Pale Moon

[Jason Self]

I think Pale Moon is not a good candidate for the Directory, and this
is why. I don't intend for this to be an all-exhaustive list for all
of the concerns about the redistribution license when someone is
exercising Freedom #2; only to show that software freedom problems
exist with it.

Pale Moon has a similiar trademark problem with Firefox [0]:
> There is NO CHARGE for the download or distribution of the browser
> package.

As explained in the Free Software Definition, all four freedoms must
be available on both a commercial and non-commercial basis. This
serves to limit Freedom 2 to gratis distribution only, making the
software nonfree. The FSF has previously communicated that such a
thing in a trademark policy makes it nonfree [1]. Perhaps someone
could host a rebranded verion of Pale Moon that doesn't have this
problem, much like how GNU IceCat solves the problem for Firefox, but
Pale Moon itself seems ineligible for being in the Free Software
Directory.

In addition:

3a seems to contain restrictions on exactly how Pale Moon can be
distributed (can't be part of AppImage, flatpak, or SNAP). With free
software, people should be able to package programs for use with
any kind of package management system.

#4 on the prohibition of "download managers" might be able to be
interpreted as not allowing other package managers like APT or
RPM too since they also function as a way to download software.

Finally:

* We reserve the right to withdraw permission for the use of official
  branding and/or redistribution of officially-branded binaries
  either as a whole or for specific target environments at any time,
  with or without stated reason.

This affects someone's ability to exercise Freedom #2 where the
ability to share sharing exact copies can be terminated at any time
and for any reason. This seems to go against this part of the Free
Software Definition that: "In order for these freedoms to be real,
they must be permanent and irrevocable as long as you do nothing
wrong; if the developer of the software has the power to revoke the
license, or retroactively add restrictions to its terms, without your
doing anything wrong to give cause, the software is not free."

If Freedom #2 can be revoked at their will the software should not be
considered free.

0: https://www.palemoon.org/redist.shtml
1:
https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2011-08/msg00014.html

pgp7wLBqdtZe8.pgp
Description: OpenPGP digital signature