Software EULAs

[Steve Hill]

There is a discussion currently going on in the fedora-list[1] as well as 
Ubuntu's Launchpad[2] about the introduction of an EULA in FireFox 3[3]. 
There is also a bug filed in Mozilla's bugzilla on the subject[4].

An EULA does, of course, contravene freedom 0 of the FSF's four freedoms 
(namely, the ability to use the software for any purpose without 
restriction), which brings the freeness of FireFox into question.

As a distribution founded on the principles of Free software, what is 
the Fedora Project's policy on the subject?  There is talk of Ubuntu 
dropping FireFox in favour of IceWeasel (which would have the same feature 
set as FireFox but without the EULA) - are there plans for Fedora to 
follow suit and treat FireFox in the same way as other non-Free software, 
such as non-Free drivers, etc.?

Whilst the signal to noise ratio on that Launchpad ticket is quite poor, 
there are some fairly good points raised and it is worth a read.


[1] https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2008-September/msg01755.html
[2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/269656
[3] http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/legal/eula/firefox3-en.html
[4] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=439604


  - Steve
    xmpp:steve at nexusuk.org   sip:steve at nexusuk.org   http://www.nexusuk.org/

      Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence