[kwlug-disc] Ubuntu's default search engine to change in dealwithYahoo

[Chris Irwin]

On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 11:50, <shane.msg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Besides, with or without agreement, can't anyone, whether a person in fact
> or on paper, distribute Firefox since it's open source?   Maybe Yahoo
> finally realized which is the better browser.  Miracles are rare but they do
> happen.
>

Actually, Debian went through this in the past, which is why they ship
iceweasel (abrowser now? I haven't kept up). Mozilla decided to enforce
restrictions on the trademarks to differentiate between modified browsers
(patched for source). Ubuntu struck some sort of compromise deal where they
can apply some patches to integrate into the distribution, but not change
core behaviour or something. In exchange, Mozilla allows Ubuntu to use the
official branding. This is part of the reason you don't see real "Firefox"
builds in any of the Ubuntu PPAs. They instead get the 'generic' codename
branding of "Shiretoko" , "Namoroka", etc.

Now, the default search provider isn't really a source change, so it should
not cause problems with that previous arrangement.

Does anybody know if Google pays Mozilla only for searches from the built-in
search applet, or for any google search from Firefox? If I do a search from
Mozilla's search bar, it paasses extra information about my browser to
Google (That it is an official release of firefox, it seems). But if I go to
just go to google.ca and type a search, Google still knows I'm using firefox
still based on my User-Agent. Does Mozilla still get cash for this?

-- 
Chris Irwin
<chris at chrisirwin.ca>
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