Comment 68 for bug 269656
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| Sebastian Bengtsson (5ebastian) wrote | #68 |
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0e1f616
(Get the code!)
Perhaps we could put the EULA together with an explanatory text in the Welcome to Firefox tab that opens on first run. That way it would not be an aggressive in-your-face popup. This would improve the user experience side of things.
It would also be better to put any and all EULAs in the OS installation phase, as agreeing to use a software belongs with installation, not with trying to surf the web, etc.
Working with Mozilla to get the EULA in readable form (no ALL-CAPS) also sounds like a pragmatic way to reduce the amount of bad user experience this creates. (Damage reduction with respect to the Ubuntu brand.)
The Ubuntu brand is built around a continually improving out-of-the-box experience. When introducing new users to Ubuntu I have often said things like
"You get all of this right from the start because this is what free software enables one to do."
Following up on that with "Oh, oops, that's just some EULA. It says legaly binding? Never mind, its nothing important." seems a good way to put off new adopters.
The Firefox brand is i.m.o. important to Ubuntu. Having Icethis or Swiftthat is not the same. Firefox is still the single most well known free software example for windows users. Firefox lends credibility to software a new user might otherwise never have tried. "You'll get Firefox and OpenOffice - and all the other software on Ubuntu is made in the same spirit as Firefox and OpenOffice."
From previous comments it appears to me that we get this EULA headache because we have modified Firefox. (Is this a correct?) It appears that Mozilla wants to protect its trademark by warning the user this might not be on par with what the Firefox brand promises. But we are not trying to make some "other version" of Firefox, we are trying to make the original Firefox experience work on our platform. Would it be possible to move the Ubuntu modifications into upstream? Create an official version of Mozilla Firefox for the Ubuntu platform, and thus "worthy" of official Mozilla branding. "Make partnership, not trench war."