Is Ubuntu going to adapt Ice Weasel?

[Scott Abbey]

On Wednesday 11 October 2006 16:22, Steve Barnhart wrote:
> Umm no. Actually Fedora is comprised of ENTIRELY free software. They
> don't even have any links up anywhere stating how to get flash and the
> like. Ubuntu does with easyubuntu and the like. AND Fedora doesn't
> load restricted modules including ntfs which ubuntu does. Fedora is
> one of the most anal of them all so you are totally wrong and I am
> sick of people spreading this propoganda about redhat/fedora all the
> time.

Fair enough. I was actually referring mainly to Red Hat with that statement. 
My lumping of Fedora in with them was an unfortunate generalization on my 
part, due partially to their Red Hat legacy (which I know has been largely 
left behind). Not that I have a problem with Fedora, Red Hat, Suse, or any 
other distro. They have a target audience that they attempt to please. I am 
simply not that target audience.

> Secondly, trademarks are a part of life because people abuse things.
> It happened with Mozilla and obviously the quality dwindled. 

Could you perhaps tell me when? I don't ever remember seeing a poor Mozilla 
build that somehow caused harm to the Mozilla brand. Of course, I may have 
missed it. Please point it out if I am wrong.

> By 
> default Firefox builds without the branding for modifying and one can
> also follow this policy:
> http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/community-edition-policy.html
> which what I believe if the Ubuntu developers are so worried about can
> use that instead.

I actually meant to point out the "Community Edition" alternative in another 
message, but I lost my train of thought in there somewhere. I would be 
curious to hear from Mozilla and the Ubuntu devs on whether that is a viable 
alternative. It seems to be a perfectly adequate compromise.

> Don't confuse users with another stupid name in the 
> face of ideology. You sure haven't with restricted modules and the
> like so I don't see a need to start here. Ubuntu is for the general
> population and has a prominent place right there where they have a
> great deal of influence. PLEASE do not bow down to the minority's
> demands and end up confusing new users. The great thing about this
> switching and OSS software is that one can start to easily migrate
> because of the same software now available on Windows. We don't need
> another incompatibility layer. Stay with Firefox please. For people
> who care so much about this sort of thing can use Debian.

Is renaming the package the ideal solution? Of course not. The ideal solution 
would be for Mozilla to back down on their demands and just allow 
distributors to use the trademarks. While it is true that other projects have 
trademarked their branding, few (only one other comes to mind: Debian, 
ironically) have ever pursued those trademarks to the extent Mozilla has. If 
there is a problem with poor quality builds abusing the Mozilla trademarks, 
pursue THOSE builds. A sort of "innocent until proven guilty" policy. Nobody 
from Mozilla has yet proposed that Debian's or Ubuntu's patches are 
unreasonable, and even acknowledge that many of them are necessary.

With or without Firefox, whatever the devs decide, I will remain a happy 
Ubuntu user. It offers the best mix of features for my needs (most 
importantly, this community), out of the box. As with all things free, I will 
simply tailor the system to my requirements.

Regards,
Scott
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