I had a controversial thought

[elija]

Debian.

I'm loving using it. It's fast and stable and as it is Lenny, the software is fairly
up to date. You might be thinking that so far this isn't very controversial, but
wait for it...

Debian are kind of like Microsoft. Their way or the highway.

It was Iceweasel that made me think about this. Firefox is a great browser but
they release thing too quickly and that doesn't do for Debian so they remove
it and replace it with their own browser. Kinda like Microsoft.

However, they are not exactly like Microsoft because they are not a money
grabbing corporation peddling tat.

I must be bored because I am wondering if I should post that on a Debian
forum or list and watch the explosion

[daark.child]

Haha, posting on the Debian forum will result in you getting flamed. AFAIK the whole Iceweasel thing started off because Mozilllas logos are not "free" in the Debian definition of free. Personally I think its a waste of time and effort, but hey, its their distro and they can do as they please with it. The politics is what puts me off using Debian although its a very good distro.

[bigtomrodney]

I disagree more strongly with IceWeasel than they disagree with Firefox. Disclaimer: This is all my personal opinion:

I think with some software the branding is important. Perhaps with all software. The code is free which is what's important. You can't ship a recognised secure browser if people are free to patch it and release it with bad code or exploits built in. Firefox is mainstream enough now that you'd Dad probably knows about it. All Mozilla ask is that if you patch it yourself that you don't use the Firefox branding. Is that so bad? They are protecting the name and image of the browser after all so that we can all rely on the 'fox.

Debian were upset because they wanted to patch it themselves but they found these terms too restrictive. They were still allowed to call it Firefox, just not use the logo. There is even a compiler option that automatically does the work for you if you don't like the idea of the branding. So I think this is another case of stubborness that does not benefit anyone.

Sorry. Rant over. I really like Debian but there are some things I don't like about it and this is the most significant one. This is certainly a case of duplication of work that could be blocking work on other worthy projects. But then again developers work on what they want to...

[fingal]

Debian's a hell of a good project, but nothing's perfect. I reckon that in any group of people you will get conflicts and differences. Life would be incredibly dull otherwise!

So it is with Debian. Having ideals sometimes means having to put up with being labelled as a zealot, but hey! We have Debian, we have all those repos if we want them.

But yes: I think it's a storm in a teacup. Actually I think it's quite funny: 'IceWeasel'.... ha ha! It's amazing how passions can run so high in the world of FOSS, but interesting too.

[elija]

The thing I read (found in passing) seemed to suggest that Firefox
wasn't stable enough - with the release schedule they have to
be included.

It won't stop me using Debian - I just uninstall IceWeasel, I agree
with fingal, a great name and install Firefox at least then my
extensions work!

[bigtomrodney]

Well said Fingal. In fact just so my last post isn't taken out of context, I'd like to add that Debian is an excellent distribution. I also happen to think that apt-get is the best package management tool in use (though I won't push that one too hard either in case anyone disagrees )

[fingal]

As an aside, I have my own controversial view. I've used a lot of browsers now, dating back - for example - to version 4 of IE. As soon as I learned about Firefox I jumped onboard, loving the idea of open source browsing.

I've never used a single browser of any kind on any platform that was 100% stable. Web browsers are like shifting sand: okay for a while, but then suddenly you find a bug: usually relating to a single activity like - in my case - using Flash.

I've submitted no end of bug reports using Firefox's automated feedback tool, and I'm sure other people do just the same.

As an end user I can detect few differences between open and closed source browsers, apart from a warm yummy feeling from using FF because it's open source. I like the way FF 'feels', and that it's standards compliant, but I don't love any browser just yet. They're just tools for viewing the web...

Browsers must be hugely complex in terms of code: scary stuff!

As for Debian; I see it as the heart and soul of open source OSes.