@mozillaofficial decided to add "Terms of Use" to #Firefox.
If you just asked "WTF?", welcome to the club.
Of course, this doesn't make sense, it couldn't be just like that... so I went on and read the terms. The trick is specifically on this bit:
"These Terms only apply to the Executable Code version of Firefox, not the Firefox source code."
So sure, Firefox is still the Free Software codebase you were used to, only now if you want to use not the code but Mozilla's distributed binaries, you'll do so while also agreeing to some Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
The trick is, of course, to not use their binaries. In practice, things are a bit trickier. Ubuntu, for instance, was more than happy to ditch their self-compiled Firefox packages and use Mozilla-provided snaps instead.
But trickier or not... well, Mozilla has just made an unhappy user base unhappier - and I hope they reap what they are sowing.
@sarahjamielewis https://mastodon.social/@sarahjamielewis/114072293410465140
@mozillaofficial in the meantime updated their news item to add this "explanation" regarding one of the items within the terms that has been criticized:
"We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example."
In the explanation, they don't tell us -what- is that "some basic functionality" they refer to, or why would Mozilla need to use information typed into Firefox, for example.
The "official conversation" is happening here:
There they tell users that "You stay in control". Unfortunately, their new Terms of Use say that:
"Every once in a while, Mozilla may decide to update these Terms. We will post the updated Terms online. We will take your continued use of Firefox as acceptance of such changes."
No matter how common this has become over the past years, this is quite unacceptable, and Firefox users deserve better from Mozilla. The fact that they can unilaterally change the terms and users are automatically bound to them (as soon as they use the browser again - even if they're using it to open the document where they can see the date on the terms!) is not a fair agreement - and works against the claim that "You stay in control".
I sincerely hope that the folks at @mozillaofficial who made that decision feel the stinging shame that comes with betraying a user base.
I've been using Firefox for close to 20 years and I feel like a close friend has turned on me.
@marado @mozillaofficial @sarahjamielewis snaps were annoying anyway, always installing updates while leaving the old instance running, but removing it from task switcher. I guess I'll go back to building my own.
@marado @mozillaofficial @sarahjamielewis Self-compiled Firefox doesn't help here. If you want to call it Firefox, you still have to have an agreement with Mozilla and abide by their rules.
You'd have to take the codebase, do necessary changes, compile it, and call it e.g. Iceweasel.