Comment 448 for bug 269656

Chip Bennet said:

'Services - AKA "Software Servies", AKA "Software as a Service (Saas)" - are nothing more than software applications that are installed on a remote server rather than the local machine. As software applications, they are either open- or closed-source. They are either free or non-free.'

You say that they are "nothing more than software". On the contrary, they are far more than just software. The service consists of server hardware and maintenance, network connectivity and bandwidth, the collecting of blacklisting data and its quality assurance, dealing with people who feel wrongly blacklisted and related legal repercussions, dealing with language issues and legal consequences of having a presence around the world, coordinating all this, and so on and on and on.

The software is just a tiny component in a large and complicated operation.

That term "non-free service" is mistaken because the GPL meaning of "free" isn't applicable to the server bandwidth, the international language and legal dealings, and all the other parts of the service. Both legally and philosophically they are different worlds, since the MPL and (A)GPL are copyright licenses, while the mockup's "Website Services Agreement" very definitely isn't.

However I do think that there's a very valid and important issue here. It's just a different issue than a "non-free service".

The very interesting issue here is whether it's okay to connect people to a service without asking them, and, if you do this, whether it's okay to claim that by having been automatically connected they have agreed to the terms.

As I see it, it's very, very unfortunate if the browser must be delivered with the service turned off by default. It would make the service quite useless, because those who most need it would certainly not turn it on. Phishers and other scammers would thrive.

However it seems rather nonsensical to claim that by having been automatically connected to the service you agree to its terms. It seems far better if the text instead explains what the service is and what it does, and explains how you can turn it off if you prefer, worded in such a way that it becomes very clear and obvious that you can opt out if you don't want the service or don't like how it works. Then if you read that, and choose to leave it enabled, clearly you are accepting the service. It becomes the same thing as the old text, but with much more reasonable wording.

Of course most users won't read it, and so they aren't actually choosing to accept it. But I don't think that's much of a problem. When you install Ubuntu, you are implicitly accepting a huge amount of functionality without being asked about each functionality. You accept that others have made tons of choices for you. Very likely this service can be one more on this huge pile of implicitly accepted functionality.

In essence, by installing Ubuntu you implicitly agree to Ubuntu's defaults, except where you change them.