Mozilla enabled ads in Firefox and they're active in Fedora

[Petr Viktorin]

On 11/20/2014 04:44 PM, Martin Stransky wrote:
> On 11/20/2014 03:28 PM, Petr Viktorin wrote:
>> It's not about tracking per se – I'm fine with e.g. opt-in usage reports
>> that feed into research for making a better browser – that benefits me
>> (in a very indirect and miniscule way, but in the end the purpose is for
>> the *user's* benefit).
>> Ads are a feature that only benefits the upstream and the companies that
>> pay for the ads. From my (user's) perspective, there is no reason to
>> have them on my system. There is no benefit to me from this feature.
>> None at all. This is a major difference from Gnome search providers,
>> which I personally don't like either, but I can see how they might be
>> good for someone.
>
>  From the user perspective Mozilla provides you a high-quality browser
> for free (free as a beer). But they have to pay engineers for the work.

Every piece of Fedora is like that, and yet I don't see any other 
software doing useless-for-me opt-out tracking.
(Also, who am I paying? All authors of Firefox, or only the Mozilla 
employees?)

> There are some other options there. To have free (basic) and paid
> (extended) Firefox versions - Red Hat goes this way. Or direct donation
> from users like Wikipedia. Mozilla chose the Ads way and you may or may
> not accept it and you exactly know what's the (asked) price.

The question is, will *Fedora* accept it on my behalf?  Will Fedora no 
longer shield me from the ways of the Android developer?

> That's still much better than Chrome where the price (user tracking) is
> hidden and you can't disable it.

Well, you can – the Chromium source is out there. The only catch is that 
Chromium is not built primarily for users, but for the developers' benefit.

> You can remove the Ads from Firefox by one click so no big deal here.
> The same case is using Addblock to block Ads on Web. But you're giving
> nothing back then.

Is there now an *obligation* to give back? Because there never has been 
such a thing.

I personally give quite a lot back, not to Mozilla specifically but to 
open-source community as a whole – but it's not because I have an 
obligation to do it nor because I'm forced to do it.
The recend trend of "open source" guiding me to become part of some 
monetization scheme saddens me.

> Every user likes the best software for free (as a beer), but there isn't
> any magic wand which makes it up for you.

The process which gave us Firefox so far seemed quite fine. I'm sure it 
was no easy wand-waving, but so far it has been for the user first.
Sure, Mozilla did not organize as many events or hire so many employees 
or get to dabble in the phone business. But the result is, so far, great.

I want my software to work for *me*; the free as in beer part is secondary.

-- 
Petr³