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Mozilla Demanding Firefox Display EULA In Ubuntu
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Sep 14, 2008 04:09 PM
from the branding-vs.-freedom dept.
from the branding-vs.-freedom dept.
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.
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[+]
Mozilla Admits Firefox EULA Is Flawed 312 comments
darthcamaro writes "Mozilla has now come around and is taking seriously the concerns of Ubuntu and others about the Firefox EULA, which we discussed vigorously the other day. In fact Mozilla told InternetNews.com that the EULA itself is flawed and will be replaced with something else. Quoting Mozilla Chairperson Mitchell Baker from the article: 'There is a need for something, something to explain the license[.] I'm not sure I would call it a EULA because that has a meaning to many people of adding restrictions to software and we won't be doing that. We'll be having a license agreement much as Red Hat has a license agreement that says the software is available under the GPL and don't use our trademarks et cetera. So we'll have a license agreement but we won't think of it as a EULA.'"
[+]
Mozilla Nixes Firefox EULA Requirement 154 comments
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."
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What's the big deal? (Score:5, Funny)
Blindly clicking through meaningless and offensive EULAs is standard practice in the Windows world.
Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that the official icon is more usable than the community edition icon, which still has limitations. Ubuntu didn't always ship the branded icon, but it's clear that nobody realizes at first that the firefox quicklaunch icon is a web browser. It's like a joke that requires you to call it a "world wide web broswer", or remember what WWW is supposed to stand for. But hell if I know what to do about it. A page in the NYtimes with iceweasel icons promoting open source web browsers?
It's really incredibly sad what they're doing; phoenix was an unofficial project and they had to rename the project twice in order to make this branding thing possible again.
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
It also isn't the end of the world either. The user just clicks ok without reading and moves on with his free stuff.
Open-office also has one on first use. I'm sure there are others.
Its still free.. i don't see the big deal.
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Interesting)
'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
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's entirely unreasonable to demand a special right that, if everyone got it [wikipedia.org], would completely ruin the experience. Imagine if every application popped up an EULA the first time you ran it. Per user or per boot of the LiveCD. One of the main selling points of Ubuntu is that it's devoid of common Windows annoyances, one of which is the constant popups that don't serve the user in any conceivable way and nobody reads anyway.
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
How? The only thing Ubuntu would lose is the brand name. The functionality is still there. And as far as the value of branding is concerned, simply by putting an Ubuntu CD in the drive, they have shown a willingness to choose something other than the big brand.
Not in Linux distributions it isn't.
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you keep linux as a niche OS, then it'll always stay in the niche it's currently in. If you let it expand out of that niche, it'll get more users and more development resources as a result.
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
Making something easier to use doesn't mean dumbing it down.
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, I would like to see Linux marketing towards the unwashed masses decline. Fewer idiots using Linux means less dumbing down, less time spent by the developers explaining basic usage, and more time actually improving the product. The end result then becomes better for those who don't need their hand held.
Making something intuitive or just making it work is not the same as dumbing it down. When Linux improves, you feel it to, even if you're so savvy you only use the 1 and 0 keys on the keyboard. Unless you'd prefer to have to write down your favorite websites instead of using bookmarks like us super intelligent people.
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
If people want to eat McDonald's for dinner every day, let them. I'll eat a home cooked meal instead, but it's not my place to evangelize.
If 98% of the people ate nothing but McDonalds, you would find it very difficult to eat a home cooked meal, as grociery stores would be all but extinct.
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
.
Spoken like a true Geek.
If there is anything the Linux developer does not need it is less communication and engagement with end users.
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Fewer idiots using Linux (Score:5, Funny)
You mean back to the good old days when the kernel could barely self-host and you had to bit edit to get things to boot off a IDE hard drive?
Ah, those were the days.
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I want enough people using Linux to get some commercial apps. Games, too. Even the game load that Mac gets would be nice.
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Re:Making Ubuntu Accessible? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some reasons why you'd want the unwashed masses to migrate to Linux:
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GPL Compliance (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [gnu.org]
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.
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Re:GPL Compliance (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference is that the GPL *DOES NOT* require the user to agree to ANY conditions. There is no contract between the user and the developers of the program. The GPL only requires you to enter into an agreement if you distribute the program or use its source (in which case you accept the terms of the GPL), and even that does not require a EULA since the terms of the contract are enforced by copyright law.
Not only that, but as you state, no Windows user would think twice about clicking through a EULA
Most Windows users don't care that the source to their OS is closed, or that it enforces DRM and acts against their wishes. Perhaps they should.
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Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Funny)
..and +1 Funny and +1 Interesting and -1 Redundant and...
Sorry, couldn't stop clicking.
/recovering Windows user
//+1 slashie
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Fair enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Firefox is a trademark, Mozilla need to defend that trademark, and it's in Ubuntu's interests to provide a browser that people have heard about, rather than "Iceweasel", which they haven't. That, and I doubt Mozilla's EULA would be that onerous; the only people who are going to be truly upset at this are the people who hear "EULA" and kneejerk a negative response.
Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is a trademark too. Does that mean I need to accept an EULA every time I install a new kernel? No.
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Funny)
You have just launched /bin/bash
EULA - blah blah blah.... ...
Agree Y/N: Y
user@host: ~/ $ ls /bin/ls
You have just ran
EULA - blah blah blah.... ... ..
Agree Y/N: Y
.
Desktop
Pictures
Downloads
user@host: ~ $ cd Pictures /bin/cd
You have just ran
EULA - blah blah blah.... ...
Agree Y/N: Y
user@host: ~/Pictures $
Wow I can't wait!!!
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Because then they couldn't call it Firefox. That's the reason for the EULA; Mozilla is quite understandably protective of its Firefox trademark, and doesn't want it applied to builds that have been patched or changed by distros. Ubuntu punches above the weight of most other distros, however, and could probably come to an agreement more easily; they'd want their users to be able to find a browser they're familiar with.
BTW, what you described pretty much already exists in the form of IceWeasel, which was created when Debian found that the terms for use of the Firefox trademark were too harsh for them.
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Interesting)
>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.
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually... yes, that is the way it happened [debian.org]. 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?
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Shipping IceWeasel as the default browser I could understand. I'm fine with that. However, if they made "apt-get install firefox" install IceWeasel instead, it would be the beginning of an unholy shitstorm against them, and rightfully so. You promote your ideals as much as you can, but you NEVER modify the specific action requested by a user and twist it to meet your ideals. Pull it out of the repository and make people go manually install it if they wish, but if I tell my system to install one piece of software it damn well better not decide on a "better" one.
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Insightful)
For a lot of people, this EULA thing might make them snap and ditch Firefox completely. If that happens Mozilla will lose a bit of market share, maybe even a significant bit.
To be honest, I doubt there are that many outside of the Slashdot peanut gallery that will hear about this, and even fewer of those will care. Anyone pissed enough with Firefox over the Awesome Bar etc will probably have switched, and if there's going to be a significant dip in market share then it'll be because of visible things like that; things that actually matter and are obvious problems to end users. A EULA ranks lower; ask the man in the street what he thinks about his web browser popping up a license agreement over its trademarks and his reaction will most likely be "So?".
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Insightful)
EULAs alienate the F/OSS community and make the software seem very corporate. It matters a ton to Mozilla and any user of Ubuntu.
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Informative)
"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.
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Interesting)
Then we should all start filing it as a bug until it gets fixed or they put iceweasel in.
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Re:Fair enough (Score:5, Informative)
Go vote on the bug report then:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=439604 [mozilla.org]
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Too corporate (Score:5, Interesting)
It is inconcievable that Mozilla would face any legal problems due to a lack of EULA.
EULA is quite important (Score:5, Informative)
Re:EULA is quite important (Score:5, Informative)
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They being so difficult (Score:5, Insightful)
EULA Contents: (Score:5, Informative)
EULA: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/legal/eula/firefox-en.html [mozilla.com]
Summary:
Preamble - notice that the source is available and this license does not apply to the source.
1. License Grant - This license gives you the right to use the executable provided by Mozilla Corp.
2. Termination - if you breach this license, S1 is voided.
3. Proprietary Rights - again, the source code is not proprietary. The branding logos are, you don't have the right to modify them.
4. Disclaimer of Warranty
5. Limitation of Liability
6. Export Controls - you must comply with teh law.
7. US Govt End Users - 2 sentences of legal references related to employees of the US Govt using Firefox.
8. Misc, nothing interesting at all. This agreement constitutes the agreement...
Sounds like Mozilla Corp doing the bare minimum to cover their asses, in a responsible fashion, without actually affecting end users at all.
Next step for Mozilla Corp.. (Score:5, Funny)
...is to provide a "genuine firefox advantage" feature, that will check if your Firefox (tm) installation is genuine, and show a nasty transparent box in the corner of the screen...
I'm as big a fan of Mozilla and Firefox as anyone, (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
EULA summary (Score:5, Informative)
1. We're letting you use the software. Have fun.
2. If you don't want to use the software, don't.
3. We need to protect our trademarks, so if you change something and redistribute it, don't call it Mozilla or Firefox.
4. No warranty, get over it.
5. We're not responsible for anything that goes wrong. This actually is just a paraphrase of section 4, and like section 4, we've stated it in ALL CAPS, so you'll be sure to pay attention to it.
6. There might be laws about sending this software out of the country. Try to obey them.
7. If you're using this in a US government environment, there are certainly many laws that will regulate its use. Please pay attention to them.
8. We're doing it the California way, the UN will not be involved (thank goodness), this agreement is written in English, you can give this (unmodified) license and product to someone else, and we won't mind.
There. The important parts.
-Restil
Once isn't enough - I want it every 5 minutes (Score:5, Funny)
Only showing an EULA once is ridiculous.
1) As many have pointed out, most people will 'click-through' the 1st time they see a license, not reading it at all. Showing the license multiple times, maybe each startup, or maybe every 5 minutes, helps to ensure that users know their obligations as users, and don't infringe on Mozilla's God-given trademark.
2) What happens on internet Kiosks, libraries, schools, etc? You can't only show the EULA once, as the sys admin will be the only one to know of their obligations, and none of the real users will know.
3) With so much pop-up advertising in web CONTENT, is it really too much to ask for our web browser to start demanding some recognition as well?
I KNOW SOME PEOPLE ARE ALSO PISSED OFF AT MOZILLA'S USE OF ALL-CAPS IN THEIR LICENSE, BUT HONESTLY, WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT IF IT SLOWS DOWN READING A BIT AND MAKES IT LOOK LIKE YOU'RE REALLY FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT YOUR EULA, AS MOZILLA CLEARLY ARE?
I therefore argue for an EULA popup every 5 minutes.
Of course I myself will no longer be using Firefox. Back to konqueror I suppose. It would be good if someone would write some Gtk2 wrappers for webkit.
Re:not free? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Re:not free? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is reason an EULA forces a user to give up rights, and the Firefox EULA doesn't really impose any such restrictions outside of some that are common sense or required by law in the country that Mozilla operates in.
It also informs you that some data that you may consider private is sent to the anti-phishing system servers, which is GOOD for the user to know so they can make an informed choice.
Also, if you look at GPL v3, it actually requires that you notify the user of some of the things in the EULA at startup. See: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=963567&cid=25002187 [slashdot.org]
Its unfair to consider are EULAs bad, they can grant the user rights just as much as they can take them away, just like the copyright and distribution license on the source code.
GPL grants many rights and includes restrictions and most people accept that it is a reasonable distribution license and have no problem using it and meeting the requirements of it, even though some source code licenses are horrible and don't let you even see the code in some cases.
You're responding with a kneejerk reaction based on the typical evil EULA, why not take a more reasonable approach and read the EULA before you decide its evil.
Guns can be used to kill people. They can also be used to save people. They still have their place in our world when used in a certain way. EULAs are no different. They can be good, they can be bad, and they also do have a place in the world when used in a fair manner.
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Re:not free? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:first post (Score:5, Funny)
eat my ass you homos
You're requesting a bunch of males intimately interact with your ass. Everybody else is the 'homo'?
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Re:I can not believe the complaints in this thread (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [tuxfamily.org], which IMO has nicer branding than the non-official builds of Firefox and Thunderbird.
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