Firefox 303

When I installed the Alpha version of Intrepid on my laptop, I noticed that Firefox 3.02 came installed with it. It was nice to see that it was included as my Ubuntu desktop still had vr 3.01 on it and no official updates were available.
Today I find that Ubuntu has several updates available, and Firefox is one of them. However, I find that they have upgraded Firefox again, which brings it up to version 3.03. That's two updates in a short time.
It turns out that this update fixes a bug that was present in version 3.02, where "users were unable to retrieve saved passwords or save new passwords".

There has been a bit of controversy within the Ubuntu community lately about the Firefox user agreement and upcoming Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex due for release next month.
Mozilla has added a Firefox 3.0.2 end user license agreement (EULA) to its upcoming release, which has caused an uproar among many open source supporters.
Mark Shuttleworth explained the reasoning for this where users had started a bug entry for this EULA license "bug"

He writes:

Mozilla Corp asked that this be added in order for us to continue to call the browser Firefox. Since Firefox is their trademark, which we intend to respect, we have the choice of working with Mozilla to meet their requirements, or switching to an unbranded browser.

It's strongly our preference, and that of most of our users, to have Firefox as the browser in Ubuntu.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for Mozilla to have requirements and guidelines for the use of their trademark - we have the same for Ubuntu, and many other free software projects do the same. I would in fact consider it a best practice to have a good brand on a free software project, which means having trademark guidelines.

That said, I would not consider an EULA as a best practice. It's unfortunate that Mozilla feels this is absolutely necessary, but they do, and none of us are in a position to be experts about the legal constraints which Mozilla feels apply to them. We had extensive conversations with Mozilla in order to find the best possible way of meeting their requirements while preserving the flow of use of the system for our users.

I am somewhat frightened that Mozilla would require a EULA which is so
waffly and contains so little substance. I also fail to see how not
carrying Firefox branding breaks "the flow of use of the system". Recall
that much of the world uses Internet Explorer, and doesn't know of the
Firefox brand in the first place.

This EULA also says strange things - that other packages might have
other licenses, for example. Why is it saying that? No other package
states that. Does it perhaps refer to the Firefox installer that we've
never used and never will? The agreement also states that portions of
the source code are available - if it is in main it must all be
available. Many parts of this EULA seem irrelevant and unnecessarily
frightening.

I'm not sure how this will end, but I don't think that this will change the way that people use Ubuntu. Firefox with or without a EULA agreement will still be the browser of choice for many users. It may be rebranded with a new name, but people will still choose it over the other alternatives that are currently available.