Comment 0 for bug 83118

Binary package hint: firefox

This is NOT a duplicate of bug 22639. It is about the recently committed fix for bug 68180. The official Firefox icons are not available under an open source license.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open Firefox
2. Type "about:license" and click Go
3. Read the text at the bottom of the page: "Image files containing the trademarks and logos of the Mozilla Foundation, which may not be reproduced without permission. (Copyright ©2004-2006 The Mozilla Foundation. All Rights Reserved.)"

I am NOT claiming that the application is non-free because the name is trademarked. (There are lots of open source applications whose names are protected by trademark.) This bug is NOT claiming that the application icons are non-free because they are trademarked. The application icons are non-free because they are Copyright (c) 2004-2006 The Mozilla Foundation, All Rights Reserved. The fact that Canonical can distribute these icons at all is due to a special arrangement with Mozilla. These rights are specific to Canonical and are not automatically transferred to derivative distributions ( http://www.ubuntu.com/download/derivatives ).

Therefore this package should not be in the "main" repository.

Possible resolutions:

1. Move Firefox package to "restricted" repository
2. Move Firefox package to "multiverse" repository
3. Remove Firefox package from Ubuntu altogether

I'd vote for option 1. It's the least disruptive solution, and it would allow Ubuntu to continue shipping Firefox by default without enabling additional repositories.

Note that option 4 ("ignore the crazy guy filing bug reports against Firefox") is really quite unfair to derivative distributions, which have an expectation that packages in the "main" repository are modifiable and redistributable without upstream permission.