Not sure how I missed this, but better late than never.
Some years ago Debian forked the Firefox web browser because of copyright issues regarding the Firefox logo. There were a few other reasons, but that was the main one. That’s changed, officially as of March of 2010 (mozilla-central – changeset – 39109:99d80bc3f18b), but apparently the actual license changed prior to that. The logo is still under trademark, but it is free speech now.
A few scenarios exist:
- Iceweasel goes away. In this scenario an agreement on Debian modifying Firefox is made, and Firefox replaces Iceweasel.
- Iceweasel continues as is. In this scenario the other issues don’t budge, and the status quo is maintained.
- Iceweasel and Firefox coexist. In this scenario there isn’t agreement on the issues, but Debian decides to maintain an official Firefox package without changes anyway.
It’s more likely that either of the first two happen than the third, as it would still require extra work in packaging and bug management for the third to occur, and it wouldn’t have that much benefit. One of the maintainers of Iceweasel (glandium.org: Mind Blowing News) seems pretty sure that Firefox will return, but time will tell.
While they’re at it, I wish that they would find a solution to the libPNG mess.
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