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Comment by nonchalance | Hacker News Reader

> Dell has responded saying that this practice is okay because the company is charging for the service and not the product.

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> If you are using the Mozilla Mark(s) for the unaltered binaries you are distributing, you may not charge for that product. By not charging, we mean the Mozilla product must be without cost and its distribution (whether by download or other media) may not be subject to a fee, or tied to subscribing to or purchasing a service, or the collection of personal information.

Specifically the "By not charging, we mean the Mozilla product must be without cost and its distribution (whether by download or other media) may not be subject to a fee" part.

Doesn't the purchasing a service part explicitly say Dell isn't allowed to do this? Am I reading this wrong somehow or are they just blatantly breaking the rules?

You are reading it wrong. The -distribution- of the software isn’t tied to the purchase of a service. Dell isn’t charging to put Firefox-setup.exe in your Downloads folder. They’re charging to install it.

Granted, I think charging $18 to install a browser is entirely dickish behavior, but the legal nuances of ‘distribution’ versus ‘installation’ are neither subtle nor vague.

I don't want to take away from your argument, I agree with you 100%, but according to the article it's £16.26 or $27.18, so it's even worse than your $18. It's a ripoff and maybe they could be subject to fraud charges instead :p

I know people who get paid by their friends for help setting up computers - often reformatting/reinstalling after malware infections - and I'd guess many of them would be installing Firefox for them too. Does it mean they can't do that according to Mozilla if they charge for the services? Dell gets picked on here, but I bet they're not the only ones who charge to install free software like Firefox.

It's totally fine for anyone to charge to install Firefox -- the software is open source. They cannot advertise their services as a Mozilla Firefox Install Service -- Mozilla's trademark is not free. At the very least, you would have to be very clear that you are not affiliated with Mozilla in any way.

It's pretty clear (to me - IANAL) that Dell is using Mozilla's trademark without their permission. If they called it Open Source Pre-Install Service, and explained that it includes Mozilla Firefox and some other software, I think it would be fine.

https://tldrlegal.com/license/mozilla-public-license-2.0-%28...

On the other hand, the only mention of trademarks in the license is:

> This License does not grant any rights in the trademarks, service marks, or logos of any Contributor

This is unfortunately worded in Dell's favour, as any trademark policy from Mozilla will stand independently from the license. Furthermore, Dell is allowed to use Mozilla's trademark in a fair way, regardless of what their own policies say.

The problem is that Mozilla's policy applies to distribution but not necessarily to installation. Since this is a legal issue, the details are very important.

In this case, the process of ensuring that a functioning version of Firefox resides on the machine involves:

1. Transferring the Firefox software to the machine

2. Explicitly preparing the machine so that the Firefox software can be run (in this case, installing Firefox)

The Policy only applies to the first item. No part of the policy refers to the second action, and it's fair game for Dell to charge a fee for the labor associated with installing the software (they cannot, of course, charge a fee for the part of the process where the software is distributed to the machine).

If this sounds like nitpicking, welcome to the world of law

There's also a prohibition against fees "tied to subscribing to or purchasing a service". This seems pretty much like a service being purchased...

I accept that the law can be entirely arbitrary and based on tiny technicalities, but it seems like Dell's in the wrong here to me.

I would be willing to bet that they aren't running an installer on each person's machine, though. If they created multiple disk images - one with FF, one without - and are charging to use the one with FF, then it looks like they're charging for distribution.

If they really did create two sets of disk images based on presence of Firefox, Dell could argue that the price is not for the software but for other differences between the disk images.

Note that I'm not arguing about the spirit of the actions, but merely about whether Mozilla actually has a case here

Not if they are selling the service as a "Mozilla Firefox Web Browser Installation Service"

Does one have to physically run an executable and click through the process to have “installed” software? The software is distributed in a different state to the installed state.

No. The original article claimed that too, but there’s absolutely no way that interpretation would hold up in court.

Lawyer goes to mozilla.com, clicks Download. “By the plaintiff’s interpretation, as they have distributed the product to me, I now have an installed Firefox. Let’s go to the Start Menu and attempt to run it. Wait, hmm, I see no menu icons. Let’s look on the filesystem. Hmm, no folder. Oh, I see, there’s this additional step beyond distribution that I have to take to be able to use the product. What’s that additional step called? Installation. What do we call it when someone does something for us so that we don’t have to do it? A Service. Thank you, Your Hono(u)r (this is the UK after all, though it’d be M’Lord).”

Might be dick-ish (subjectively). But the Mozilla claims that it’s clearly not allowed by their license or trademark (which implies no association), and the repetition of same by the article (and by numerous in the peanut gallery online) does not make it so - Dell’s response is correct.

Can I pay Dell for the service of NOT installing McAffee?

Bazinga!

Yes, buy enterprise-class hardware (Latitude, etc.) instead of the consumer brands (Inspiron, etc.)

Dell also has a program for large enough IT departments where they'll use a buyer-provided disk image at the factory so machines can be deployed right out of the box.

That service helped me once. I broke my laptop and HP shipped me an imaged machine overnight with my employer's image on it so I only lost one day.

Why stop there? How about paying them not to install Windows, or any OS for that matter?

Not Dell, but the retail store where you got it. Most (Wal-Mart, OfficeMax/Depot, Best Buy) have their "Service plans" which is pretty much paying to get rid of misc software. Retailers gotta love that extra profit while the employees get a nice SPIF.

When it comes to McAffee and Symantec I don't trust a regular uninstall. Until I do a clean install of the OS the machine is forever unclean (any fans of "The League" out there?)

The point of contention:

> ...the Mozilla product must be without cost and its distribution (whether by download or other media) may not be ... tied to subscribing to or purchasing a service

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