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Comment by GuB-42 | Hacker News Reader

Is that extension malicious or illegal?

It looks like it is just a repackaged a AdGuard in a way that complies with the GPLv3 license of the original project.

Sure, morally, it is questionable at best. But it looks like it is legal, does exactly what it says, and doesn't harm users in any way. Furthermore, it is highly rated with a lot of downloads.

While I admit I'd rather not be supporting a ripoff, I don't think it is Mozilla's job to check the morals of developers unless there is a direct risk for users.

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Mozilla shouldn’t recommend an old and unmaintained fork (Adblocker ultimate) when they could recommend the actual, up-to-date extension (AdGuard).

The rip-off extension only has a lot of downloads (more than the real extension, in fact) because it’s recommended by Mozilla. It’s not illegal, just unethical.

It’s not unethical, Mozilla has no responsibility to promote any particular extension. If it were ripped off closed source code, then sure. But a fork of an open source project is part of the deal with open source.

Just because you are allowed to do something does not mean that it is ethical. Same with the law. Slavery was once allowed. Many people find that unethical nonetheless.

The opposite is also true: just because something is outlawed does not mean it is unethical. Many things deemed good now became lawful after people did them.

Ethics is not defined by laws, contracts and licenses. It is defined by your moral compass and different people under a same law may have different world views.

I have seen Mozilla recommend closed source addons. They have all the rights to do that (thanksfully), however I was not too happy with this, especially from an organization that promotes open source and an open web.

I see no point in promoting an outdated fork when you can recommend the better, fresher, original extension.

Wow, thanks for the refresher that ethics != laws. I had accidentally completely forgotten that.

Now, back to the point. Nobody has made an ethical argument that Mozilla shouldn’t be pushing an extension that is a fork with a license preferable to them.

Well, these points were made in this thread and elsewhere, but in this case, pushing this extension instead of the original one prevents users to find the better version, and these users might even donate to the fork in the hope it will improve or to thank for the work, instead of donating to the original one, that really did the work and will be able to improve it.

Of course, this does not apply to every situation where there is a fork. In many situations, there is real work done in the fork, sometimes this work is even upstreamed.

> a fork with a license preferable to them

Both extensions have the same license (GPLv3), except the fork removed the original copyright notices from the original source code. This is probably not even allowed, let alone ethical.

Ethics is not the major problem here. The problem is the recommendation actually is harmful - it influences the users the way they install an outdated and less-supported version of an extension instead of a more relevant one. The top recommendations must be curated by humans with reason to actually offer the best extensions and not spam like that.

No one's claiming that it's malicious or illegal. It's just that a recommendation engine that recommends an old, unmaintained, copy-cat extension which wasn't exactly great back when it was new and maintained is not very trustworthy -- it's either very bad, or vulnerable to rigging.

It's like a movie recommendation engine that preeminently features Howard the Duck or something. It's not malicious or illegal but its recommendations are probably useless.

Howard the Duck was A+

I mean, I didn't hate it, but my taste when it comes to movies is so bad that serious cinemas would ban me if they knew what kind of movies I watch.

Completely off-topic but yeah, Howard the Duck is so bad that it is good.

Theres no recommendation engine, its all manual. I plan on submitting my silly little 9 line extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/t-co-sanitize...) to the recommendation request email at some point.

> I don't think it is Mozilla's job to check the morals of developers unless there is a direct risk for users.

Personally, I'm entirely OK with Mozilla exercising some editorial judgment here. In many ways, Mozilla only exists because of moral judgment about technology. And thank goodness. Without them, we might all still be stuck on IE: https://eev.ee/blog/2020/02/01/old-css-new-css/

Wow. What is this incredible article. And it just came out! I cannot believe http://spacejam.com is still up.

> I cannot believe http://spacejam.com is still up.

The resolution of the trailer is 160x120

The Addons policy apparently has this to say about forks:

> If the add-on is a fork of another add-on, the name must clearly distinguish it from the original and provide a significant difference in functionality and/or code.

If anyone considers the addon to be in violation of this policy, they can use the “report for abuse” link halfway down the AMO page. Be sure to cite the policy paragraph and to politely explain why it violates the policy. The AMO review team may or may not agree, but at the very least they’ll consider it.

It's not Mozilla's job to adjudicate license infringement, but the GPL doesn't give permission to lie about who owns the copyright as that extension apparently does. Regardless, Mozilla probably should hold "recommended" extensions to a higher standard if deceptive copycats are able to make the list.

If not being illegal or malicious is all it takes to earn Mozilla's recommendation, then their recommendations are trash.

> I don't think it is Mozilla's job to check the morals of developers unless there is a direct risk for users.

This seems like something that should apply to inclusion in the add-on site, NOT to inclusion as an explicitly "recommended" add-on.

Recommended add-ons should, in my mind, be recommended for some actual reason beyond "is not malicious"

> It looks like it is just a repackaged a AdGuard in a way that complies with the GPLv3 license of the original project.

If you replace all copyright notices with your own, it's illegal.

The GPLv3 license, like most OSS licenses, does not give you the right to assert copyright on a piece of work.

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