I’ve been a part of a few companies that did it right.

Before COVID, the stand up room had no chairs, only stand up tables. One TV and you had 20 minutes. Stand ups were back to back.

The most efficient use of my time as both an engineer and a people leader because you were forced to stay on task.

No bull shit. Just “I did x. I’m stuck on y. I’m waiting on z.”

Even more important that someone they liked and someone they thought liked them lied to them.

As of today, the latest Firefox Version 135.0.1 Binaries are released under MPL 2, which is open source.

Whenever the terms are implemented, the Terms of Use will replace the MPL for the binaries. Open source has a strict definition and goes beyond source code.

The Terms of Use, as current proposed, would violate #5 (“No discrimination against Persons or Groups”) as the TOU allows for Mozilla to terminate your use of Firefox for any reason.

As a result, their binary moves from Open Source via the MPL to Source Available, via a proprietary license.

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

If conservatives become convinced they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.

These two quotes sit pinned in my phone clipboard. They are used with regular frequency.

Because I am but one man. 😂

Waterfox was what I noticed first. If waterfox didn’t work out, it’s next. Followed by ladybird.

Subbed! And made the first post!

There was a post made my Mozilla years ago (I’m too lazy to find it). It was in the shadow of Chrome getting more scummy. Anyway, paraphrasing horribly, the idea was that the humble web browser was starting to become an increasingly personal decision. It represents you in ways that many people may not fully appreciate, comprehend, or understand. Your browser history tells people what you like, what you are afraid of. Increasingly, it tells corporations and governments who you talk to, where you’re going, and what you’re up to.

It’s why it’s important for a browser to be built for people, not for corporations.

It’s so sad to see how far Mozilla has gone from that stance.

So I get how challenging and annoying changing a browser is because in many ways, it’s you. It’s who you are. But, like in life, sometimes we must choose to leave the friends who bring us down. It hurts, it sucks. But it’s the way of life.

I’ve spent a good part of this morning switching things over to Waterfox. It’s not perfect. There are gaps and for some reason, I can port over Chrome and Edge profiles but NOT firefox profiles. But sometimes a fresh start is good too.

The privacy centric way for Mozilla to have address this would have been to:

• acknowledge laws in certain countries have changed
• Due to those new laws, the definition of “sell” has changed and Firefox may no longer be in compliance with their desire to keep your data private
• Commit their desire to take the necessary steps to keep new versions of Firefox in line with their original vision
• update the “we will not sell” definition to within the jurisdiction of the United States, or indicate that the definition of sell may be different in different jurisdictions
• make the necessary extensions to jurisdictions where they were “selling” user data, self reporting where necessary

Mozilla is changing the license used for the Firefox executable/binary. The TOS will be the governing license over Firefox, the branded browser executable. It will no longer be open source, as defined by the Open Source Initiative, as users are no longer free to use the software however they want. Firefox will now be source available.

The source code for the browser, is (at least as of this comment) FOSS under the MPL2 license. People are free to recompile the browser under a different name (e.g. Librewolf, Waterfox, etc.).

This is not FUD. I read through the new TOS, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy. Since the browser executable was governed under the MPL2, there was little concern from the open source community. I made my judgement from those documents alone.

Forks of Firefox is fine. Only their binary is subject to the TOS. The source code remains under MPL2

Firefox is not a legal entity needing a license. Mozilla is.

Firefox is a product, not a service.

When I write notes in a book, I do not need to give the manufacturer of that book a license for my notes. If I mail that book to a friend, I do not need to give a license for that book to the post office.

The only other software that I can think of that has taken a similar stance on TOS vs an open license is Microsoft and their VS Code product. Precompiled executables are license under a non-free (libre) license while the source code of VS Code remains under the MIT license.

The original license of Firefox MPL2 allow end users to freely use the browser, with no license needed to give to Mozilla. Thousands of open source software who all use GPL, MPL, MIT, et al. allow users to use their software however they want. The proposed TOS does not and you must abide by their Acceptable Use Policies.

Even if they require a license due to some legal reason, there is simply no reason why the license has to be a non-exclusive, perpetual license. If it really as they claim “to help you navigate the internet”, then the terms should explicitly say that, and not make it implicit.

The fact is Mozilla doesn’t need a license for me to operate Firefox locally. Any copyright claim they are making is in bad faith because anything you type into the browser would be covered under fair use. They have yet to convince me why they need a license for me to operate a browser fully locally.

The most likely reason why they are changing the license is because they want to start training AI data based on your browser habits. They may not be doing it now and they may say they have no plans to do it in the future. But the TOS, as currently written, gives them permission to do just that.

The only rule I have an “issue” with is rule #3.

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

Only one side cares about hypocrisy and it isn’t conservatives. Pointing it out doesn’t really provide meaningful parody, IMO.

I think rule 5 should be clarified that there should be no news links. Memes to current events, I suspect, would be welcome.

That seems really round-about.

Just:

import Money

Money.make('rain')

Anyone that tries to tell you that they can run a government like a business will fail in doing both.

It’s not hypocrisy.

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

with facts and numbers

Yeah…this one is sadly on brand

Alert fatigue.

This isn’t really efficient because when v2 gets updated now you have to update the translation layer as well.

Any improvements you made in v2 would likely not translate.

Essentially the best way is to provide users with an incentive to switch. Perhaps a new feature or more requests.

If you have a major version change, it means that old API calls will break against the new API, assuming they are accurately following semver.