Mozilla has received widespread criticism from within the open-source community for bundling a EULA with official binary builds of Firefox 3. Critics argue that including a conventional user license agreement in Firefox is antithetical to the principles of unencumbered use that are cherished in the open-source software community.

Firefox, what's not to love about this open-source web browser? Well, a number of users following the development work on Ubuntu 8.10 (the Intrepid Ibex) are feeling rather outraged over Mozilla Firefox 3.0.2 and later. In the latest Ubuntu packages, Firefox requires an EULA (End-User License Agreement) be accepted the first time you launch the browser.

Mozilla received a lot of criticism from OS community for bundling EULA with Firefox builds. Even though they decided to remove EULA, earlier Ubuntu Ibex alpha builds still had the old EULA on.

Grumpy Ubuntu users are snarling about Mozilla including a largely open-source irrelevant EULA (End-user license agreement) with the latest version of the Firefox Web browser. Indeed, one user went so far as to file an Ubuntu bug report about the EULA.

"...MOZILLA FIREFOX END-USER SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT [...] By clicking the "Accept" button, or by installing or using the Mozilla Firefox Browser, you are consenting to be bound by the Agreement. If you do not agree to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, do not click the "Accept" button, and do not install or use any part of the Mozilla Firefox Browser..."

As you propably already know, mozilla is now demanding that vendors display their EULA if they want to ship the Firefox branding. I could understand the issue they had with debian last time, since the debian package was not it that good shape - but now I think it is going over the top.

Here's a screenshot of the latest language from Mozilla, and as you'll see, they absolutely have listened to the community's EULA concerns (if you click on the image, it gets larger).

Mitchell Baker has posted on her blog a notice that Mozilla will let us know today what solution they've come up with for the Firefox EULA dispute:Firefox without EULAs.

As I reported yesterday, Mozilla has admitted that the Firefox EULA was flawed.