Firefox is good too, but good or not, I don’t have much of a choice. I am forced to use it because Ubuntu doesn’t allow me to easily install it’s competitor Iceweasel.

It’s not really about branding and you have too much business experience not to know that.

Debian didn’t want to change the brand. Debian wanted to make changes to the functionality of Firefox which affected the Mozilla Corporation’s business model. Google needed a browser to be compatible with their web services ( Google mail etc. ) and they couldn’t rely on their rival Microsoft being helpful with regards to Internet Explorer. What was the solution? They poured money and resources into Firefox and the Mozilla foundation lapped it up - but there was a price to pay. Mozilla lost a little of their independence. I only need to see which the default search engine is on Firefox to know that.

Debian wanted to cut out some of the corporate built in defaults and because of the open license the only way the Mozilla corporation could stop them was by calling them on the brand. So GNU forked the code and created Iceweasel, mostly the same Firefox code base with some of the corporate crud cut out and in some cases replaced.

It wasn’t about icons or brand.

Ubuntu is basking in a warm glow at the moment but that will change if you don’t allow your userbase to make their own choices.

Ubuntu is a fantastic bundle of software and I am glad it offers me the opportunity to install non free components if I choose, but it is very disappointing that it does not also give me the opportunity to install the ‘free’ versions of software which I would prefer.

I look forward to having the choice of installing Iceweasel and Icedove in future Ubuntu editions - if your arrangement with the Mozilla foundation prevents you from allowing this, let us know.

Someone mentioned that the icons and marketing/branding of firefox should be as available for reuse as the code itself. But think about the possible ramifications of that. If a windows user decides to try linux, looks around, and gets some random distribution (think special use distros like dsl, etc.) they could think “Oh, thats what Linux is about” and walk away disappointed. That is just what Firefox is trying to avoid.

They have made some really great software, and a powerful web browser continues to bridge the gap between the linux and windows desktops. If everybody and his brother could make a “firefox” any way they wanted, the browsers popularity would be damaged, as well as the image of linux and open source in some circles. I for one am glad that such a great program is often a windows user’s “first taste” of open source. A slow, steady migration has begun, lets get behind the brands that make linux shine. That will only make free software better in the end.

Hm these viral blog spiders sure do get around.
depositing their advertising vermin
in inappropriate spaces ;-(
(It’s such a desperate act that - cyber squatting one’s irrelevant links on someone else’s cyber-plot…
Just like spam….must be the Lowest life forms of the cyber marketing food chain who do this…)

get yourself a better editor/blog checker/blog gatekeeper, Mark