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Comment by Shank | Hacker News Reader

> It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox.

I really struggle to understand what legal team believes this language is necessary in downloaded software. There is a lot of precedent for this kind of language in online hosted services, but not downloaded software.

> This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content.

Yes, it’s a license. Nothing changes. There is no ambiguity about ownership in a perpetual nonexclusive worldwide license, but this doesn’t explain why this license is suddenly necessary now and wasn’t before.

Clearly the legal team at Mozilla is struggling with multiple issues in this update. Why are these changes being made now, and what is driving them?

Others have discussed the data sale issue, but I don’t see a reasonable explanation for the license issue, and the changing text doesn’t inspire confidence.

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> I really struggle to understand what legal team believes this language is necessary in downloaded software.

Exactly. Even if nothing is changing at Mozilla, their legal team has invented a new interpretation of copyright law. That’s a huge deal from a legal perspective—Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc need to be rushing to add corresponding terms to their applications.

Mozilla PR is dropping the ball completely by trying to sweep this under the rug as ‘standard legal boilerplate’ because it’s not a clause in any other application I’ve ever seen.

Since I use FireFox at work, I don’t even have permission to give Mozilla a license to the content I create on the clock, so I will be switching browsers.

Not for nothing, it is standard legal boilerplate. I just checked two randomly selected terms of service--one for ReadAI, the other for Google--and they both include a very similar clause with those exact parameters.

That said, I'm not suggesting Mozilla isn't also being wildly hypocritical in their behavior, and hamfisted in their PR.

You can't download Google.

Both of your examples are cloud services, not software run locally on users' own hardware. If they intend the license to be limited to cloud services like Firefox Sync, then they should say so.

Switching to what? Honest question, not asking for a friend.

Not OP, but we had a waterfox thread yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43205110

I switched to https://librewolf.net/

Is it a reputable project? What credentials does it have?

Well it's part of the Debian Main-repo, FreeBSD-Ports, FlatHub and brew on MacOS:

https://librewolf.net/installation/

It does not seem to be part of the official Debian repositories; searching for librewolf returns no results: https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=default&section=all...

They have their own external repository indexed by extrepo, but "no warranty is made by the Debian project as to the security or quality of the software in these third-party repositories."

They have for example recently added AI chat sidebar via Firefox Labs. So in effect, the browser itself is collecting and sending information to third parties. And I imagine Mozilla is or will get some money for these integrations. I would guess this is how they will try to diversify their income away from Google Search integration.

Of course the question then shifts to, do we need AI in the browser sidebar?

> This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content.

I actually disagree, fundamentally.

This is digital content, so "ownership" isn't the same as for physical stuff.

Lets look at analogies: "piracy isn't theft" (because the original owner still keeps their copy!). Also, surely if Mozilla can sell your data, they must have owned it first! But you also keep your data!

So clearly, to "own" digital stuff is different from "owning" physical stuff.

Then, how do we define "own" for digital stuff? I'd say a sufficient definition would be, "possess and can do whatever".

So when Mozilla says "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license [...] necessary to operate Firefox", and then in subsequent paragraphs argue that selling ads is necessary to operate Firefox... Yes, we can add two and two together.

Now, apologists will claim that the literal statement in new terms is "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox", but obviously, the DO NOT NEED A LICENSE for doing as you request in Firefox (i.e. sending POST requests directly to third parties), so clearly there's some shady business involved.

> not downloaded software

Tbf, any softwares that send your input to an external (like browsers...) should disclose like this too. The thing that sends those data is your software, not you. Otherwise, after you click on the button "Purchase" with your credit card information, the only way to not grant your software the rights to send that information is you driving to the stores and give them your credit card by yourself.

The problem here is that Mozilla has used language that is what you'd expect if the browser is sending data to Mozilla; there's no need for such language if the browser is acting purely as a user agent and sending data to the address you put in the URL bar.

Yeah, legal words are frustrating like that. When the law comes to their house, using "acting purely as a user agent and sending data" will just help them on reddit but not on court. And no, you don't always send the data to the "address in URL bar", there can be services that are in iframes or with other add-on services like their Pocket, VPN, AI chats (ChatGPT...), similar to any client softwares sending data to other services that are not their own.

That's why they use these words, which actually can include more activities inside browser

> for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox.

There's a reason I won't interpret serious things by myself if I face legal entities without a proper lawyer.

I feel like you're deliberately ignoring the crux of the issue: a web browser's job does not require anything remotely resembling a copyright license from the user to the browser vendor.

Yes, Mozilla has been developing and acquiring a host of other services, many of which do involve Mozilla taking possession of user data and processing it. Those services need legal policies that cover Mozilla doing stuff with your data. A web browser does not, because the vendor of the web browser does not need to know what you're doing with your copy of the browser.

Mozilla the legal entity that can be the recipient of a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license is not the same as Firefox with PID 3808 on my machine. PID 3808 does not need, and cannot need, and cannot receive a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to anything. PID 3808 is not a legal person. This fundamental distinction between code I'm running on my machine and services provided by Mozilla is why the legal terms of use for Firefox should not be lumped in to the same document as the terms of use for Mozilla's various services.

Mozilla the legal entity does not need a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to the comments I post to HN using my copy of Firefox, any more than Netgear the legal entity needs a license to those comments because a Netgear box is transmitting those packets.

why can't they let you opt into those services and agreements at the opt in part? There's a middle ground they are completely ignoring. The only way around it is to install a fork of firefox that doesn't have any of it.

> a web browser's job does not require anything remotely resembling a copyright license from the user to the browser vendor.

Yes, I know that, you know that, we all know that. This has always been our implicit agreements between us and the softwares. The thing is, are you sure your argument would help Firefox and Mozilla in the court? Can you be Firefox' lawyers when other legal entities approach them nowadays? I don't see any laws that specifically allow those implicit agreements automatically in browsers. Like Epic founder said:

> The license says that when you type stuff, the program can use the stuff you typed to do the thing you asked it to do. This is what programs ordinarily do, but nowadays lawyers tend to advise companies to say it explicitly.

https://x.com/looking5452/status/1895458253854711854

Firefox is made by Mozilla Corporation (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/faq/), the codes that run the browser are made by Mozilla Corporation, a taxable subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation. It integrates other services like Password Manager (which includes "Alerts for breached websites" feature), Autofill payment method, Deceptive Content and Dangerous Software Protection, Query OCSP for certificates validation, DoH, DRM, their up-coming AI Chats... All of these would potentially be targeted in legal confrontations. And where would those legal disputes be sent to? Mozilla Corporation, even when those activities are in your Firefox PID 3808. The activities do not limit in just sending data.

If I just make a program for myself or for others but without any big entities behind, I won't need to think about anything. But if my program is backed by a taxable company, any implicit agreements between my program and other users would leave legal concerns for me and my company for sure.

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