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Humanity to Others' Agenda

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Summary: Analysis of some of Canonical's recent moves, which give rise to Novell's Mono and proprietary software (at the expense of Free software)

"If you want to watch the mischief," says one of our readers, "this might be the place to begin. The very harmful stuff is probably not as obvious as overt mischief."



The page says: "Ekiga is not longer installed by default [in lucid]. Added link to download beta version for Windows in switching guide, and added an apt url for download in Ubuntu in internet section. LP: #508572"

Recently, Canonical floated the idea of adding proprietary software to Ubuntu rather than get rid of Mono, which is problematic just like Moonlight. We receive mail complaining about that.

Then there is the GIMP incident (to be replaced by .NET/Mono), which we covered in:



Groklaw points to a somewhat old article about Ubuntu, which notes that Canonical "has had its CEO discard the executive mantle to "focus [his] Canonical energy on product design," [...]." Pamela Jones believes that "it partially explains some of the decisions, by clarifying the goal." That was a few days ago.

A poll from Ubuntu Forums (shown by Groklaw) indicates that Ubuntu users oppose the removal of the GIMP and a petition on the subject has amassed 768 signatures of people who oppose the removal of the GIMP. Is Canonical listening and paying attention to the users? The worry is that warning signs from people like Jeremy Allison get ignored for temporary convenience [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. Shooting down messengers who show something that they do not want to see is not a wise decision. Messengers include the Free Software Foundation, users, and developers [1, 2, 3].

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