Comment 433 for bug 269656

@aschuring:

"Considering how things are now with the services agreement, I don't think it will be necessary to ship with them turned off."

Caveat: I am still relatively new (slightly over a year) to Ubuntu, Linux, and FOSS - so please forgive any ignorance and do not take any of my comments or questions to be anything more than sincere.

I am quite happy with what Mozilla has done to revise both the content and presentation of information they believe critical to present to end users. However, I am still trying to grasp some things.

As I understand Ubuntu's operating principles, Ubuntu is promised always to be free software. Only packages that meet the standard of "free software" can reside in Main and be fully, officially supported by Ubuntu. (Am I on track so far?)

Now, we have Firefox, an erstwhile "free software" application, that has begun bundling non-free, proprietary components with their open-sourced, free software. Mozilla has done an admirable job now in differentiating between end users' rights of unencumbered use of Firefox and the use of the non-free components (services), that require an end-user agreement in order to use.

So, now we have Firefox, by default built/bundled with non-free components (that require an end-user license agreement - by whatever name) that currently resides in Main for Intrepid alpha. That is, non-free software now resides in Main.

I don't see how this situation is not problematic for Ubuntu.

It would seem to me that this situation presents only two acceptable resolutions:

1) Mozilla allows Linux distributions to ship Firefox with the non-free services disabled by default, with users only required to accept an EULA for those services if they choose to enable them - and allowing them to do so without revoking their Firefox-branding rights,

or

2) Ubuntu moves branded Firefox to Multiverse/Restricted, as non-free software cannot reside in Main.

Any other resolution would be in violation of Canonical's operating principles with respect to Ubuntu, and would be considered to be an egregious betrayal of trust by much of the Ubuntu community.

Again, with the changes Mozilla has already made, if Ubuntu can be allowed to disable the non-free services by default and still use the Firefox branding, then I think this issue will be completely, entirely resolved.

And, again, I'm still learning here; I welcome constructive criticism if any of my above comments are off-base.