Ubuntu faces an EULA problem

Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 16 September 2008 05:14

Opinion and Analysis

When one installs a boxed set of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, there is a licence agreement which one has to agree to at the start - but then this is a commercial distribution. The same happens with the boxed sets of Mandriva and SUSE; however, in the case of the latter, one cannot deem it to be a standard any more as it is sold by Novell, a company that is in bed with Microsoft.

I have yet to see open source software, that is not sold  but freely downloadable, have an EULA. People who are part of the FOSS community often poke fun at companies like Microsoft which have onerous EULAs that one has to accept before installing software.

Now one of the best-known open source programs will have something similar - if the Ubuntu project gives in. The terms may be different - a Windows EULA, for example, strips away most of the common rights from an individual while the Firefox EULA is not half as bad - but the principle is the same.

Firefox has always been the default browser on Ubuntu. After the appearance of the EULA in alpha versions of Intrepid Ibex, there have been suggestions that Ubuntu adopt Epiphany, the browser that is developed by the GNOME project.

There is a quick solution - Ubuntu could go with IceWeasel instead. The Debian project would have no problem with that. But given the existing state of relations between the Ubuntu and Debian communities, it is unlikely that Shuttleworth will want to accept that solution.

When the appearance of the EULA was posted as a bug, Shuttleworth had this to say : "We do have the option to move away from Firefox (as you can see we have already invested in some of the work needed to have that alternative in abrowser). I am resolutely opposed to calling an unbranded firefox "Ubuntu Browser" (because we didn't write it) and I'm equally opposed to calling it "Iceweasel" (because our inability to agree with Mozilla is not also a rationale to belittle or demean them). I very much hope we won't have to use it as the default."

If the terms set down by the Mozilla Foundation are accepted, then it is likely that other projects which dot the open source landscape will follow suit. From there it is a short step to incorporating other onerous standards that make the whole idea of the term open source a joke.

Shuttleworth has been a trailblazer in many ways. It will be interesting to see what kind of solution he devises in order to avoid blurring the distinction between two distinctly different kinds of software and two philosophies which could not be more different.