[Linux-aus] Firefox vs IceWeasel

[Marco Ostini <m.ostini@uq.edu.au>]

Greetings all,

Yesterday over lunch I had an excellent conversation with a friend who's 
well familiar with the Debian community. I respect his opinion and insight 
in these matters. The Debian community one way or another is important to 
us all.

We discussed the Firefox vs IceWeasel issue.

Like many of you, I'm a Linux advocate who's still required to support 
other platforms including Win32 & OSX. I use all 3 daily.

This puts me almost always in contact with many 'ordinary' users as well as 
lots of "Microsoft only" sysadmins. I work on a large heterogeneous network.

More than ever I'd like ordinary home users, as well as education and 
corporates and to use Linux - yes on the desktop.

I fear however that in the Firefox vs IceWeasel incident the GNU/Debian 
community are forgetting a very important issue (again) that threatens to 
undo a lot of the hard work done attempting to get non-technical users to 
trust FOSS.

Non-technical users by in large judge things on appearance and also hearsay 
evidence. In both regards IceWeasel is faring very badly indeed.

Add to this the release of IE7 today. What's that got to do with it you 
say? Firefox under Win32 is the first "stage" of trust of FOSS that users 
become comfortable with that forms a path of migration to distros like Ubuntu.

Why did MS bother with IE7 when IE6 still holds a monopoly?

"According to analysts, consumers increasingly identify the quality of an 
operating system with the quality of its browser and that makes a 
well-received browser important for Microsoft -- even if it is not sold as 
a separate product. "

http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-10-19T002943Z_01_N17242810_RTRIDST_0_TECH-MICROSOFT-EXPLORER.XML&rpc=66&type=qcna

The most basic way a "consumer" identifies a browser (where they spend a 
large portion of their time) is by it's name & appearance.

IceWeasel != Firefox

Most non-technical users on Win32 would prefer to use IE7 than bother about 
the lack of a familiar face (Firefox) on a linux desktop.

This will hamper migrations of users to linux distros especially Ubuntu, 
pure and simple.

Now, the geek in me is screaming out about all the technical issues and 
history relative to this serious case (as most likely many of you are by now).

These issues are core and need to be resolved, but I'm telling you a fork 
in the most recognised FOSS application on the planet is not going to help 
our cause one bit. To non-technical users it's a messy divorce where they 
already have a bias based on experience towards Firefox.

Would it be possible to encourage some 'linux' people from Google (who are 
very interested in the future health of Firefox I suspect and would have 
some influence on Mozilla community) to organise a meeting with some Debian 
people to eventually reach a compromise on both camps that might achieve:

  1) The name and logos of Firefox are preserved across platforms - Period
  2) Mozilla allow linux distros to update using the native package manager
  3) A more 'linux friendly' version of Firefox adhering to key 'character 
and usability' criteria maintained across all platforms

In my opinion it's important to maintain the recognition that Firefox 
currently enjoys among "ordinary users" who are in the process of 
developing trust in FOSS while being faithful to the values of truly free 
and well coded software.

"Ordinary users" include the Attorney General, your local Premier, Minister 
for communications, Prime Minister etc. People who we want to trust FOSS

What are your thoughts?

Cheers,
Marco
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