Firefox 3 - Download Day 2008

Writes Nelson Pavlosky on our blog:

[![Download Day][1]][2][Mozilla Firefox][3], the prominent open source
web browser, is getting a major update today (June 17) with the release
of Firefox 3. To get media attention and (more importantly) have fun,
they are asking everyone to [download Firefox 3 today][4] in an effort
to set the world record for most software downloads in 24 hours!
According to the [Firefox Twitter][5], Firefox 3 will be released at
[10am PDT][6], so when that time hits, download away!

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say what a great project
Firefox is for free culture. It is an excellent web browser, and its
popularity across every platform provides a nice example of open source
software for us to refer to when explaining the concept. It's also
notable that one of the greatest things about Firefox is its add-ons /
extensions, which are unmatched by any other browser as far as I'm
concerned, and the fact that Firefox makes it really easy to play around
with its guts is another great talking point when explaining the open
source ethos. (I frequently compare proprietary software to a car with
its hood welded shut, while open source projects are more like ordinary
cars.)

Firefox has not been perfect. For starters, it has not been completely
open source software, since [its crash reporter][7] in Firefox 2 was the
proprietary program Talkback. This will be fixed in Firefox 3, which
replaces Talkback with the open source project [Breakpad][8], and that
alone should serve as a good incentive for free culture advocates to
download it ASAP.

Also, the silly [trademark controversy][9] when Mozilla refused to let
community-produced versions of Firefox bear the Firefox name or logo did
a lot to generate (minor levels of) ill will within the open source
community. Personally I think that Mozilla's treatment of the trademark
issues is heavy-handed and excessive. Compare Mozilla's approach with
Lawrence Lessig's approach towards the "free culture" brand. In 2004 I
registered the domains freeculture.org and freeculture.net in
anticipation of founding this organization, based on Lessig's use of the
term "free culture" in his [OSCON 2002 presentation][10]. I was
completely unaware that Lessig was about to publish a [book][11] under
the name "free culture". When heard about the release of the book, I
immediately e-mailed Lessig to apologize for grabbing all of the good
domains (freeculture.com had already been snapped up by a
cybersquatter). His response was something like, "No problem! Let's take
this opportunity to show everyone how unnecessary heavy-handed
protection of trademark is. I'll link to your website from my book's
website and you can link to my website from yours, and that should clear
up any confusion that people may have if they accidentally visit the
wrong website." And that's exactly what we did! You can still see the
link to Lessig's site in the upper right hand corner of our website, and
we are still linked to from his book's front page. When a Linux
distribution like Ubuntu or Debian promotes Firefox they are doing
Mozilla a service, and Mozilla should just work with them to try to keep
the quality of the community Firefox builds up to spec rather than
preventing them from giving Mozilla free positive publicity. If Lessig
had demanded that we shut down our website or stop using the free
culture name, Students for Free Culture may not exist at all today, or
at least not in a recognizable form. Perhaps co-founder Luke Smith and I
would have been discouraged by this unfriendly treatment and turned to
some other form of activism where we felt more welcome, or perhaps we
would not have attracted as much support without flying the free culture
banner. Who knows? All I know is that this relationship between us and
Lessig has been beneficial for both of us, and I'm glad that Lessig
promoted and supported it rather than threatening us with trademark law.

That said, these are minor quibbles among friends, and I do not think
that these complaints about Firefox are a reason to refuse to see
Firefox for the great boon to free culture that it is. I will be
[downloading Firefox 3 today][4], and I hope that you will join me in
setting a world record!

[![Download Day - English][12]][13]

   [1]: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/files/images/affiliates_banners/dda
y_badge_fox.png (Download Day)

   [2]: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node&id=0&t=264

   [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox

   [4]: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

   [5]: http://twitter.com/mozillafirefox

   [6]: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=6&day
=17&year=2008&hour=10&min=0&sec=0&p1=224&sort=1

   [7]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_reporter#Mozilla

   [8]: http://wiki.mozilla.org/Breakpad

   [9]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox#Trademark_and_logo_issues

   [10]: http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/

   [11]: http://free-culture.cc/

   [12]: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/files/images/affiliates_banners/46
8x60_ddayb_en.png (Download Day - English)

   [13]: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node&id=0&t=272

URL: http://freeculture.org/blog/2008/06/17/firefox-3-download-day-2008/