[Bug 269656] Re: AN IRRELEVANT LICENSE IS PRESENTED TO YOU FREE-OF-CHARGE ON STARTUP

[Dragonlord]

Mark, I do think that Chip Bennett has a strong point. In this spirit,
the next step would be mp3 codecs already installed, with a notification
that you can uninstall them if you don't agree with the terms of use.
After that, maybe full proprietary pieces of software, again, with the
option to remove them. An Ubuntu installation should come with the
default configuration having only free software and services enabled. If
the user wants, they can enable/install non-free stuff afterwards. I
understand that these services have to do with google, and are probably
a necessity for Mozilla (and subsequently Canonical?) to get funds from
Google, but as others have said, it's a character moment. What if
Microsoft came and made you an offer to include MSN messenger with
Ubuntu for a good amount of money, with a notification the first time
you run it that if you don't agree to the terms of use you must
uninstall it. It's not the same, but it's a similar situation; speaking
of brand recognition, MSN Live! messenger is ten times bigger than
Mozilla Firefox. It would be good for the new users to find such a
familiar program installed with Ubuntu, and there would be the option to
remove it, but is this your vision for the biggest GNU/Linux
distribution? Once you accept the Firefox situation, where will it stop
and by what logic? Sure, firefox's code is open source and MSN's isn't,
but you're not allowed to change firefox's code one byte without
changing its name and logo, so one could argue if it's such a huge
difference on a practical level. And yes, we're talking about a part of
firefox now, whereas with MSN it would be the whole program, but it's a
thin line. Please, let's not get into the discussion whether it's a good
example or why it is different, I know it's different, but at the same
time there are significant similarities and that's where I'm focusing.
Software is either completely free, or it's non-free. The right thing to
do is have these services disabled, and then, when you first open
Firefox, show a simple text saying why browsing will not be same from
phishing without those services enabled, with a link to the user terms
you have to accept and a button that will do it for you on the fly, not
confusing users with Edit>Preferences etc. I bet you that almost all
users will enable them for security anyway, so any financial losses will
not be significant, and it's the only way to keep the Ubuntu promise and
be respectful to the community. Mozilla seem to have made a huge step in
the right direction and what I'm proposing isn't that far from their
solution, but it's significant to take that extra step so that ubuntu
stays true to its ideas and goals. I hope it works out.

-- 
AN IRRELEVANT LICENSE IS PRESENTED TO YOU FREE-OF-CHARGE ON STARTUP
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/269656
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Mozilla
Bugs, which is subscribed to firefox-3.0 in ubuntu.