Mozilla anger over Dell Firefox fee
#1
Mozilla anger over Dell Firefox fee

[Image: Kj8HfYT.jpg]
Dell says it was charging for labour costs of installing a free operating system

Mozilla is investigating reports that Dell is charging users with new computers to install the Firefox browser.

One user told the Register website that he had been asked to pay £16.25 to have the browser installed.

Firefox is a free, open-source piece of software that can be installed by anyone in about 10 minutes.

Mozilla said there was "no agreement" with Dell that would allow it to charge for installing Firefox.

"Our trademark policy makes clear that this is not permitted and we are investigating this specific report," said Denelle Dixon-Thayer, vice-president of Mozilla's general counsel.

In Mozilla's policy document on that, it clearly states: "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."

Labour costs

In response Dell said that the money was being charged for the time and labour involved.

"In this particular situation, the customer would not be charged for the Mozilla Firefox software download, rather the fee would cover the time and labour involved for factory personnel to load a different image than is provided on the system's standard configuration."

There was anger on Twitter about the row.

"Shame on @DellUK for selling @Firefox to customers," said one.

Another commented: "That's £100 per hour to install free software."

Firefox has proved to be a popular browser. It reported that, at the end of 2013, it had half a billion users around the world on desktop computers and another 50 million on Android.

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#2
is this something new? If you cant get your fngers out of your ass to install a piece of software (unless said hardware is LOCKED), then I see no problems having them pay
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#3
Since when does dell pre-install software for you? Is this an EU thing because IE can no longer come pre-installed on computers or something so they have to pay to have a browser installed or download one on another computer?

Does this mean it is also illegal to charge someone to fix their computer because you are having to alter the software that someone else made? aka windows, mac, or whatever else?
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#4
What Dell did is no different than what the Geeksquad or lots of others do, which is to install software for pay. Geeksquad charges $130 to come to your house to install one program. So if lazy/stupid people want someone to install their software for them, they have to pay for it.
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#5
EDIT
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#6
I use Dell for quite some years.

Won't be doing it again, though I've been planning for that already.

The next computer I get will be built by yours truly.
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#7
unless you want a laptop. Try building that yourself Tongue
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#8
Fuck laptops.

And while we're at it, fuck Dell laptops.
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#9
Dell used to be a good company, not anymore.
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