The French government is considering a law that would require web browsers – like Mozilla’s Firefox – to block websites chosen by the government.
The French government is considering a law that would require web browsers – like Mozilla’s Firefox – to block websites chosen by the government.
True… How would governments enforce dumb laws like that on open source software anyway?
Firefox is open source but it’s controlled by the Mozilla Foundation.
The steps would be
It could be fines, it could be banning firefox in France. The good/bad roles are flipped, but anything anyone has tried to do to meta can be done to Mozilla, too. The only alternative Mozilla would have would be purposefully pulling Firefox from France.
Ultimately, Mozilla would have a vote of some kind, deciding to capitulate or pull firefox (or just keep paying fees, potentially, but they’re not made of money).
They could still charge the leadership, fine them, and cause life to be a bit more difficult. Even if I don’t live in a country, I wouldn’t want that hanging over my head.
It’s hard not living in a country
I guess it cannot be completely enforced. What they can do, however, is to say that Firefox is illegal in France unless it complies with their unjust laws.
Mozilla could either choose to comply and release a French version of Firefox with government mandated fixes, or decide not to comply and probably block firefox.com from being accessible from France. This would make it harder for French users to find an alternative browser, making even more people will stick to the pre-installed Chromium based one.
In general it’s just not a good thing when open source software becomes illegal, no matter how hard the laws might be to implement.
The software can be open source, the product is branded and published.