As is already being reported, Ubuntu will shortly release Ubuntu 6.10 ("Edgy Eft") and it will include Mozilla Firefox 2. Matt Zimmerman from Ubuntu has announced this on the ubuntu-devel mailing list, and anyone following their release process will have noticed this already too. As you may know, Mozilla's relationship with the Debian project has been an issue lately, and I'm sure that this announcement raises some more questions given that Ubuntu is based upon Debian. And so we've put together the following Q&A. Please do let me know should you have any other questions.
---
Q&A ON MOZILLA FIREFOX IN UBUNTU
Will Ubuntu be shipping Firefox?
Yes. Ubuntu 6.10 will include Firefox 2, just released this week by Mozilla. 
Is it a full and official Mozilla Firefox release?
Yes. Ubuntu will be shipping an official and supported version of Firefox to be fully branded as "Mozilla Firefox 2".
Is this the first Linux distribution to ship Mozilla Firefox?
Ubuntu will be the first Linux distribution to ship with Firefox 2. Red Hat, Novell and other distros have been working with Mozilla and currently ship an official and supported version of Firefox 1.5. We expect that they will update to Firefox 2 in due course.
I understand that Ubuntu is based upon Debian. Is that the same or different than the IceWeasel browser that Debian is shipping with their latest release?
It's different. The patches that Debian applied to the Mozilla source code (which then resulted in their IceWeasel product) are more significant in scope than those in what Ubuntu is shipping (and branding as an official Mozilla Firefox release). Firefox in Ubuntu represents a somewhat more modest set of divergences from original Mozilla source code.
What's different in the shipping Ubuntu version of Firefox than the proposed Debian version of Firefox (that didn't ultimately ship)?
Technically, changes include fixes to the User Agent string and the feed preview, a well as addressing issues of coherent branding. More significant than any specific difference in code, however, is Ubuntu's commitment to work together with Mozilla and our community on releases going forward to insure product quality and integrity.
Why are you working with Ubuntu when you wouldn't work with Debian?
We did try to work with Debian and would prefer a situation in which we work together. Ultimately, Debian took a position that was consistent with their own policies, and not compatible with some of the exceptions to Mozilla trademark policies that we offered. While we understand and respect their decision not to work with us under our branding guidelines, Mozilla believes that brands like Firefox are important for consumer protection. In any event, Ubuntu developers are working closely with Mozilla developers to insure product quality and features that are what users expect when they use Mozilla Firefox, which means that they'll ship (and will continue to ship) a fully branded version.
Should we expect different versions of browsers in Ubuntu and Debian in the future?
We don't know. This is within the purview of both Ubuntu and Debian. We have every intention of working with Ubuntu for the foreseeable future to deliver Mozilla Firefox in same manner as we do with other Linux distros such as Red Hat and Novell.
Does the same logic apply to Thunderbird and IceDove?
Yes.
'...Ubuntu developers are working closely with Mozilla developers to insure product quality...'
Really! Which company are you using? Progressive? Geiko?
;)
Posted by: Aero | October 26, 2006 at 07:01 PM
Marco:
1) Did I say the Debian build of Firefox was inferior or shoddy? No. Please go read it again. I was referring to a hypothetical product created by Nico. I have no idea whether the Debian build of Firefox is substandard (although I've read comments from some who think it is)--but it doesn't matter either way. You have to protect your trademarks and branding from the beginning if you want to have the legal ability to stop someone from abusing them in the future.
2) I never said "some Linux user" could affect a product's reputation. I'm not talking about end-users--I'm talking about an entity (an individual, a company, whatever) releasing an inferior version of a product and branding it the same as the original. Users will confuse it for the official version and blame the creators for the quality of the shoddy knock-off.
Posted by: Ron | October 26, 2006 at 07:31 PM
Ron:
Linus allows every distro to patch their Linux kernel with utter crack, without invoking trademark issues. Some distros use quite unstable patches, that might reflect badly on the quality of the Linux kernel. Do you see the kernel devs complain, ever? No.
You need to defend your trademark or lose it, true. However, as the owner of the trademark you decide how you enforce it. In my view, trying to micro-manage individual patches across distros is silly.
Forks should be encouraged, and people should automatically vote with their feet which fork is trustworthy - if Mozilla does a great job, people will look on their fork as the "official" one, just as people trust Linus's holy penguin pee, just because they trust his taste - not because he hunts down and kills any non-sanctioned fork that dares to call themselves "something-or-other-Linux".
I use Debian's Firefox, and never experienced any trouble with it. On the contrary, the changes they applied are what I expect from a distro - compliance with the rest of the system (like upgrading it with apt-get, properly dealing with FHS/multi-user systems etc). I clearly trust the Debian guys.
I also use Ubuntu's firefox, and its changes always seemed pretty similar to the Debian version to me.
I really dislike the tone of this post - "see, Ubuntu's been a good doggy. Now go fetch!". It implies Debian people are unreasonable/zealots/whatever. The way they've been maneuvered into looking like zealots really annoyed me. Debian does feed patches back to Mozilla, and is probably a major help in the open source world when it comes to porting and testing on different platforms.
As a simple Debian/Ubuntu/Firefox user with no stake in either side (as in - I don't know anyone on any side, I'm just a user), I must say this whole Mozilla marketing move had the complete opposite effect for me. I definitely have no sympathy any more for Mozilla's point of view.
I'd like to see the Mozillians respond to Mike Hommey's recent blog posts. Just claiming "Debian's version sucks" isn't very helpful. I'd like to know what they think is so bad about it. My guess is that any divergence, even if it's the right choice for the system in question, is "bad" in their eyes.
Posted by: nona | October 26, 2006 at 08:48 PM
/ Debian logo situation is considered a bug in debian and last I heard it is finally in the process of being solved (Branden Robinson's working on it IIRC). /
That is unlikely since as soon as that would happen their would forfeit their trademark.
/ Jon: no, we're not using --enable-official-branding. See /
He worded that incorrectly since what they broke was building without --enable-official-branding
/ i'd be interested if the mozilla guys have one single linux desktop at their office? /
Nope, they have dozens.
/ Debian does allow (and even provides) a version of its artwork for your mutant version. Mozilla does not do this. Case closed. /
Simply building Firefox creates a trademark-free version, building Debian (or their firefox fork) doesn't.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 27, 2006 at 12:56 AM
"Firefox in Ubuntu represents a somewhat more modest set of divergences from original Mozilla source code."
Why do you lie?
Why?
You think people can't check the fact themselves? Anyone can download Debian and Ubuntu patches and compare them. And anyone will find that Ubuntu applies *more* patches than Debian.
Posted by: Seo Sanghyeon | October 27, 2006 at 01:35 AM
Hello,
Ubuntu does apply the same patches as Debian (which you zealots have been calling buggy and unstable without even checking), plus some more.
The reason why they are getting to issue a release with those packages, which was denied to Debian, is twofold:
1) juste like Mozilla, the Ubuntu folks have no problems making exceptions to their principles if it serves their interest. So Firefox will get a special treatment in Ubuntu, and in return, Ubuntu is getting a special treatment as compared to Debian.
2) Mozilla's PR department wants to play Ubuntu against Debian. Given that Ubuntu is strong at PR, Mozilla will rather have them as allies. So now we have 2 classes of actors in open source: the "cool kids" and the others.
In summary, this is not a technical agreement. This is just a corporate agreement: we negociate based on politics behind closed doors, then we make PR together.
Mozilla is treating their distributors just like Microsoft is treating their OEM. No open source ethics here.
Cheers,
BC
Posted by: Baptiste | October 27, 2006 at 02:53 AM
just to add that the sentence:
"More significant than any specific difference in code, however, is Ubuntu's commitment to work together with Mozilla and our community on releases going forward to insure product quality and integrity."
is really a summit of corporate PR spin.
All this to just admit you are discriminating on people.
Disgusting!
Posted by: Baptiste | October 27, 2006 at 02:58 AM
Thanks to Mike Hommey for clarifying some common misunderstandings. I hope that the good people at Mozilla will read Hommey's clarifications carefully and write their own responses.
I'm not a developer, just a humble Debian and Firefox user (apparently to become a humble Iceweasel user ;). I've used Debian's versions of Firefox for over two years now and I can confirm that they work just fine -- they're certainly not inferior versions of Firefox.
Hopefully Mozilla will remain the upstream of Debian's (unofficial) version of Firefox (Iceweasel) and hopefully Mozilla will continue to accept patches from Debian, even though it looks like Debian will distribute Firefox under a different name (Iceweasel), because that would benefit everyone involved.
I have one question, though, concerning the relationship between Mozilla and Ubuntu: Mozilla has criticized Debian's policy of backporting security fixes to older versions of Firefox that Mozilla no longer supports. So what is Mozilla's stand to Ubuntu's LTS releases that will apparently support older versions of Firefox several years after Mozilla has dropped the official support?
Ubuntu supports the LTS releases for three years on desktops and five years on servers. Upgrading Firefox in these Ubuntu LTS releases would force other large-scale upgrades that risk breaking many applications and I don't think that Ubuntu is willing to take such risks in its "enterprise" product just to comply to Mozilla's release policy.
Posted by: Laika | October 27, 2006 at 04:56 AM
More significant than any difference in code is the fact MoFo licenced the logo non-free. If it were DFSG free Debian was happy to work with you on the other issues. Instead of recognising this point you've gone and FUDded it up. Between this and the fact you won't be emphasing the Freeness of Firefox 2, it makes me wonder what sort of community relations the Firefox part of MoCo is talking about.
Posted by: James | October 27, 2006 at 03:19 PM
/ More significant than any difference in code is the fact MoFo licenced the logo non-free. /
Trademarks (of which the logo is part of) are always non-free, otherwise they can't be a trademark.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 27, 2006 at 05:06 PM
And yet once more Ubuntu pulls further away from Debian.
They need to stops saying Ubuntu is Debian based. Ubuntu is Ubuntu and has very little to do with Debian. One more great reason to use Debian and not Ubuntu.
Iceweasel ftw.
Posted by: craigevil | October 27, 2006 at 06:31 PM
craigevil: I guess that depends on the person. For me it's one more great reason to use Ubuntu and not Debian.
Posted by: Ron | October 27, 2006 at 08:00 PM
"They need to stops saying Ubuntu is Debian based.
Fine. Then ubuntu should also stop using packages from Debian and Debian package management system.
"Ubuntu is Ubuntu and has very little to do with Debian."
That's simply bullshit.
Posted by: miksuh | October 27, 2006 at 08:47 PM
It does not matter if you Ubuntu fanatics like it or not, but eg. Ubuntu 6.10 would not exist whitout Debian.
Posted by: miksuh | October 27, 2006 at 08:53 PM
Read this article, read especially the lisencing part:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuForDebianDevelopers
As you can read, there is just about 2000 officially supported packages in the Ubuntu. Debian has about 18000 supported packages. A vast majority of packages in the Ubuntu universe repository are used unchanged from Debian, rebuilt in an Ubuntu build environment, and do not receive personal attention from an Ubuntu developer.
So whitout Debian, you would only have those ~ 2000 packages.
Posted by: miksuh | October 27, 2006 at 09:08 PM
And same applies to multiverse.
Posted by: miksuh | October 27, 2006 at 09:11 PM
/ As for the security patches I'm not aware of any Mozilla security patch that Debian has refused to apply. /
Between 1.0 (Gecko 1.7) and 1.5 (Gecko 1.8) there were fundamental security architecture improvements.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 28, 2006 at 11:51 AM
"The fact that they don't FORCE their users to upgrade to the latest version and instead give them a CHOICE to do is is NOT a security weakness as you are trying to imply."
You don't seem to use linux distributions often.
Posted by: habacus | October 29, 2006 at 02:39 PM
Asked of Mark, Chris and Mike
The solution in my mind is a simple no-brainer. Firefox’s debian package maintainer should work for Mozilla. Mozilla keeps patches in house, approves for quality and can release FireFox under its own name in the debian format.
Why is this not a viable option? Anyone?
Alternative 2: FirefoxD, Problem Solved, No Splitting up brand Name Recognition like the current IceWeasel solution, No Trademark Problem.
Why is this not a viable option? Mark? Moz? Debs?
Posted by: MrCopilot | October 30, 2006 at 01:11 PM
@ahci.c
If you use Linux trademark in your product, you must pay fee to LMI. More on this:
http://tinyurl.com/sp5wm
http://www.linuxmark.org/who_needs.html
http://www.linuxmark.org/fees.html
Posted by: ban | October 31, 2006 at 05:23 AM
How the fuck do you upgrade firefox and thunderbird? A new version came out and neither wants to upgrade saying there is no new upgrade WTF?
Posted by: Anonymous | December 31, 2006 at 12:12 PM
Three phrases should be among the most common in our daily usage. They are: Thank you, I am grateful and I appreciate.
Posted by: penis enlargement | February 07, 2007 at 07:44 PM
hello
Posted by: kolli kolli | March 12, 2007 at 08:43 PM
> Is it a full and official Mozilla Firefox release?
> Yes. Ubuntu will be shipping an official and supported version of Firefox to be fully branded as "Mozilla Firefox 2".
How many different "official and supported" releases of Mozilla Firefox 2 are there? I've installed the ColorZilla extension, which appears broken in Edgy. (Launchpad lists the ColorZilla bug as being #85382 with 17 other bugs marked as duplicates.) Everywhere I go, I read bug reports saying that it's only the Ubuntu version that breaks it. The solution always reads "Download the mozilla.com version," which would seem to mean they're not the same animal. A look at the file list from the mozilla.com tarball and the Ubuntu package file list shows a fairly different list... Any word on a resolution? I get the feeling installing the tarball will just break something else.
Posted by: Kevin Cole | May 07, 2007 at 07:25 AM
> Ubuntu will be the first Linux distribution to ship with Firefox 2.
Hey Chris, Novell's been shipping Firefox 2 in OpenSUSE 10.2 since December :-).
Posted by: Robert O'Callahan | May 22, 2007 at 01:59 AM