September 16th, 2008
Mozilla admits that Firefox EULA is flawed
Following the concerns expressed by the Ubuntu community over the Firefox EULA, Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of Mozilla, has admitted that there may be no need for the browser to have an EULA and an open source license.
“Initially when we first shipped Firefox the idea of shipping Firefox under a binary source code license seemed odd so we created a EULA and we’re now coming to the conclusion that is not necessary,” said Baker. “So the license agreement that we’ve been working on will now say, ‘dear end user you’re using FOSS software and here are the open source licenses to look at if you’d like too and enjoy them.”
So, what’s the alternative? It seems that Baker isn’t too sure:
“There is a need for something, something to explain the license I’m not sure I would call it a EULA because that has a meaning to many people of adding restrictions to software and we won’t be doing that,” Baker said. “We’ll be having a license agreement much as Red Hat has a license agreement that says the software is available under the GPL and don’t use our trademarks etcetera. So we’ll have a license agreement but we won’t think of it as a EULA.”
Good to hear that Mozilla are listening to the concerns of the open source community.
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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