I think having data collection about experimental features are great, since you know, user feedback and technical data can tremendously help in improving said experimental feature.
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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Yes but it should always be opt-in. Just present a nice message telling users how it helps development with a checkbox they can hit.
Look, Mozilla makes tons of decisions I disagree with, and this is one of them, but some of y'all have turned hyperbolic, misleading, unwarranted Mozilla hate into your entire personality.
Feel free to point out when they do something stupid, but if you're going to do that try to keep it to the facts instead of trying to make it seem like every dumb little thing they do is the apocalypse. It's impossible to take you seriously with titles like this.
I am 100% on board with the author until they question it being open source, immediately after noting that users can take the source code and remove the telemetry function from it. They try to reconcile that contradiction by seemingly saying that since Firefox has the telemetry, a non-telemetry Firefox wouldn't be Firefox, and that somehow makes FF not open-source?
Is Firefox really open source if we have to submit to data collection to access features distributed under an open source license?
Yes, ordinary end users can create a patch set to enable these features without needing to submit data to Mozilla - but that would clearly no longer be Firefox.
Plenty of OSS licenses have rules baked into them about how you can use the code, or lay out obligations for redistribution. That does not negate their OSS-ness.
"Is it really open source if I have to edit the source code I was given to remove a feature I don't like?"
I mean, yeah? What a program does is completely orthogonal to the rights granted by its source code license, which determines whether something is open-source.
I am also not sure why they seem to think that this move either is meant to or is likely to push away technical users in favor of some supposed group of non-technical users who will go into the settings to manually enable a beta testing feature (Labs).
Yes, (as the author notes) the purpose of a system is what it does, but the author isn't presenting any evidence of what it's doing vis a vis their claim of making technical users quit FF.
Mozilla has plenty of issues, but I just don't see "forces you to agree to telemetry if you want to participate in beta testing" as some canary in the coalmine of enshitiffication.
We've been through this with Canonical when they tried to shove something into Ubuntu that would've only benefited them and nobody else. And I think this is the point. You're suddenly not all about keeping the web free and open anymore. Suddenly this is a byproduct of your endeavors at best. And for anyone who does mind that shift you really have no other option but to switch to another browser. Today it may be just their beta-programme. Who knows about tomorrow.
We don't delete our Xitter accounts because the core product has changed, we leave the platform because nothing good can come from morally bankrupt leadership. Comparing X and Mozilla in that regard might be a stretch, but like you said, "Mozilla has plenty of issues", these don't get talked about nearly enough.
I understand it's a slippery slope argument, which is why I didn't find it particularly convincing.
And if you've done bugfixing of software, you know that the data that users give you in reports is 90% of the time less useful than what you get out of crash reports or telemetry (yes, there are rockstar testers out there, but they're the vast minority of users). Not all beta programs are there solely for the developers' sake (some are there for e.g. third party devs to update integrations, etc), but this one seems to be, and that isn't evidence of malice.
Plenty of OSS licenses have rules baked into them about how you can use the code, or lay out obligations for redistribution.
"Is it really open source if I have to edit the source code I was given to remove a feature I don't like?"
I'm really not being aggressive about this position and I tried to express the ambiguity here. I think what irks me most are these things:
- Forking Firefox means it isn't Firefox - yes, this means that the original was OSS, but you really need to be an expert to get at all the OSS code running on your machine. I mean that it is literally not Firefox, since your fork doesn't have permission to use the trademarked name.
- If we think of the enabling functionality in Firefox as a virtual lock, breaking that lock is illegal under the DMCA. That seems very weird for code that is ostensibly open source.
- The addition of the Terms to Firefox seems like an additional restriction (a la Grsecurity, as I mentioned in the post) to the existing license in Firefox. Indeed, Mozilla says that the existing license isn't "transparent" enough for Firefox users.
Yes, the purpose of a system is what it does, but the author isn't presenting any evidence of what it's doing vis a vis their claim of making technical users quit FF.
The purpose of the system being what it does is Firefox being spyware - you can't escape it if you want to use Labs features.
Love the feedback, and I while I think Firefox is open source, I do see the addition of software locks as backing away from OSS.
I also went ahead and posted a small update with some additional clarifying thoughts - I don't think it will satisfy you, unfortunately - but it might help people understand where I am coming from.
It’s really not ambiguous. Anyone can fork Firefox, make any changes they want, and release it with different branding. This is the goal of open source.
The term you’re looking for is free software. By making this change Firefox is no longer respecting the freedom of their users. That’s the “F” in FOSS. It’s possible for Firefox to remain open source without being free software.
You are right - I was struggling with the fact that Mozilla was adding additional restrictions via its Terms, alongside the MPL that changed the rights of their users. You are absolutely correct that the code remains free while the user doesn't.
Forking Firefox means it isn’t Firefox - yes, this means that the original was OSS, but you really need to be an expert to get at all the OSS code running on your machine. I mean that it is literally not Firefox, since your fork doesn’t have permission to use the trademarked name.
This is only relevant if you are planning to redistribute it after you make changes. You can make any and all changes you want to FF on your machine to remove telemetry, and you do not have to remove the branding.
If we think of the enabling functionality in Firefox as a virtual lock, breaking that lock is illegal under the DMCA. That seems very weird for code that is ostensibly open source.
Extending this argument would mean that it's potentially illegal under DMCA to remove any protection mechanism that it would be 'hacking' to bypass during usage (e.g. SSL, authentication, etc) from any OSS project. Thats not the case, because an OSS license gives you explicit permission to modify the application.
Extending this argument would mean that it's potentially illegal under DMCA to remove any protection mechanism that it would be 'hacking' to bypass during usage (e.g. SSL, authentication, etc) from any OSS project. Thats not the case, because an OSS license gives you explicit permission to modify the application.
I'm talking specifically about the compiled Firefox on my disk - if I break the virtual lock, I have broken the law. Sure, a forked version of Firefox that I compiled on my own would grant me access to the features without breaking the lock - but the copy of Firefox that Mozilla distributes to me only allows me access to the features under a new terms grant -- not under the existing open source license.
Again -- yes, Firefox is literally open source. But as I said in my post, this feels to be against the spirit of open source. Obviously we disagree on that front.