MANY readers have heard the news by now. It's even in the front page of Slashdot. The short story is that Ubuntu will channel users towards Microsoft's datacentre, via Yahoo! (bar EU approval for the search deal). "15 days of lost time," calls it a reader of ours citing this comment. "Not that more than a single digit percent will change any default settings," he adds, but the numbers cited there are US-only search numbers (thus incorrect) and Fedora claims 20 million installations.
Those of you testing out the development version of Ubuntu Lucid should notice a change in Firefox very soon. The default search provider for new installations of Ubuntu Lucid (10.04) and upgrades will be Yahoo! and not Google. Canonical have struck a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo! which generates income for the company. This revenue should help pay the wages of Ubuntu Developers employed by Canonical, and support the infrastructure required to develop and build the distribution.
“What Ubuntu has done is cut off funding to Mozilla to go into there own pockets, so damaging the upstream.”
--OiaohmIf Microsoft is funding Ubuntu developers, then they are becoming what Microsoft called "pawns in the battle" (in the battle against Google in this case).
"Yahoo is Bingo in disguise," said our Hungarian reader MinceR. Our reader Kecskebak (also from Hungary) was more blunt. He wrote: "Well, seeing as Yahoo! has done a deal with Bing it's Bing by proxy. Shuttlecock - say Bing!"
Mozilla makes money when it is Google in the search bar, so the old way (Firefox defaults) supported both Mozilla and Google, not Ubuntu and Microsoft.
Our reader Oiaohm wrote: "Ubuntu is getting more criminal. What Ubuntu has done is cut off funding to Mozilla to go into there own pockets, so damaging the upstream. Really it shows how much respect Ubuntu has for the open source world. None. Really it would not matter who they changed the search company to. I hope Mozilla hits Ubuntu for trademark infringement. Altering the search provider cutting of money normally pisses Mozilla off."
Yahoo! search is becoming just a surrogate identity to Microsoft, just like Mono is a surrogate to Microsoft, developed by its ally Novell (same with Moonlight).
It is Ubuntu's crisis of democracy as Novell's Banshee is still being promoted for Ubuntu by some people, despite the obvious problem with Microsoft's community promise (Banshee uses excluded components [1, 2, 3, 4]).
Another thing that Ubuntu is doing right now (which is quite benign in comparison) is development of Ubuntu One for Windows. That's fine, it's a very separate project constructed for other reasons, but a lot of people missed the news.
“Could Ubuntu maybe retract or withdraw this deal?”All the above was discussed in great length in our IRC channel since yesterday (starting here). We are still talking about it today. We think it is not worth making a huge scene out of it because it was discussed in IRC for hours (with Jono Bacon included) and clarified to the extent possible. It was never clearly insinuated that malicious intent led to such a deal, but Ubuntu is supporting Microsoft without saying so. Linspire signed such a search deal with Microsoft as part of the 2007 patent deal, sending their customers to essentially enrich Microsoft and share data with the company that's almost alone in viciously attacking those very same users (or at least their operating system of choice). Could Ubuntu maybe retract or withdraw this deal? We sure hope so.
What do users think of the possibility that many (if not most) GNU/Linux users are to be redirected for Microsoft to spy on their search habits (and gather statistics/intelligence on the competition), not to mention that it would give them GNU/Linux-hostile search results (Bong [sic] is doctored for built-in bias, including thin and mostly negative results on the subject of GNU/Linux).
Verizon's recent search deal with Microsoft shows that not giving users what they want simply makes them angry. This would not be smart for Ubuntu to do, either. Many people come to Ubuntu in order to escape Microsoft and even Firefox for Windows uses Google by default. This is a bizarre reversal of role. ⬆
"Gathering intelligence on enemy activities is critical to the success of the Slog."
--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
Comments
Jose_X
2010-01-28 00:43:57
Which community you are a part of helps that distro evolve. I am not going to help an evolution I think is problematic. I see no point in being a part of that community in any meaningful way.
Do I want other communities to weaken relative to a community/brand/company/etc whose direction is not in sync with my goals and views? Of course not.
Canonical has been on this path for a while. If their risks work out tomorrow, if Microsoft is weak tomorrow, I will be more open with them. Tomorrow (perhaps) is not today.
Jose_X
2010-01-28 00:45:35
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-28 01:11:59
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-28 00:19:12
Canonical employs many bright developers. I don't think we should harm the company's reputation; instead, let's make suggestions.
Maybe the Yahoo! deal is revocable.
Does Mozilla have veto power here?
your_friend
2010-01-28 07:39:20
Jose_X
2010-01-27 23:52:02
Businesses can make mistakes; however, each such mistake that does occur does have a price. Down the line, if risks don't work out, the door is opened for enthusiasm to gather strongly around a *different* desktop product and company.
Mark knows what he is doing by trying to distance his name from Canonical. He'd likely want to have his money still play a role tomorrow if the Canonical experiment doesn't work out.
Jose_X
2010-01-28 00:04:47
I don't know how significant would be such a loss of patent leverage to Microsoft since they have mostly relied on trade secret to manage interop with their monopolies.
Canonical can be assumed to keep in mind worries about Google, Red Hat, some other smaller players, the well entrenched Java ecosystem, patents in the EU, and a number of other things.
It's just business risks for them. For me, it's separation from Ubuntu/Canonical until the Microsoft picture isn't significantly more in our favor. I can afford to wait because the big prize for users isn't a few more bucks but a really open platform and control.
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-28 00:14:48
Jose_X
2010-01-28 00:38:33
A lot of people might prefer to adopt something that already has a large community.
I don't mind playing with different things. I can't speak for other people.
Thinking about a more typical user...
I will say that **Mandriva** has also had a focus on the desktop for a long time. They seem more KDE centric and this might translate to less mono centric.
There are a number of interesting **Debian** deriv distros that aim to be easy to use. Actually there are many distros that aim to be easy to use no matter what they use as their base.
There is **Fedora** which many people might like as well. I would not want to skip trying this one.
I don't trust the SuSE path and don't want to promote that family of distros, certainly not today. I counter Novell's business risk with my own risk management.
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-28 01:07:33
Microsoft has eliminated Linspire/Xandros and I worry that we should try to help Ubuntu rather than bin it. Ubuntu's deal -- unlike Novell's and Linspire's and Xandros' -- does not in any direct way harm other distributors of GNU/Linux.
satipera
2010-01-27 23:32:22
clayclamp
2010-01-27 17:01:19
Your entire article clearly insinuates precisely that.
your_friend
2010-01-28 07:29:35
Jose_X
2010-01-27 23:21:20
Novell took the noisy direct path. For how long has Canonical had plans on taking the quiet subtle path? Was this support of Microsoft why Dell chose to deal with them? When will Canonical eat Novell's dinner?
People need to understand that Canonical has "developers to feed and investors to satisfy" and should not be hesitant to question to what degree this or any other company has decided to fight monopolies or instead to try to suckle up to them.
The enemy of high profit seekers is customer choice and customer leverage.
Jose_X
2010-01-27 23:45:25
I don't work for Canonical, so I plan and play defensively. Canonical and Novell can do what they want. I promote the opposite of these things they are supporting. In my eyes, these two are bad brands to support. It's up to users to vote for brands that serve their interests. Do we want to promote competition from vendors or want to accept more of the narrow strong control structure?
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-28 00:15:40
your_friend
2010-01-28 07:34:48
clayclamp
2010-01-27 17:32:23
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-27 21:38:48