Re: Iceweasel's UserAgent
On Thu, May 08, 2008 at 08:13:53AM -0300, Eduardo M KALINOWSKI wrote:
> Mumia W.. wrote:
> > On 05/07/2008 05:23 PM, Eduardo M KALINOWSKI wrote:
> >> [...]
> >> Which leads to the question: Shouldn't Iceweasel at least advertise
> >> itself as Firefox?
> >
> > No it should not.
> >
> >> Because after all it _is_ Firefox, only with a different name.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > That depends upon timing and perspective. In a real, legal and
> > organizational sense, Iceweasel is a different web browser maintained
> > by a different organization from Mozilla, and it should have a
> > different name and advertise itself as what it is--a different web
> > browser.
> >
> > However, history does show that Iceweasel shares some code with
> > Firefox. History also shows that the Microsoft Internet Explorer
> > shares some code with Spyglass and NCSA Mosaic. This does not justify
> > MSIE advertising itself as anything other than "MSIE x.x."
>
> I see a difference. I believe that even at first release, MSIE was
> already different enough from Mosaic. Even if not, nowadays it certainly is.
>
> If some day Iceweasel starts to change so much that it gets somewhat
> different from Firefox, then it should not advertise itself as Firefox
> anymore. However, as far as I know, Iceweasel is exactly Firefox without
> the name and artwork, and with other quite small changes.
> Rendering-wise, it is exactly the same.
It was certainly not Debian's intention to make Iceweasel and it worked
to alter just those few elements that it was forced to, namely the icon,
name and branding. So Iceweasel is 99.9% Firefox. Ubuntu made different
negotiations around the time of Iceweasel fiasco and avoided the name
change.
-K
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