Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Freedom Day: A Lesson in Free GNU/Linux Distributions

Today is Software Freedom Day. It is an excellent opportunity to educate our family, friends. and colleagues about the importance of Free(dom) software. To mark this event, I'm posting an old article of mine, which refers to a distribution that's now retired. This also coincides with the Ubuntu/Mozilla EULA kerkuffle.




"It has nothing whatsoever to do with Freedom," argues one of Gobuntu's contributors. The contributor, Keith G. Robertson-Turner, is a longtime, passionate advocate of free software advocate. Before joining Gobuntu, he was among the first package maintainers on the Fedora project. Yet recently he opted to leave the Gobuntu project after what he sees as continued disappointment.


"In fact, [Mark] Shuttleworth has just confirmed on-list that his only interest is the kernel (i.e. disable as much of the contentious drivers as possible) ... and see what still works," he continues.


In contrast, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, disagrees with Robertson-Turner. The developer's complaints "reflect one person's recollection of a vigorous discussion on the Gobuntu development mailing lists," he replied in an email response to Robertson-Turner's allegations. Indeed, in Shuttleworth's view, "Gobuntu is about building a platform that expresses freedom in software and in content." He urges those interested to read key parts of the Gobuntu mailing list (linked to below).


Before examining Robertson-Turner's experiences and findings, let's delve into a little background. Later on, internal problems will be explained and ways to improve Gobuntu's direction will be suggested.


What Makes a Linux Distribution Truly Free

A truly free GNU/Linux distribution is one which honours the idea that full access to and control over program source code is both valuable and necessary. Such a distribution should avoid software and hardware drivers that cannot be controlled by the user. Moreover, all expressions of creativity, including artwork, should permit derivative work. All in all, this ensures that there is no restriction that ties the user to the software and hardware vendors.


“The main goal of projects that follow this route is to reverse a growing trend where hardware and software turn against their users.”

There are several projects that strive to create such a Linux distribution, e.g. Ututo and gNewSense. The projects make their work widely available, not necessarily for profit. The main goal of projects that follow this route is to reverse a growing trend where hardware and software turn against their users. Examples include compromise of privacy, restriction on access, and forced upgrades, which can be expensive.


Gobuntu is a project whose purpose is to deliver a Linux distribution that is free not only in terms of cost, but also free in that it facilitates user freedom. Gobuntu essentially comprises a reduced set of packages that are used in Ubuntu Linux, with possible replacements for "non free" software packages and drivers.


Drivers versus Applications

A complete operating system can be looked at from several levels of abstractions or operation. Two such levels are the applications and the kernel. In a truly free Linux distribution, source code should be openly available at all levels. But what does this mean in practical terms?


At the level of the kernel, things are relatively simple. All code, including that which operates peripheral devices such as printers and keyboards, as well as internal storage media, should be made available for inspection, modification, and even redistribution. The user is in total charge of the way software interacts with the hardware and can therefore tweak the computer's behaviour to his/her heart's content.


When it comes to applications, the notion of "free" becomes more complex. Above the level of source code there tends to exist a graphical user interface with images, sounds, and other forms of art. Applications, unlike kernel code, can be very large and complex.


Dedication to both levels – the kernel and applications that sit on top – is needed when producing a truly free Linux distro. Without the conditions of freedom being satisfied, the computer which runs that software is not entirely under its user's control. The user is forbidden from doing certain things on the computer that he/she actually owns. The user is sometimes forced to do undesirable things, too. Examples include a scenario where the user is not permitted access to vital personal information or a scenario where very sensitive information is sent over the network without the user's consent.


Is Gobuntu a Free Linux?

According to recent arguments in Gobuntu's mailing lists, focus has been shifting toward freeing the kernel. This effort comes at the expense of freedom at a higher level, which still includes popular "non free" applications. At present, the applications layer in Gobuntu resembles those which can be already found in Ubuntu (the less free version).


Mark Shuttleworth defends his stance on such issues by highlighting key parts of a long mailing list thread.


“At present, the applications layer in Gobuntu resembles those which can be already found in Ubuntu (the less free version).”

One vision that some Gobuntu developers have in mind is a free laptop. Free, that is, in the sense that the hardware requires no proprietary code in order to be used with Linux. This admirable goal was set by Mark Shuttleworth himself. In an interview with Robertson-Turner we found out that this goal may have been a distraction that led to the project losing sight of its more important goal. The most important goal should involve no actual product like a laptop, but establishing a generic system that is free in every sense. It leaves room for choice when selecting hardware rather than impose restriction on diversity.


Shuttleworth, though, disputes that Gobuntu's goal is a free laptop. "A key point is that the idea of the free-software-only laptop and Gobuntu are entirely orthogonal and independent of one another," Shuttleworth wrote in an email response to us. "I've had a number of people say they would like to know if such a laptop existed, so I invited people to register their interest in that idea separately from Gobuntu. I'm not sure what would make Keith think the two ideas are connected, except in the obvious way that both are about demonstrating a commitment to free software."


Who Controls Gobuntu?

There appears to be a certain fear among the Gobuntu development community when it comes to voicing criticism, especially because the project meets the public eye. It thrives in transparency, but concerns about the project's direction are sometimes raised off-list instead. We are told by Robertson-Turner that discussions among the contributors tend to be philosophical, but only in the sense that there is a 'political' power struggle, not in the sense that free software philosophies are encouraged though free and open expression.


Paraphrasing from memory, Robertson-Turner says that Mark Shuttleworth "comes in and says, stop bickering, this is supposed to be a devel[opment] mailing list, so talk about development stuff, and stop wasting time on trivial matters like Freedom."


But Matthew East, a member of the Ubuntu Community Council, strongly disagrees with this assessment. "With limited exceptions, no one has yet (or at least until recently) stepped up with any concrete work which actually furthers Gobuntu's aims of developing a completely free derivative of Ubuntu," he tells us. He does, however, acknowledge the fact that mistakes were made. He believes that the company failed to give the Gobuntu project more substantial guidance about the scope and methods of the project, until recently. However, "This has been recognised and is being addressed," he assures us.


There appears to be a mild confrontation between those who are volunteers and those who are associated with Canonical, which is the company behind Gobuntu. Robertson-Turner says: Somebody else pointed out that, if we can't even establish what is or isn't Free, then how are we supposed to proceed? This is core to the goals of this project. Where is the advisory board? Where are the mentors? Where is the information necessary to actually get involved? It's all very well telling us to talk devel stuff, but what is it that we're supposed to be developing ... etc., etc."


He argues that this was never the case when he participated in Fedora, where it was easier than ever to be a contributor. "They're tripping over themselves to help volunteers," he said, referring to Red Hat, which took over Fedora.


Robertson-Turner further complains that, "I suggested various non-Free packages be removed, and the reaction was, to put it mildly, aggressive. There seems to be core of contributors who are blind to the dangers of certain software, such as Mono, and argue vigorously in its defense, despite it having a particularly untrustworthy so-called 'RAND' clause from Microsoft. It is poison for the well, but certain Gobuntu contributors just don't seem to care, and embrace this encumbered Microsoft technology with open arms. It's deeply unsettling to discover this kind of attitude, especially in, of all places, the Gobuntu project."


As it stands, other than the supposed changes to the kernel, Robertson-Tuner claims that one is hard pressed to find any difference between Gobuntu and Ubuntu at all, likening it to "little more than a new paint job," adding that "as for changes in the kernel, even that was done without any consultation to the list, and to this day it remains a mystery as to what, if anything, has actually been changed." A direct request from Robertson-Turner to Shuttleworth, on the mailing list, for information regarding those changes, went unanswered.


Firefox Divides the Development Team

What broke the camel's back turns out to be a discussion about the inclusion of Mozilla Firefox in Gobuntu. It was only days beforehand that Mark Pilgrim, an influential technology writer, described this as the reason for failure in Gobuntu.


“What broke the camel's back turns out to be a discussion about the inclusion of Mozilla Firefox in Gobuntu.”

Firefox is widely-known as an open source success story, but it is does not meet the requirements of free software. A few such issues led to the creation of a sibling project called IceWeasel, which is intended to resolve issues pertaining to artwork. A controversy revolves around the Firefox logo and its effect on derivatives (forks). In the developers' mailing list, Mark Shuttleworth insisted that maintaining two copies of the codebase of the Firefox browser -- one for Ubuntu and one for Gobuntu -- will have "such little benefit." Several volunteers immediately begged to differ in off-list coversations that we saw.


Outraged by this apparent disregard for the significance of the issue, Robertson-Turner responded "It's time that Gobuntu started living up to the 'very strict' policy that motivated it's inception, otherwise it will be nothing more than a different coloured Ubuntu, with a slightly smaller kernel," and he concluded that "I don't know about you, but that isn't quite the vision that got me excited enough to want to get involved in this project."


The Gobuntu Laptop

Towards the end of his long affair, which ended just recently, the main concern about the project had a lot to do with goals, maybe even a hidden agenda. "I've discovered the truth about Gobuntu. Essentially ... it's a hardware experiment," Robertson-Turner tells us. He then refers to the idea involving a laptop, as mentioned at the beginning of this article. He likens it to a contest where people run a poll out of sheer curiosity.


Shuttleworth, however, begs to differ. "Contrary to the assertion made by Keith, there are no other private agendas or conversations about Gobuntu," he states in our correspondence with him.


With the vision of pre-installed Ubuntu laptop that was free of proprietary drivers in mind, he calls this idea a response to Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child. Mark Shuttleworth's blog post, which spoke about working in collaboration with a laptop manufacturer to produce a system favourable to free software drivers, certainly rang a bell here.


"It's an experiment to produce a laptop independent of proprietary drivers (GPU, Wi-Fi, etc.), presumably so he can then capitalise on the idea," we are told by Robertson-Turner. This ambitious statement did not escape a solid counter argument from Shuttleworth, who stepped in to clarify:


"A key point, though, is that the idea of the free-software-only laptop and Gobuntu are entirely orthogonal and independent of one another. I've had a number of people say they would like to know if such a laptop existed, so I invited people to register their interest in that idea separately from Gobuntu," says Shuttleworth. He clarifies that the two ideas are not by any means connected "except in the obvious way that both are about demonstrating a commitment to free software."


Ways Forwards

Gobuntu can hopefully be improved by reminding Canonical that the project should stick to things it was intended to achieve. As promised, it should also be driven by a community, as opposed to becoming a project that -- at least in part -- absorbs criticism against inclusion of proprietary components in Ubuntu. At worst, this is maybe a case of capitalization. The project can -- and probably should -- be built to provide what free software enthusiasts sought in the first place. Only then can it make a big impact and draw a community large enough to help it grow and thrive.


Shuttleworth asserts that "Gobuntu is about building a platform that expresses freedom in software and in content. Debating what constitutes freedom is essential to the process of building it." The latter part -- the past which is all about debating freedom -- seems to contradict the experience of at least two Gobuntu developers whom we heard from (one prefers to remain unnamed). The project may be suffering from a disconnect, or simply a case of miscommunication. Canonical is already responding to these issues. "I'm personally quite positive that the project will soon be pointed in the right direction," adds Matthew East, so it is encouraging to know that the problems are already taken into consideration and addressed.



Originally published in Datamation in 2007

Ubuntu modified logo

Recent Techrights' Posts

Cindy Cohn (Executive Director of EFF) is a Millionaire, Earned Almost $30,000 Per Month Before Departing While the EFF Lost Money
EFF is "Big Business"
Microsoft XBox is Dying as More Retailers Stop Stocking It and Massive Layoffs Planned Again
Microsoft is circling down the drain
 
Nobel Prize in Economics Does Not Exist, It's Propaganda From Sveriges Riksbank
"It is that time of the year when it is important to remind people that there are no Nobel Prizes for professional wrestling, astrology, or economics"
Rust is Eating Linux
That's a recipe for problems
Non-Denying Denial From Microsoft (Again) Regarding the End of XBox Consoles
It's kind of hilarious that even the site chosen by Microsoft to relay its BS, based on past loyalty, isn't quite buying it
Bringing Back Lost Articles From the 1990s: Microsoft Products Leave Door Open to NSA
Nothing has changed since then
When the Slop Bubble Pops People Will Say Richard Stallman Was Right (Again)
What was once known as Computer Science turned into "IT"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 05, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 05, 2025
Links 06/10/2025: Science, Hardware, and Andrej Babis Making a Comeback
Links for the day
Links 05/10/2025: Slow News Day and Wondering About the Canada Post Walkout
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/10/2025: Telnet Debugging and The Programmer’s Brain
Links for the day
More Than "Just a Rumour": XBox Seems to Have Just Died
At this point, why would any studio out there target or partner with XBox?
How to Tell Your Community, Project or Company is Being Infiltrated by Saboteurs
How to identify nefarious social engineering
The Fortieth Birthday of the FSF Made Us Extremely Happy
It feels like the 'hacker community' is regrouping to discuss things and prepare for the next Big Challenge
Chat Control 2 Them, Not 2 U
Follow the advice of Dr. Patrick Breyer
Mozilla: Throw Away Your "Old" PC and Enable "Digital Rights Management (DRM)"
This is heading in a bad direction
Controlling Our Computing for Another Forty Years
40 years of freedom
Motivational Small Place to Run Large Sites
We deem this scenery motivational and inspiring
Techrights' Text Version (Daily Bulletin) Turns Five This Month
our plain-text bulletins are turning 5 this month
We'll Continue Covering the Moribund OSI and Other Dysfunctional if Not Hostile Institutions
Stefano Maffulli's departure is due to his defection and due to him failing the mission in pursuit of money (his salary)
Links 05/10/2025: Lufthansa Layoffs (4,000) and More Spotify Woes (Aside From Massive Debt)
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation's Livestream Has Ended, Video/s Might be Online Next
I've asked whether they'll upload video of some of the event; I still wait for an answer
The Register MS Does Not Know the Difference Between Microsoft GitHub and GitLab
At the time of writing (October 5) the article from "Thu 2 Oct 2025" remains uncorrected
Linux and the Freedom Paradox
Linux is losing freedom if some external actors who only use Microsoft tools for development wrest control
"Bullshit Generators" (What RMS Calls LLMs) and Fake Images Already Target the FSF
Why does Google News promote fake articles about the FSF while omitting all the real ones?
Software Patents as a Bubble
Don't invest resources in hype; if you detect a bubble, run away from it
Links 05/10/2025: Political Leftovers, Climate Change, and Security Incidents
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 04, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 04, 2025
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day