doing so would severely hamper their goals. Is that fair? Hell no. Is it against the spirit of the OSS community? Maybe, but a lot of distributions make compromises in the sake of usability and appeal. If they didn't, all of us who use Linux and BSD would end up using distributions such as blag and gNewSense. Now I can't speak for anyone else, but I like having my wireless card automatically detected and set up when I install my operating system, and I know that it's drivers are not free as in freedom.
Right.
Mozilla cares about branding because they're trying to maintain a product image. They don't want people patching their code and redistributing it under their brand. Debian griped about this a lot when it came up last time, and because Mozilla stood their ground, Debian forked Firefox and called it Iceweasel.
A few months later, a Debian patch to OpenSSL was found to significantly reduce entropy, to the point where keys were easily guessable.
I think that's something everyone should think about when they blast Mozilla for their branding decisions.
'But it should be. The EULA is at present still considered to be binding. Now that may very well change in the future due to the tenuous nature of it. Not showing the EULA when requested is really a dick move.'
I agree that if Mozilla has a EULA that EULA should be displayed if they want. That said, its having a EULA in the first place that is a really dick move. It's not about the annoyance factor, EULA's are anti-thesis to the spirit of free and open software. Something Mozilla seems to care less and less about since it went .com
They waited until an inconvenient time to improve the chances that Ubuntu would agree to their demands rather than changing the browser.
There are several Brainstorm ideas that propose a way of dealing with the EULA for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex release:
So far, the Iceweasel option seems to be the most popular by a large margin.
OS Reviews: Free and Open Source Software
Where Mozilla seems to be coming from is that Firefox and its artwork are a registered trademark and that they are keen to protect how its name is used, how the browser is packaged, what its default settings are. The source is open (and GPL'd) but the name isn't. The same could be said of most commercial open source - the owners are protective of their branding - which would be why gNewSense is called gNewSense and not Ubuntu Free Speech or similar.
Anyway yes you could use iceweasel if you so object to Mozilla protecting their brand. But then you are reliant on the iceweasel group to track Firefox and release timely bugfixes and security updates on their own. For the sake of an EULA I think I would prefer the official packages.