CosmicTurtle0

I love the idea of a Lemmy ambassador but absolutely loath the idea of going back to reddit.

We're better off doing better SEO on join-lemmy.org and improving onboarding.

Mozilla is changing the license used for the Firefox executable/binary. The TOS will be the governing license over Firefox, the branded browser executable. It will no longer be open source, as defined by the Open Source Initiative, as users are no longer free to use the software however they want. Firefox will now be source available.

The source code for the browser, is (at least as of this comment) FOSS under the MPL2 license. People are free to recompile the browser under a different name (e.g. Librewolf, Waterfox, etc.).

This is not FUD. I read through the new TOS, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy. Since the browser executable was governed under the MPL2, there was little concern from the open source community. I made my judgement from those documents alone.

Fun fact: almost every news and radio outlet uses NWS forecasts.

Not sure how much longer that site will stay online.

Yeah sorry. I saw your comment and edited mine and forgot to add the "edit" reason. My bad.

Forks of Firefox is fine. Only their binary is subject to the TOS. The source code remains under MPL2

Firefox is not a legal entity needing a license. Mozilla is.

Firefox is a product, not a service.

When I write notes in a book, I do not need to give the manufacturer of that book a license for my notes. If I mail that book to a friend, I do not need to give a license for that book to the post office.

The only other software that I can think of that has taken a similar stance on TOS vs an open license is Microsoft and their VS Code product. Precompiled executables are license under a non-free (libre) license while the source code of VS Code remains under the MIT license.

The original license of Firefox MPL2 allow end users to freely use the browser, with no license needed to give to Mozilla. Thousands of open source software who all use GPL, MPL, MIT, et al. allow users to use their software however they want. The proposed TOS does not and you must abide by their Acceptable Use Policies.

Even if they require a license due to some legal reason, there is simply no reason why the license has to be a non-exclusive, perpetual license. If it really as they claim "to help you navigate the internet", then the terms should explicitly say that, and not make it implicit.

The fact is Mozilla doesn't need a license for me to operate Firefox locally. Any copyright claim they are making is in bad faith because anything you type into the browser would be covered under fair use. They have yet to convince me why they need a license for me to operate a browser fully locally.

The most likely reason why they are changing the license is because they want to start training AI data based on your browser habits. They may not be doing it now and they may say they have no plans to do it in the future. But the TOS, as currently written, gives them permission to do just that.

AccuWeather has been begging and lobbying for this for years. They are poised to profit from this.

To paraphrase an impeached president:

When a corporation does it, it's not illegal.

Edit: corrected the impeachment status of the president making the quote.

I feel for Ashley here. She likely had no say in the matter and is being tasked to defend this change.

There is only one way to fix this short term which is to roll back the TOS.

Long term would be to guarantee to keep the MPL as the governing license for both the source code and executable.

Acceptable solution would be severely limit the license users would have to give to Mozilla, both time bound and use bound.

you hereby grant us a ~~nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide~~ limited, royalty-free license, used for the duration explicitly necessary to allow Firefox ~~to use that information to help you~~ navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate ~~with your use of Firefox~~, not to exceed execution duration of the browser, or one day, whichever is shorter.

But again, absolutely no license should be necessary. The browser is not a legal entity and I should not need to give Mozilla a license for my data.

This is exactly why I don't believe a single word they say about this new TOS.

Their MPL2 was perfectly fine. Moving their executable to a proprietary license with less freedoms was not going to go well.

Remember that racism has no age limit. These people will blame immigrants and be glad that their social security paid for their deportation.

Unedited, streamed live.

Though this does remind me of that asshole and wife abuser Steven Crowder bailing from a debate with Sam Seder.

Seder took steps to make sure Steven was available and couldn't just say, "oh I got a thing", used Ethan from H3h3 to rope a dope him.

And then came the showdown and Steven bailed.