17 September 2008, 15:48

Mozilla Chief apologises for Ubuntu EULA

"We've made a giant error" admitted Mitchell Baker, CEO of Mozilla Corporation, responding to the controversy over the appearance of an End User License Agreement (EULA) when a user starts Firefox for the first time on the current test versions of Ubuntu Linux.

Baker picked out three things that she believed Mozilla had failed to do. The content of the EULA was wrong and should have been clear that Firefox was goverened by open source licenses, rather than Mozilla's standard EULA displayed by downloads. The way the EULA was presented had issues; this is believed to be a reference to the "Click to agree" element of the EULA, which people objected to. The EULA also mentioned services from Mozilla as part of the agreement, which were inappropriate for software being distributed under open source licences.

According to Baker, Mozilla had a more appropriate text for browsers in open source distributions but this did not get to Ubuntu and other distributors. A revised licence text is now online.

(djwm)

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