> I see a big danger in this. It implies that free software can be > malicious to the user and still be called free software.
You make a similar point to the one RMS makes in the Ubuntu article Magic Banana linked to, which I encourage you to read if you haven't already. It is for this reason that he suggests people shun Ubuntu, while acknowledging that they had not infringed on user freedom to modify the software, which is why Trisquel was able to remove the spyware features. I was not defending Mozilla's privacy violations by calling it free software. I was clarifying the terms we are using so that our criticisms are accurate. > normally free is a > associated with ethical, so that is the expectation. Freedom (in the general sense) is an aspect of ethics that in my view does include privacy. However, because RMS coined the term 'free software', it is generally associated with his definition, which is very specific. > That's why I mention freedom 0 in the comments. Again, RMS's definitions are very specific, and I think you misunderstand his definition of freedom 0. If I give you a shovel that is too long for you to use comfortably, perhaps you can not use the shovel as you wish in its current form. It may seem that this infringes on freedom 0, and you may get frustrated if I were to refuse to make the shovel shorter. However, I am simply refusing to perform labor I do not wish to perform. I would be infringing on freedom 0 if I told you that you may only use the shovel with certain kinds of soil during certain hours of the day and that anything valuable you find while digging you must give to me. I would also be infringing on freedom 1 if I told you that you may not shorten the shovel, freedom 2 if I told you that you may not lend the shovel to your friend or create a new shovel for her, and freedom 3 if I told you that the new shovel you create for her may not be better than the one I gave you. I'm not trying to get too semantic on you. I just want to clarify the definition of freedom 0 because I think you had a very good point in the Mozilla thread and it was unfortunate that they jumped on your misuse of the term as a way to derail what youwere saying. > The other question is - how come an average nobody, not even a > network expert, could make such a simple test (which seems > essential and fairly easy to my mind) and professional top > programmers or sysadmins never did that Whether they never > words creating the impression of absolute > cleanness in which the user can be completely safe, like a baby > in the hands of a good loving mother. It is a mistake to think that way. Free software is less likely to be malicious that proprietary software because a community of many people who may review the source code is less likely to conspire than a single party, and because malicious functionality may be removed by community members with the knowledge and time to do so. However, that does not mean you should blindly trust free software. Healthy skepticism is part of the process by which a community can find faults with and improve software. If Mozilla won't make the improvement you suggest and you lack the knowledge to do it yourself, you can approach a more privacy-minded Firefox derivative like Icecat (as you have done and got a positive response), Abrowser, or Tor Browser. > How can a > free/libre thing be "respecting your freedom" if it contains a > product which connects to Amazon, Akamai etc. on first run, > without even asking you or without even telling you that it will > do that? This is a huge privacy concern, and I consider privacy to be a freedom in the general sense of the word. Again though, in the context of software 'freedom' is associated with RMS's four freedoms, and that is what we mean when we call something 'free software'. That does not mean that we shouldn't critize Mozilla if they do something that tarnishes the reputation of free software > I have read some threads with lots of criticism about > Purism, about how they carefully structure the language to create > the impression of cleanness, security and safety. Even with Purism, it is important to be accurate in our criticisms. When Purism claims that they use a completely libre BIOS they are being dishonest, but there is nothing wrong with them claiming that their Debian-derived distro PureOS is libre because it is, and they can be commended for creating a libre distro without defending their claims about their BIOS. Similarly, Mozilla is telling the truth when they describe Firefox as 'free software' (meaning software that respects the four freedoms) but it appears that they do not respect privacy as well as they claim. > different? It is either clean or not clean. We cannot mix clean > water and dirty water and advertise that it is clean water. > Otherwise the words free and ethical are already polluted and we > need new words, which in turn will get polluted too etc. I wonder > if I am making myself clear :) > > the company > "respecting user privacy" would rather send me to talk to another > one who doesn't care. If you are referring to the fact that the Mozilla representative tried to refer you to someone else, I believe that is because a bug report is not the place to request a policy change. You wouldn't go to an Apple store and demand that one of the employees make Apple stop using sweatshop labor to create their iPhones. The best they could do is refer you to someone higher up, not that they would necessarily care either. > I have uninstalled > Firefox, to me it is that simple. When one sees a venomous snake > one doesn't argue with it - one stays away from it, doesn't one? There were already reasons to use a privacy-minded Firefox derivative rather than vanilla Firefox. You've discovered another one, and I'll bet that if you bring this issue to the attention of the Abrowser and Tor Browser developers they will be willing to clean up after Mozilla as they already do. However, switching to Chromium because one of their developers told you what you wanted to hear (the Mozilla developer who referred you to someone who had some control over the policy was actually being more helpful) is not a good solution. When it comes to privacy, no company has a worse track record than Google. Mozilla is flawed, but not nearly as bad. You're much better off with a privacy-minded Firefox derivative. Honestly, if you really care about privacy Tor Browser is your only option. You can't have privacy without anonymity.
