[Dev] Several freedom-bugs in IceCat (from the Parabola team)

[Luke T. Shumaker]

I was cleaning up the IceCat package, and noticed that libre.patch
had gotten rather large; and unlike Iceweasel, those things are bugs
upstream for you.

Here are a bunch of bugs that are wither fixed in Parabola's package,
or in the process, in no particular order.

I also slipped in a feature request at the end.

Happy hacking,
~ Luke Shumaker

----

Type: freedom issue
Subject: Includes non-freedom respecting search engines

Even though DuckDuckGo is the default, it still includes Google and
Yahoo search engines.

----

Type: (possible) freedom issue
Subject: Recommends DuckDuckGo, which uses non-free javascript.

DuckDuckGo uses non-free javascript, so Parabola includes DuckDuckGo
HTML.  However, because IceCat includes LibreJS, this may be a
non-issue, as without javascript, it will fall back to the HTML-only
version.

I feel that it is still nescessary to include DDG HTML instead
because even though it falls back, it still seems to be recommending
the non-free JS.  Similar way to how Linux-libre doesn't just
remove non-free globs, but also removes reverences to the files from
the kernel, so that it doesn't seem that the kernel is recommending
them.

----

Type: freedom issue
Subject: If social API stuff is enabled, Facebook is there by default

Even though social.active=false by default, if it is enabled, the
default setup includes Facebook.

This affects the values of social.manifest.facebook and
social.activation.whitelist in browser/app/profile/firefox.js

----

Type: rebranding issue
Subject: browser/app/Makefile tries to install /bin/firefox
Patch:
--- a/browser/app/Makefile.in
+++ b/browser/app/Makefile.in
@@ -233,7 +233,7 @@
 else
 ifdef LIBXUL_SDK
 libs::
-	cp $(LIBXUL_DIST)/bin/$(XULRUNNER_STUB_NAME)$(BIN_SUFFIX) $(DIST)/bin/firefox$(BIN_SUFFIX)
+	cp $(LIBXUL_DIST)/bin/$(XULRUNNER_STUB_NAME)$(BIN_SUFFIX) $(DIST)/bin/icecat$(BIN_SUFFIX)
 endif
 endif
 

----

Type: rebranding issue
Subject: Identifies w/ Mozilla in the first-run "Know your rights..." bar

The bar that pops up on first run tha has the "Know your rights..."
button reads:

 > GNU IceCat is free and open source software from the non-profit
 > Mozilla Foundation.

when it should probaly identify as being from GNU or the FSF.

----

Type: technical/rebranding issue
Subject: "Reset IceCat" does not work

This is because it falls victim to Mozilla bug 756390
The patch uploaded to the Mozilla bug tracker should fix this.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=756390

----

Type: (possible) rebranding issue
Subject: Uses the phrase "Firefox Sync"

I'm not sure if this is an issue or not.  One could look at "Firefox
Sync" as a separate service (that is integrated) that is not being
modified, or as part of the browser that is.

----

Type: freedom/legal issue
Subject: Recommends using Mozilla's sync servers.

Mozilla's TOS only allows "official Mozilla-branded software" to use
their servers for Firefox Sync without special written permission.

I know that Trisquel runs their own sync servers for Abrowser, I'm
sure they'd be happy to let you use them.  I also think it would be
cool if GNU ran their own servers.  I've also been toying with the
idea of packaging the sync server software for Parabola and running it
on our servers.

If you do end up getting permission to use Mozilla's servers, I
believe that the TOS and Privacy Policy are acceptable, but you'd want
to take a look yourself. 

----

Type: bug
Subject: langpacks

There are no IceCat 17 langpacks that I can tell.

As another issue with the langpack script, the resulting langpacks
overrode the normal search engine settings to be back to using Google
by default. (apparently, en-US user here)

----

Type: feature request
Subject: Run AMO on GNU servers.

AMO is the software that powers <addons.mozilla.org>.  I think it
would be handy to run that instead of the scheme-powered single-page
table currently in use.

I think that this would help keep IceCat on-par with Firefox and not
introduce an unnescessary decrease in percieved quality that is the
get-addons tab, as well as making patching mozilla.org URLs more
straight-forward.

Would this be welcome?  If I volunteered to figure-out/package/patch?
the software, would it be accepted?