Hey everyone,
I’ve got some fantastic news that finally resolves the question raised in this older thread about using the Firefox name.
As many of you know, we’ve been working on bringing a modern Mozilla browser to Haiku for a while. The initial patches and the heavy lifting were done by @KENZ, who deserves a massive thank you. I just picked up the baton to update the port to modern versions (currently 153.0) and keep it running smoothly on current Haiku.
Because of Mozilla’s strict trademark rules, we’ve always distributed the package under the name Iceweasel to stay on the safe side. But I really wanted us to be able to use the official name, so I decided to just ask them. I emailed the Mozilla Trademark Team and explained exactly how we build the browser.
I made it clear to them that:
- We build strictly from the original upstream source code
- Our patches only deal with Haiku platform compatibility (POSIX, IPC, audio API) and don’t change how the browser works at all
- We don’t touch the default search engines or partner codes
- Telemetry is currently disabled simply because the Glean doesn’t compile on Haiku yet. It’s a technical limitation, not a policy choice
Today, I got a reply from Mike Kaply at Mozilla. What’s really huge is that he CC’d Joshua Landau, the Chief Legal Officer of Mozilla, which makes this 100% official at the highest level. Mike wrote:
Consider this email permission to distribute as Firefox.
He also encouraged us to try upstreaming our patches to Bugzilla and expressed hope that we can get the telemetry figured out in the future.
So, what does this mean for HaikuPorts?
We will soon have an official Firefox package with the real branding!
But don’t worry, Iceweasel isn’t going anywhere. I plan to maintain both. The idea is to keep Iceweasel as the privacy-friendly, telemetry-free build, while Firefox will be the fully official, Mozilla-compliant build (with telemetry enabled, once I manage to fix the Glean rust issues).
Huge thanks to everyone who has tested the builds, reported bugs, and supported this journey. Haiku is getting its official modern browser!
