Rejecting the Firefox EULA in Ubuntu

[Neal McBurnett]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 02:14:47PM +0100, Sean Hodges wrote:
> >> Is there an easy way to reject the EULA on the Firefox shipped with
> >> Ubuntu and still be able to use the software? Has anyone patched the
> >> source code to remove this yet?
> >>
> *SNIP*
> >
> >This is on Fedora, but should help:
> >http://www.toad.com/gnu/sysadmin/index.html#firefox-eula-sux
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion, I have seen this article before.
> 
> It describes how to modify the binary and not the source. I'm looking to
> remove the EULA dialog from the source altogether, so the resulting
> packages do not have it. Or alternatively allow you to reject the terms
> but still use the program.

I tried to find the place this was changed, and saw nothing in the
changelog for the firefox-3.0 package.  Then I was referred to the
ubufox package, which is where the change took place on Fri, 12 Sep
2008 12:02:19 +0200 in version ubufox (0.6~b1-0ubuntu1) intrepid.

  * MERGE 0.6~b1 release from lp:ubufox

That isn't very informative about such a controversial change.  But we
can look at the bzr logs for ubufox:

 https://code.edge.launchpad.net/~asac/ubufox/main

I haven't looked in detail, but revision 103 talks about EULA changes:

 Merge first run EULA display feature from
 lp:~asac/ubufox/main.firstrun - update content/overlay.js - update
 defaults/preferences/ubufox.js - add content/mozeula.html

See http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~asac/ubufox/main/revision/103

> It seems no'one has looked into this yet, so I will have a look this
> weekend.

I hope this helps.

And remember, as others have pointed out, this is being very actively
worked on by both Mozilla and Ubuntu firefox folks.  You can vote on
brainstorm as Jane Silber suggests:

 https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/269656/comments/383

and see what Mozilla is saying and proposing:
 http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2008/09/15/ubuntu-firefox-and-license-issues/
 http://lockshot.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/firefox-eula-in-linux-distributions/

I resonate with the user comments in the latter URL, that even without
a click-thru requirement, any sort of "agreement" asserted by Mozilla
for using the code is out of line with what I want Ubuntu to be about.

Note the complication that they are also trying to get agreement to
use their anti-malware and anti-phishing web services, which is a
different thing.

Is there a better place to discuss the Ubuntu process and options with
those working on it?  The bug is not the right place, and those
involved may not be subscribed to this list.

Neal McBurnett                 http://mcburnett.org/neal/