Mozilla added Terms of Use in order to use Mozilla Firefox web browser, and some items mentioned looks very against the FREE license. One of the controversial points is: You Give Mozilla Certain Rights and Permissions: ... When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox. Not accepting those terms, will lead to the stop to use Firefox as described into their Termination section: "Mozilla can suspend or end anyone’s access to Firefox at any time for any reason, including if Mozilla decides not to offer Firefox anymore" Reproducible: Always
The Firefox maintainers in Gentoo are aware of this. I believe the plan is to watch at the moment given it's still evolving, but it appears that the terms don't apply to source distributions of FF, just the binary. We do already have USE=telemetry and the expectations is that we can roll more into that. Of course, if truly needed, we can add EULA to LICENSE, but let's see first.
(In reply to Sam James from comment #1) > The Firefox maintainers in Gentoo are aware of this. I believe the plan is > to watch at the moment given it's still evolving, but it appears that the > terms don't apply to source distributions of FF, just the binary. I know, just created this to keep some tracking and see the evolution of that. If this affects the binary only, then only www-client/firefox-bin would require to accept the license. > We do already have USE=telemetry and the expectations is that we can roll > more into that. Of course, if truly needed, we can add EULA to LICENSE, but > let's see first. If this also affects the source-code as well, USE=-telemetry might not be enough as could violate Mozilla Firefox ToS. I remember in the past, Gentoo had a USE=bindist to remove all Mozilla Firefox's assets and names, in order to keep the ebuild into @FREE.
(In reply to Pablo Cholaky from comment #2) > (In reply to Sam James from comment #1) > > The Firefox maintainers in Gentoo are aware of this. I believe the plan is > > to watch at the moment given it's still evolving, but it appears that the > > terms don't apply to source distributions of FF, just the binary. > > I know, just created this to keep some tracking and see the evolution of > that. > Understood - thanks! Just wanted to say it for the benefit of others too.
It's such a shitshow right now it's hard to make anything concrete out of it. I think it's realistic to target the implications of this change on 137 release - note Mozilla has declared they'll update ToS (again) for 137, wonder if it comes with a license update too. 136 will be released next week, and might be the ToS update isn't even included in this release yet as users are supposed to agree to it within Firefox. I haven't checked the sources yet, could be there's a configure option to accept/disable EULA check. And as sam hinted, toggling the 'telemetry' use flag disables "official" release branding from the built product which itself might disable the EULA check. But will need to check everything. I'd rather get everything done correctly once than go back-forth given new information might arise. So again, I'm _currently_ targeting this bug for the 137 release.
Actually the prefs we install by default to both source-built and -bin variant has "browser.EULA.override" set to true which may get rid of it. At least I didn't see anything in 136.0 yet, but they did say it'll get gradually rolled out and as I suspected, may only land in 137 earliest. Will see if the pref has to be wiped from firefox-bin then.
(In reply to Sam James from comment #1) > Of course, if truly needed, we can add EULA to LICENSE, but let's see > first. AFAICT this won't affect LICENSE. Terms of use are not a copyright license, whereas the right for redistribution of the code are granted by the existing free software licenses. Disclaimer: IANAL, TINLA.
(In reply to Ulrich Müller from comment #6) > AFAICT this won't affect LICENSE. Terms of use are not a copyright license, > whereas the right for redistribution of the code are granted by the existing > free software licenses. If the software is not free, it should not be categorized under @FREE licenses. From GNU.org: - The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). - The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2). - The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. If the developer imposes restrictions or adds conditions that limit the freedom of the software, then it does not fit into the @FREE category, specifically freedom 0. Terms of Use "is" a limitation that users must accept or reject like any copyright license.
(In reply to Pablo Cholaky from comment #7) > If the developer imposes restrictions or adds conditions that limit the > freedom of the software, then it does not fit into the @FREE category, > specifically freedom 0. > > Terms of Use "is" a limitation that users must accept or reject like any > copyright license. Is it? The user has not concluded any contract with Mozilla Foundation, so I don't see how that would be enforceable (beyond copyright law, which is about distribution).
(In reply to Ulrich Müller from comment #8) > > Is it? The user has not concluded any contract with Mozilla Foundation, so I > don't see how that would be enforceable (beyond copyright law, which is > about distribution). Mozilla might need to do something about that, in the same way people accept and agree Google ToS when downloading Chrome from their website. Just because you are downloading something from portage, it shouldn't exclude you from reading their terms or conditions, especially when the software takes information from the user without consent. About this specific case, Mozilla Terms of Use, they violates the @FREE license. When people use ACCEPT_LICENSE="-* @FREE", it should not allow you to install Mozilla Firefox as it breaks the free software definition. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/License_groups
(In reply to Pablo Cholaky from comment #9) > Just because you are downloading something from portage, it shouldn't > exclude you from reading their terms or conditions, I disagree. - The software is distributed under a free license. - Copyright law won't prevent the user from running the software. So, any additional terms could only be imposed by a contract, but the user hasn't signed any contract with them.
