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Mozilla Nixes Firefox EULA Requirement
Less than a week ago, Mozilla asked (and Canonical relucantly agreed, in development versions of Intrepid Ibex) that users be required on first use to agree to a EULA before using Firefox. This drew lots of criticism, and Mozilla agreed that the requirement was flawed. Now, according to a story at Groklaw, the EULA requirement's been done away with. From the Groklaw article linked: "Bottom line: Now, you can install and use Firefox without having to agree to a EULA. The services have been separated out. If they were opt in instead of opt out, I'd be happier, but this is acceptable to me. There may be further tweaks, I understand, but I think it's time to acknowledge that Mozilla is behaving very well indeed now and demonstrating a desire to get this right."
by reading this post, you agree to mod me to +5, Informative.
If they had a desire to get this right, they would not have sprang a EULA requirement on Canonical this late into the release process (next Ubuntu release is in a couple of weeks). This is a reaction to the negative press they've been getting. Thanks, Slashdot!
The EULA has been present since the first 1.0 release of Firefox, and people complained just as bitterly then. Why is it that it took a major player like Canonical to get Mozilla to finally respond to their community?
While this was certainly an issue to be concerned about, it was disappointing to see the invective and bile poured out by some on the Launchpad bug page.
I thought the informative first-run tab was a good way to go about things and I'm glad things finally got settled by sitting down and offering feedback. The best thing about the Free Software and Open Source communities is that they're communities. Coming together to work on solutions is what makes us so much stronger than proprietary software whose owners ignore their own users.
When will companies (organizations) realize that convenience, more than any other factor including price, is a primary differentiator? If you make it difficult, people will just move on to the next solution that is easy. This works for EULAs, DRM, product activation, installation, acquiring media, playing music... "Simple" wins every time.
Does this mean Debian can go back to using Mozilla/Firefox too?
Or would it still make more sense to implement an easily customized "installer" for Mozilla/Firefox that could be adapted to any distribution and let the distribution install the installer rather than the actual product?
Why is it that it took a major player like Canonical to get Mozilla to finally respond to their community?
Users can complain, but distros can do something about it by ganging up and shipping it rebranded only? Of course in the short term that's a minor issue for Mozilla but if it was established that Firefox on Linux == Iceweasel (or whatever, lousy name) and Linux becomes more popular through UMPCs and the like, Mozilla could stand to lose a lot of brand power and have no power to do anything about it. It'd be just like CentOS except the original isn't available, how long would it take for the new name to settle? Not long at all, I wager. After all, it'd still be the exact same browser down to the last bit, not like switching people to another browser. Mozilla is caving here because they got little to gain and everything to lose.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
While I am pleased they have resolved the EULA issue, that is small stuff compared to the ongoing Ubuntu issue of flash and pulseaudio that causes Firefox to crash. There are a thousand and one "fixes" to be found and only a few work, and it only takes an update to undo the fix. I have resorted to using Seamonkey for stability. So, Canonical please just make it work - EULA or not.
IIRC, the EULA didn't pop up on first run, except on Windows, where it's expected.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
This is for sure the biggest issue currently facing the adoption of Linux.
I have personally convinced 30 or so people (smart, but not especially technical) to try Ubuntu. Without fail they loved it. Even getting to grips with command line stuff (most of them have had to do similar things on windows boxes, and felt that Linux was much more elegant and sensible in this regard).
How embarrassing then, to have to shrug my shoulders and admit defeat, because of the ubiquitous crashing of Flash.
Only a couple of that initial 30 have stuck with it, the rest split pretty much evenly between OSX and Vista. They tell me they like these alternatives less, for cost, usability and even idealogical reasons, but YouTube works every time. Sad.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
I hope Sun will take a hint from this, and stop trying to impose the LGPL as a click-through EULA in the Windows versions of OpenOffice. I teach a physics lab course where I'm trying to encourage students to use OpenOffice instead of Office. (One really practical reason is that they'll make a graph using Excel at school, email it to themselves, then try to open it at home using Excel and find out they can't, because they have an older version of Excel at home.) The really annoying thing is that when you install OOo, it forces each user to click through the EULA the first time on that machine. This is lame, because:
Find free books.
From the groklaw link: "Instead of a EULA, the new page you get on install is a notices page with no "I agree" requirement, along with a link to an optional services agreement, and instructions there on how to avoid having to accept the services, if you don't want them."
Let me get this straight. There's a popup window with legalese that includes an agreement that you have to figure out how to opt out of? So it's like a EULA, but they just assume you agree, and the "I Agree" button has been renamed "Next"?
I don't see how this is significantly different.
umm, because they think it is better and a lot of people agree. I really do think that you awesome bar detractors are the odd one's out. But there's good news, it's open source, you can add or remove any features you want. And before you start going on about how you're not a programmer so you don't have the option, surely there's someone out there who *is* a programmer and who dislikes the awesome bar - get them to do it - and if there isn't, then maybe you're just nit picking eh?
Really, if you want software to be exactly the way you like it then you have no option but to learn how to customize it to your own personal liking.. and often that means programming. The good news is that you didn't need to code up the awesome bar (or the original bar) to decide which one you preferred..
How we know is more important than what we know.
You still haven't said why you think the awesome bar is anything other than awesome.
I really don't know what your problem is with it. But, ultimately, Mozilla decides what Firefox is.. if you don't like it, roll your own or use a competitor.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Not as annoying as your fail to use the preview button though eh? :)
How we know is more important than what we know.
That's because plenty of users like it. I love the thing, personally. Users who don't like it (usually a small but vocal minority of changephobes) complain, but eventually get used to it. That's how every major change in every software I've seen works. People react because it's not what they're used to, with very few concrete reasons for their opposition. The reasons they do come up with are usually either unwillingness to consider the reasons behind the change, or pointless and/or insignificant nitpicking. After a while, they get used to it, adjust, and move on. Then when things change again, it's back to complaining about how the old design (the same thing that was new and terrible last time) is way better, and the new one is crap.
;)
*For a Windows OS, anyway. I'm writing this on Linux because using Windows for any extended period of time just annoys me anymore, so I'm not making any claims of absolute decency, just relative to the rest of the Windows line. (Yeah, yeah, Win2k excepted)
It's happened before. Look at Pidgin's name and interface change, Facebook a few times, and, yes, Firefox. Heck, look at XP. "Everyone" decried it as bubbly and stupid, but it's turned out to be a decent system.* And Office 2k7 - everyone (yes, me included) decried the ribbon, it was terrible, the worst idea anyone ever had. But most people who actually took the time to use it (again, myself included) found that it was a far more productive interface. But it took some relearning and some (gasp!) change. For another random example, Blender is often cited for its unintuitive user interface (it does have a very steep learning curve), but it's designed in such a way that once you learn it, it's much more productive and easier to work with.
Changephobia in software is largely detrimental, and rarely results in any good.
The devs don't listen to your whining about the Awesomebar because they've seen this cycle time and time again, and know that you'll get used to it and learn to love it. They had a lot of reason behind creating the Awesomebar, and for the vast majority of users, it's a boon for usability and a great idea. In the case that you're part of the vast minority that will cling to their extensions and old versions, you're just that - a vast minority who is willing to sacrifice effort (downloading an extension) for keeping things like they were. It's not worth the dev's effort to try to satisfy a minority that can easily be satisfied through other means.
Also, random aside: your sig doesn't make sense. The idea is true enough, but you can't mod someone with a combination of Troll and Flamebait. Look up the definition of boolean logic.
Besides, we all know that "-1:StronglyDisagreeAndWishToCensor" is what "Overrated" is for
You all have Oo.o and Firefox, so get World Wind.