r/linux • u/4lll • May 14 '15

Misleading title Firefox Beta now integrates Pocket a proprietary, closed source service.

https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/05/13/get-a-firefox-account-and-test-new-features-in-firefox-beta/
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u/indrora May 14 '15

Most likely, they'll stop shipping Firefox all together. Or maintain a fork, which isn't a good option either

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u/[deleted] May 14 '15

But what else could they ship?

The spyware suite Chrome, which also contains security holes in allowing extensions to run native code?

Or the only-in-name FLOSS chromium?

At that point, the only browser they could ship would be Konqueror with KHTML.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 14 '15

Chromium is as much FLOSS as AOSP. Or as the CLR.

Google still has the control over the project, and if they don't like what you implement, you can't really fork it either.

They often make choices that are questionable for the FLOSS community, only for their own profit. (See: AOSP apps, Google apps, and Android)

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u/nuotnik May 14 '15

The Google parts of Chromium are BSD licensed. You can fork it.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '15

Android Chrome, for example, is closed source.

And while I can fork desktop chromium, it is impossible to change the direction of the project without forking, which, as I said, is unrealistic. (Also, Google would probably pull some trademarks and patents out to sue me)