Firefox Eula to clutter Ubuntu User’s Experience

Posted at 9:35 pm in ubuntu

In the nearing Intrepid release, Firefox displays an EULA to the user the first time it is started.
This brought a lenghty discussion on launchpad.

Firefox’s EULA raises a number of concerns:

  • the EULA refusal doesn’t prevent the user in any way from using Firefox, therefore EULA’s is just noise added to the user experience.
  • the EULA agreement would make firefox a non-free application which should be moved to multiverse.
  • refusing the EULA would (legally) leave the user without a browser in the default install.
  • EULA approval on first start would make firefox less usable when using the Live CD.

So far the options are the following:

  • Keeping firefox as it is, even with the EULA.
  • Switch to Epiphany as the default webbrowser.
  • Adopt IceWeasel from debian (which is firefox, with logo and brand replaced)

I’ve created three different Brainstorm idea to let people make their voice heard:

Keeping Firefox:


Adopting Iceweasel:


Adopting Epiphany:

EDIT: I’ve been digged ! http://digg.com/linux_unix/firefox_eula_to_clutter_ubuntu_user_s_experience

 

Written by Stefano Forenza on September 14th, 2008

5 Responses to 'Firefox Eula to clutter Ubuntu User’s Experience'

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  1. [...] asumible por una distribución como Ubuntu a pesar de tener un carácter más comercial que Debian. Cambiar el navegador fue una de las opciones que se mencionaban por los problemas derivados de la inclusión de este EULA ya que en caso de que [...]

  2. [...] Forenza: Firefox EULA to clutter Ubuntu User’s Experience (also includes a link to the discussion on the Launchpad bug report about [...]

  3. [...] una fuerte polémica dentro de la comunidad ubuntera, hasta el punto de que hay gente que empieza a plantearse otras opciones. De acuerdo con la explicación de Mark Shuttleworth al respecto, Mozilla Corp exige a Ubuntu [...]

  4. [...] ahí está el lío. Se apunta que, como mínimo, esta licencia haría obligatorio pasar los paquetes de Firefox a multiverse [...]

  5. Tu Linux | 18 Sep 08 at 6:00 am

    Mozilla Firefox admite que EULA es defectuoso…

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