“Free software” Firefox builds
As MJ Ray reports, ftp.mozilla.org now has "Free software" Firefox tarballs. While they are truly free and don't contain the non-free logo nor Talkback, they are not Firefox either. Only the tarballs and the executables are named Firefox. The product itself is "Bon Echo". And the name is going to change at every major release. This is why we changed for a "static" name.
2007-11-08 20:44:05+0900
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2007-11-08 23:55:01+0900
Yeah. I think I share your sentiment. We should probably stop wasting time creating builds that no one wants.
– A
2007-11-09 01:08:14+0900
Or, you know, change the builds that people do want to be Free Software.
2007-11-09 01:29:53+0900
The builds we provide are as “free” as it’s likely gonna get and it’s apparently still not enough (how dare the build allow websites to suggest proprietary plugins to users! the horror.) so I don’t see the point in bothering any further. I think that people with more specific needs than what we provide can compile themselves or get a hacked version from someone else.
– A
2007-11-09 02:28:28+0900
> The builds we provide are as “free†as it’s likely gonna get
Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear.
2007-11-10 01:53:58+0900
> Yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear.
Ok, so problem solved, right?
2007-11-12 08:57:57+0900
Actually, the Free Software tarball might still make a better base for Iceweasel, to make for less patching. The Free Software tarball seems like it would serve Debian’s purposes perfectly apart from consistency of branding, and in particular it means that Debian might not need to prune the upstream tarball anymore. That seems like a big win, and if it turns out to work, then kudos to the people who started providing those tarballs.
And in response to the comment about suggesting proprietary plugins, note that Debian’s Iceweasel does not take the same position that GNU Iceweasel does on that point, though people have discussed better ways to handle that in the past.