Comment 208 for bug 269656

I agree that Ubuntu needs to reflect the values of the broader
community, and decisions that are taken without a transparent community
process undermine that. At the same time, Ubuntu needs to be able to
engage effectively with companies that don't - and can't - operate
transparently. And we sometimes need to engage confidentially in order
to achieve our public goals.

For example, at the moment, we're in detailed negotiations with a
company that makes a lot of popular hardware to release their drivers as
free software - they are currently proprietary. It would not be possible
to hold those negotiations if every step of the way turned into a public
discussion. And yet, engaging with that company both to make sure Ubuntu
works with its hardware and also to move them towards open source
drivers would seem to be precisely in keeping with our community values.

In this case, we have been holding extensive, sensitive and complex
conversations with Mozilla. We strongly want to support their brand
(don't forget this is one of the few companies that has successfully
taken free software to the dragons lair) and come to a reasonable
agreement. We want to do that in a way which is aligned with Ubuntu's
values, and we have senior representatives of the project participating
in the dialogue and examining options for the implementation of those
agreements. Me. Matt Zimmerman. Colin Watson. Those people have earned
our trust.

It's all too easy to say "screw Mozilla we'll use Iceweasel". Well, IMO
that would be a weaselly thing to do. Mozilla and Firefox are enormous
contributors to the digital commons and we owe it to them to figure out
how to be supportive of what they are doing. There are limits to that
debt, but we are well within those limits so far.

We continue to push towards an implementation that meets Mozilla's
requirements and is smooth for our users. There have been some good
suggestions here. We do have the option to move away from Firefox (as
you can see we have already invested in some of the work needed to have
that alternative in abrowser). I am resolutely opposed to calling an
unbranded firefox "Ubuntu Browser" (because we didn't write it) and I'm
equally opposed to calling it "Iceweasel" (because our inability to
agree with Mozilla is not also a rationale to belittle or demean them).
I very much hope we won't have to use it as the default.

Mark