Comment 476 for bug 269656

On Sat, 2008-09-20 at 13:15 +0000, aschuring wrote:
> In light of the recent comments, I'm starting to see the additional
> problems with having firefox as-is in main, especially with the web
> services enabled by default. Indeed, like Chip pointed out, Firefox with
> web services cannot be freely used without taking note of its use
> restrictions. I do accept Marks premise that web services are
> fundamentally of a different nature than applications, and therefore can
> not be treated the same.

So I dived into Google, which is a shining example of:

* A company that supports free software
* A company that offers software as a service
* A company that historically does not respect user privacy.

If you install the Google toolbar, you get some agreeable features..
Then you get to the page rank display part which presents some privacy
implications.

If you turn on page rank display, you are greeted with a privacy
statement that you have to accept.

Most enable this to see page rank, as page rank is now famous. Perhaps
when the anti-phishing service in Firefox becomes as popular, people
will enable it without much question too.

There are plenty of Windows/FF users who may or may not establish this
service as a good idea in popular culture. Those users are rather used
to such license agreements.

I will be damned if I support Firefox using my free software as kindling
to ignite the fame of their service so that everyone trusts it blindly.
I will also be damned if I use or promote __any__ GNU distribution that
back-doors such a thing. Ubuntu is GNU/Linux, yes?

Mark, either get your head out of the toilet or stop complaining about
how much it stinks. When you impose this kind of thing on the free
software community that promoted your business (especially with no
warning) .. this is what you get. At least 6 major appliances now ship
with Ubuntu because of my recommendation. We (the FLOSS community)
existed way before Ubuntu. So did you, which is why I'm shocked. The
cost of doing business sometimes transacts negatively with your ego and
your investments, get over it.

Go ahead, term my launchpad account while questioning my conduct for
simply defending free software, I really don't care anymore. What you
have orchestrated attempts to exemplify an egregious betrayal of trust
which others have pointed out and that you have (frankly) failed to
address.

On a friendly note, didn't you miss this kind of stuff? :)

Friendly,
--Tim