Some day, it comes back in your face

Recent news are confirming that Debian's choice to not comply with Mozilla's trademark policy and rename Firefox to Iceweasel was a good one.

When the issue came up two years ago, most people focused on the wrong issue of Mozilla demanding to review the patches we apply, and while two years ago that would have been an actual burden, I must say they have improved in the last months on the patch review (and even inclusion) side. If they had changed the license for their logo (which was the actual uncircumventable problem), I might have considered changing the name back.

That would obviously have been a mistake, as Mozilla has found another creative way to badly behave. I'm so glad we chose the Iceweasel road.

Now, speaking of this infamous EULA, I filed a bug a while ago, because the EULA would also show up on unbranded builds, which was "resolved" invalid. Apparently, the main reason for keeping the EULA is because of the use of services that require an EULA, such as safebrowsing. The only terms related to this that I can see are:

5. WEBSITE INFORMATION SERVICES. Mozilla and its contributors, licensors and partners work to provide the most accurate and up-to-date phishing and malware information. However, they cannot guarantee that this information is comprehensive and error-free: some risky sites may not be identified, and some safe sites may be identified in error.

Does that really require to read the rest of the legal boilerplate ?

2008-09-15 08:07:59+0900

firefox

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4 Responses to “Some day, it comes back in your face”

  1. Web Foundation and While I Was Out | Software Cooperative News Says:

    […] false;} No Comments Tags: GNU/Linux · Koha · ThePhoneCoop ·Web […]

  2. reed Says:

    Check out https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=443918 :)

  3. MJ Ray: Web Foundation and While I Was Out : Dragonfly Networks Says:

    […] The Mozilla Corporation took another step in developing their obnoxious “Free Software” EULA which is actually enforced by their very-non-free trademark and logo copyright licensing. It really does show that Debian Iceweasel and GNU Icecat are necessary. Ubuntu get punished for breaking ranks and accepting MozCorp’s non-free terms – Some day, it comes back in your face indeed. And I know it’s juvenile, but the suggestion on the bug report that they rename it “firecox” just to spite MozCorp made me laugh. I’m pretty angry that Mark Shuttleworth incorrectly claims that debian calls it Iceweasel “to belittle or demean” Mozilla, though. “Weasel” was posted here as a simple alternative to “rabbit”. rabbits have bad connotations in many cultures, as tricksters, cowards, disease-carriers, sex-maniacs, bringers of bad luck and so on, while weasels symbolise resurrection and bravery – except in US politics (”weasel words”) and Dilbert, oddly enough. […]

  4. Mike Hommey: Finally, some sense : Dragonfly Networks Says:

    […] The Firefox EULA debacle is over. While this is nice, especially because they retracted, there are several things at stake here. […]