Firefox and Linux distributors [LWN.net]

The Mozilla Foundation is a valuable contributor to the free software community; it has, among other things, provided us with a free browser which has restored the notion of standards to the World Wide Web. The relationship between the Foundation and Linux distributors has occasionally been a little bumpy, however. Mozilla's trademark policies have created stress for distributors, a few of whom have decided to leave the trademarked names behind altogether. The Foundation's security update and maintenance policies have also made life harder, sometimes having the effect of force-upgrading users to newer versions in otherwise stable distributions. To some, it seems that Mozilla's main interest is now its Windows users, with Linux support relegated to second-tier status.

At the recent Firefox summit, the Foundation got together with representatives from Red Hat and Novell and faced the problem directly:

Historically, there has been a great deal of tension between mozilla.org and the Linux distros, notably over maintenance of branches, divergence between distros, and lack of sustained communication between the groups. All seemed in agreement that closer cooperation and dividing responsibilities appropriately would benefit everyone involved. A number of changes were proposed that have general consensus among the stakeholders.

What came out of this meeting was an agreement on a number of changes which, going forward, should improve the relationship between Mozilla and the distributors; it should also make life better for Linux-based Mozilla users.

A new group of maintainers - representing Linux distributors - will be pulled together "in the Firefox 3 timeline." These maintainers will have a much bigger say on what goes into the Linux builds of Firefox and will be able to help ensure that the browser integrates better with Linux. They will also have the explicit goal of moving many of the patches currently carried by distributors into the Firefox mainline, decreasing their divergence from the mainline (and from each other).

Another advantage of pushing the patches up, evidently, is that it will make compliance with the Firefox trademark rules easier, since there will be fewer patches to get rubber-stamped.

These maintainers will also have a bigger role in the long-term upkeep of Firefox releases. Red Hat's Christopher Aillon notes that this group will be maintaining Firefox 1.5 past the date when the Mozilla Foundation plans to let it go. This work should help the distributors keep that version secure into the future, with the result that they need not push their users to the 2.0 release before they want to go there.

The Mozilla Foundation has also recognized that most Linux users run versions of Firefox built by their distributors rather than the official Mozilla builds. In the future, distributor packages will be available directly from the Mozilla web pages. That, too, should make life easier for the user community. Overall, this new cooperation seems like a step in the right direction; having Mozilla more tightly tied to the free software community can only be a good thing.

These changes are unlikely to bring Debian back into the Firefox camp, however, since they will still see the trademark policy as not being DFSG-free. Debian's policy of shipping "iceweasel" will almost certainly continue. But there is an interesting conversation going on about how iceweasel is shipped as well.

The issue is this: on a Debian system, it is still possible to type:

    apt-get install firefox

What the packaging system will do, however, is install iceweasel. Given that the driving force behind the switch in the first place was trademark usage, it seems unlikely that the Mozilla people will be amused by this behavior - though they have made no public statements on it as of this writing. Moving away from Firefox as a result of disagreement with the rules attached to that name is arguably a reasonable thing to do. But, once that decision is made, the right thing is almost certainly to move away from the "firefox" name altogether - before the next round of "cease and desist" letters shows up.

to post comments

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 7, 2006 2:01 UTC (Thu) by Frej (guest, #4165) [Link] (4 responses)

That firefox feels better on windows is partly because a few (popular) applications don't bother (mostly looks)to integrate with windows . Branding is considered more important. Users don't complain since they are already used to it.

This is different from gnome/kde/osx. Apps not following the theme look weird. Different tab styles and different metaphors stands out much more. I think users expect more consistent feel between apps - at least i do. Basicly it's harder to build consistent habits on windows compared to kde/gnome and especially OS X.

Ofcourse the foul beast of UI - openoffice is spawned on every system.

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 7, 2006 10:21 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

The irony is that X used to be criticised (rightly) for exactly the same thing... how times have changed :)

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 7, 2006 12:08 UTC (Thu) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]

Users: can't live with them, can't live with 'em.

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 8, 2006 6:08 UTC (Fri) by sandmann (subscriber, #473) [Link]

It also has to do with the fact that the XUL toolkit quite frankly sucks compared to GTK+ and Qt. And it is not helping that they are "integrating" by making firefox look like gtk+. That just causes people to expect a behavior that firefox doesn't deliver.

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 8, 2006 8:55 UTC (Fri) by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152) [Link]

I would say that the main complaint with refgards to integration is that the download-manager on Linux does not work with say KDE, you cannot open the destination directory nor open the file or application once it's been downloaded. Even Opera does a better job here.

apt-get install firefox

Posted Dec 7, 2006 2:58 UTC (Thu) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link]

Given that the driving force behind the switch in the first place was trademark usage, it seems unlikely that the Mozilla people will be amused by this behavior

Perhaps the pre-installation dialogue could explain the situation, and ask ``Do you want to replace Firefox with Iceweasel (a completely-compatible, but trademark-free, version derived from Firefox)? (Y/n) ''

Or it could just say ``I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave.'' :-)

security patches

Posted Dec 7, 2006 3:31 UTC (Thu) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link]

It's not clear to me that any of this directly addresses the security-patch issue. Mozilla security-bugs typically don't occur in the OS-specific parts, so is the Linux team automatically going to have commit/review/approval access everywhere as long as it's security-related? What about differing opinions on embargo dates?

It'll be great if it works out, but...I've got some serious doubts.

Greg

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 7, 2006 8:02 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (2 responses)

In case it's not universally known, the name for "iceweasel" comes from a brilliant quote from Matt Groening's "Love is Hell":

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."

Think about it carefully and see if you can keep from shivering.

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 7, 2006 12:09 UTC (Thu) by dougm (guest, #4615) [Link]

It's also a funny inversion of "Firefox".

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 10, 2006 7:10 UTC (Sun) by PO8 (guest, #41661) [Link]

Actually Groening's quote appears in the most ancient versions of the "fortune" file, including the attribution to Nietschze. After a bit of web search, I can't find a specific reference to a Nietschze work that contains this quote. At any rate, the quote is surely not original with Groening.

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 7, 2006 8:09 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

> Moving away from Firefox as a result of disagreement with the rules
> attached to that name is arguably a reasonable thing to do. But, once
> that decision is made, the right thing is almost certainly to move
> away from the "firefox" name altogether - before the next round of
> "cease and desist" letters shows up.

They are moving away from it, as per normal Debian process.

The replacement package is part of the series of steps needed to transition users with "firefox" installed to iceweasel, as they have been instructed. They need to ensure these users are transitioned in oder to be in compliance.

Additionally, they were given legal permission to use the mark in this context in the past. I'm sure some legal principle allows them to _refer_ to the name in a historical basis.

Lastly, extending trademarks to _exclusive_ ownership of _package names_ is quite a reach. A package claiming to provide the same functionality as another package will be installed for that other package name in certain circumstances. This is what iceweasel does. A trademark may be used by others, but not to mislead. However, apt will tell you quite explicitly that it is installing iceweasel.

Debian's behaviour and Mozilla's funny bone

Posted Dec 7, 2006 15:24 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

From my (second-hand) understanding of trademark law, Debian's behaviour of installing iceweasel when someone types "apt-get install firefox" is not a trademark violation. So whether it amuses the Mozilla Foundation or not is moot.

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 7, 2006 17:32 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (4 responses)

The real question with Debian isn't whether they'll call it "Firefox" in the new regime, but whether they'll participate in getting their patches merged.

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 7, 2006 23:13 UTC (Thu) by jeroen (guest, #12372) [Link] (3 responses)

Obviously yes, because it's required by Debian's social contract. http://www.debian.org/social_contract says:

"We will communicate things such as bug fixes, improvements and user requests to the "upstream" authors of works included in our system."

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 7, 2006 23:49 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (2 responses)

I agree that it contributing upstream patches would be a no-brainer yes for Debian, at least on the face of it. But not all developers follow all policy all the time (indeed if they did I would cry for the lack of humanity).

It was alleged during the firefox discussions that the developers, while obviously providing their patches in the published firefox .debs, were not making access to their patch development very transparent. Supposedly the patches were developed and tracked in a version control system which was not public-accessible, and the mozilla folks wanted to be able to have access to this. In many cases I bet such tracking systems exist without needing to be accessible, but the debian patches to firefox were larger than some (firefox is larger than many programs), and the mozilla folks seem more concerned about the third-party patch quality than most. Also alleged was that the purpose of some of the patches was not always clear.

So I think it can be honestly asked whether the debian packagers and the mozilla developers will find ways to work together more closely on changes to the codebase. My impression is that the obstructions to cooperation have been a mix of cultural, ideological, structural, and technical, and so I don't expect perfect cooperation, but if the various assertions I read in the mailing lists and BTS had merit, then it seems Debian (and Mozilla) could find ways to cooperate more closely.

My personal expectation is that Mozilla will adopt Debian patches more readily as they have (partially) learned the cost of the rift, and that Debian will more readily push them for the same reasons. There continues to be minor bad blood though.

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 8, 2006 8:36 UTC (Fri) by erwaelde (subscriber, #34976) [Link] (1 responses)

Hi,

as for Debians patches on firefox, I found this blog entry of Mike Hommey particularly interesting.

http://web.glandium.org/blog/?p=99

Cheers,
Erich

Firefox and Linux distributors

Posted Dec 8, 2006 17:46 UTC (Fri) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

Yeah, Mozilla is certainly slinging the ..

But I really wasn't getting into the matter of discussing PR, or comparisons to other distributions. It just seemed that some mozilla folks wanted to be able to get more direct access to the Debian Firefox/Iceweasel patch development process. Maybe this is only motivated by mistrust, but it certainly wouldn't hurt, and I think it will occur.