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F-Droid Dropping Firefox

f-droid.org

41–50 of 69 posts

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#41
post #19

They aren't really dropping Firefox, they are just dropping the official build for a custom one: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.fenn... It's no different that Debian with Iceweasel.

Not so correct. debian's Iceweasel is a little squabble about the logo not being licensed correctly. they only divert official version to add the -debianXXX when they backport security patches on the stable branch. They never removed anything. apart from branding. They even upstreamed the branding agnostic flags so they don't have to change even that! FDroid's fork is now a move against binary blobs. And copious trac…

The logo copyright licensing was fixed years ago. The reason Debian still ships Iceweasel is that they do not have permission to use the Firefox trademarks. IIRC, to get permission, they would either have to use unmodified binaries as shipped by Mozilla or submit every build to Mozilla for approval. Something like that. In fact I was surprised that F-Droid was able to ship something called "Firefox".

You seem to be implying that Debian's Iceweasel package contains binary blobs. That shouldn't be the case, could you clarify that please? It's true though that Debian doesn't have policies about software using non-free network services and user tracking.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#42
post #29

Currently these Mozilla domains are blocked in our internal networks. Not all of them are data-collecting services, but it's better to be safe than sorry: self-repair.mozilla.* tiles.services.mozilla.* tiles.*.services.mozilla.* pfs.mozilla.* snippets.mozilla.* fxfeeds.mozilla.* services.addons.mozilla.* crash-stats.mozilla.* *.data.mozilla.* versioncheck-bg.addons.mozilla.* fhr.cdn.mozilla.* sendto.mozilla.* push.se…

Some of those sites are used by the addons service to keep addons up to date, and by blocking them you potentially prevent updates.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#43
post #38
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a political agenda and they probably don't know that they are doing it. Ah, the old good FUD. Anything done on Mozilla's scale has political agenda as complex problems include multiple stakeholders and conflicting interests. Perhaps you'll be able to shed some light on the negative externalities of Mozilla's agenda? And could you name the people who know what they are doing?

I'm not saying there's a conspiracy or covert political agenda. There is no allegation to set forth they're aligned with anything. The organization is reactive to the whims of external political / social pressures, namely that of social media, and they cave to them. They're not engaging in self-introspection, responding based upon core values we would expect, namely, the hacker ethic. The hacker ethic is about merit.…

>core values we would expect Who are the "we" you are speaking for?

>the hacker ethic. You are trying to impose your own, personal values, a subset of vaguely defined hacker ethic, on Mozilla. However, Mozilla's stated "mission is to promote openness, innovation & opportunity on the Web."

>The hacker ethic is about merit. It's about protecting ideas and valuing curiosity, wit and cleverness to spur innovation. Ideas and opinions, especially if unpopular, would be tolerated - which is in essence is diversity.

This is your personal interpretation. Let's compare your interpretation with the opinion of a person who is an epitome of hackers.

Richard Stallman describes:

"The hacker ethic refers to the feelings of right and wrong, to the ethical ideas this community of people had—that knowledge should be shared with other people who can benefit from it, and that important resources should be utilized rather than wasted."

"...Some hackers care about ethics—I do, for instance—but that is not part of being a hacker, it is a separate trait... "

You don't get to define hacker ethic and attack Mozilla from your personal ideological platform.

>...down to how you want to raise your family...

The whole controversy originated from the fact that Eich donated funds to the campaign designed to reduce freedom of expression(marriage) of particular group of people(LGBT). No-one challenged his opinions on raising his family.

>puts great engineers homeless and on the street? If they could do it to Eich - they could do it to everyone.

Really? Homeless and on the street? Nice fear mongering you've got there. Who is an agitator now?

EDIT. Damn, it seems that I've fed a troll.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#44

I see no evidence that Firefox is being dropped (at this point in time). - This page doesn't explain that it is being dropped [0,1]. - there is no signals from the F-Droid team that I can see that it is dropping firefox [e.g. on #fdroid at freenode]. - The metadata for the F-Droid build server still includes Firefox [2] [0] - https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.fire... [1] - https://f-droid.org/wi…

When I look at your link 0, it says "Note that this package is planned to be dropped from the F-Droid repo soon. Please consider using Fennec FDroid instead to be sure of continued update support." That certainly makes it sound like the Firefox package is being dropped.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#45
post #19

They aren't really dropping Firefox, they are just dropping the official build for a custom one: https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.mozilla.fenn... It's no different that Debian with Iceweasel.

Not so correct. debian's Iceweasel is a little squabble about the logo not being licensed correctly. they only divert official version to add the -debianXXX when they backport security patches on the stable branch. They never removed anything. apart from branding. They even upstreamed the branding agnostic flags so they don't have to change even that! FDroid's fork is now a move against binary blobs. And copious trac…

> FDroid's fork is now a move against binary blobs. And copious tracking. They are taking back firefox (pun intended). From the announce: "It removes the proprietary binaries out of the official builds." [emphasis mine]

What's the nearest thing for general Linux? I'm guessing Tor Browser without Tor?

I didn't see anything specific in Arch/AUR repositories.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#46
post #29

Currently these Mozilla domains are blocked in our internal networks. Not all of them are data-collecting services, but it's better to be safe than sorry: self-repair.mozilla.* tiles.services.mozilla.* tiles.*.services.mozilla.* pfs.mozilla.* snippets.mozilla.* fxfeeds.mozilla.* services.addons.mozilla.* crash-stats.mozilla.* *.data.mozilla.* versioncheck-bg.addons.mozilla.* fhr.cdn.mozilla.* sendto.mozilla.* push.se…

Some of those sites are used by the addons service to keep addons up to date, and by blocking them you potentially prevent updates.

You can always go to Tools -> Add-ons and mass-update all your add-ons manually at once (Click on the gear icon drop down and select "Check for Updates"). These rules will not block that.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#47
post #43
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying there's a conspiracy or covert political agenda. There is no allegation to set forth they're aligned with anything. The organization is reactive to the whims of external political / social pressures, namely that of social media, and they cave to them. They're not engaging in self-introspection, responding based upon core values we would expect, namely, the hacker ethic. The hacker ethic is about merit.…

>core values we would expect Who are the "we" you are speaking for? >the hacker ethic. You are trying to impose your own, personal values, a subset of vaguely defined hacker ethic, on Mozilla. However, Mozilla's stated "mission is to promote openness, innovation & opportunity on the Web." >The hacker ethic is about merit. It's about protecting ideas and valuing curiosity, wit and cleverness to spur innovation. Ideas…

"Why I won't mourn Mozilla" by Eric Raymond

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6688

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#48
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of those sites are used by the addons service to keep addons up to date, and by blocking them you potentially prevent updates.

You can always go to Tools -> Add-ons and mass-update all your add-ons manually at once (Click on the gear icon drop down and select "Check for Updates"). These rules will not block that.

Most people will not do that; they (sensibly) expect automatic updates.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#49
post #47
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>core values we would expect Who are the "we" you are speaking for? >the hacker ethic. You are trying to impose your own, personal values, a subset of vaguely defined hacker ethic, on Mozilla. However, Mozilla's stated "mission is to promote openness, innovation & opportunity on the Web." >The hacker ethic is about merit. It's about protecting ideas and valuing curiosity, wit and cleverness to spur innovation. Ideas…

"Why I won't mourn Mozilla" by Eric Raymond http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6688

Eich was judged on the merit of his work and found wanting. At the time he was ousted, he was the CEO of Mozilla, which is both a leadership and a PR job. His views made it difficult for a number of talented people to work for him, and even more, those views made him a liability to the company's brand.

Re: F-Droid Dropping Firefox

#50
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why I won't mourn Mozilla" by Eric Raymond http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6688

Eich was judged on the merit of his work and found wanting. At the time he was ousted, he was the CEO of Mozilla, which is both a leadership and a PR job. His views made it difficult for a number of talented people to work for him, and even more, those views made him a liability to the company's brand.

You're correct, being the CEO, he has a higher level of stringency and scruples to adhere to.

But then, there are a lot of Republican CEO's for publicly traded stock companies. Frankly there are also one's that attend campaign dinners and go to yacht clubs. I highly doubt that prevents people from working for them. In America, workers are focused on the task at hand, CEO's don't have any care (to judge against) the private lives of their own talent.

If you are reading this and are this or that - don't be dissuaded from working for a corporation just because the CEO's political beliefs. People are blowing this totally out of proportion.

Unless you're directly in contact with the CEO and he's spewing hate (rare) you are ok.

(I upvoted you.)

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