Humanity to Others' Agenda
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-01-24 14:43:45 UTC
- Modified: 2010-01-24 14:43:45 UTC
Health check of democracy
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].
⬆
Comments
NotZed
2010-01-24 21:01:38
Pretty soon all you'll end up with is a couple of crappy games, a 'ms paint' clone, a browser and a 'notepad'.
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-24 21:06:41
your_friend
2010-01-24 23:28:36
A better solution would be to find a way for Skype to be free software. There are many services the company offers that have nothing to do with the client - ordinary phone connection, voice mail boxes - that are the sources of their revenue and should not suffer from client freedom. In a free world, they will soon enough have competition and might as well keep building a business model that can survive rather than one built on patent litigation and other foolishness that no one wins.
dyfet
2010-01-25 04:07:58
faltu
2010-01-24 17:52:53
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-24 18:06:49
Dennis Murczak
2010-01-24 20:11:27
dyfet
2010-01-24 20:26:08
Having thought about it, this may well be why most of the distro's that had tried being partially proprietary or offering some or select proprietary applications had failed miserably in the marketplace to date.
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-24 20:40:12
dyfet
2010-01-24 20:46:57
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-24 21:08:47
http://boycottnovell.com/2010/01/10/restructuring-consequences/ http://boycottnovell.com/2009/04/29/on-microsoft-buying-linux-company%E2%80%9D/ http://boycottnovell.com/2009/04/25/novell-microsoft-takeover/
your_friend
2010-01-24 20:25:49
The seductive question is, "With all of these applications running on GNU/Linux, why does anyone bother with Mac or Windows?" That is a market tarpit that can suck down a healthy company because Microsoft will continually move the goal posts. The answer to the question is that you really can't run all of those applications like you want and are better off with free software that you can. Non free software will never give you exactly what you want.
dyfet
2010-01-24 20:32:14
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-24 20:38:59
your_friend
2010-01-24 21:04:00
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-24 21:12:15
Needs Sunlight
2010-01-27 12:54:10
faltu
2010-01-24 17:46:04
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-24 18:09:47
I personally use Kubuntu at the moment.
MegaMania
2010-01-24 15:19:46
http://bobthegnome.blogspot.com/
dyfet
2010-01-24 16:09:23
Freedom is not about defining what applications people can or cannot choose to write in, as some may yet choose to write proprietary software, but rather must become much more about assuring people do receive a core GNU/Linux distribution that people can depend on as being fully free to use, to learn from, to participate in as they may choose, without artificial or false barriers and hidden landmines or submarined traps including actual and potential abuse of third party licenses and controls, and without artificial restrictions on field of use such as "non-commercial only" (referring once more to the Debian social contract).
If non-free applications exist but are placed in a separate repository and users are educated what that means and why, that can be reasonable. Even if people have tools that enable easy installing of blobs, this would not be entirely bad if it includes warnings and a means of contacting said vendor(s) of hardware. Freedom, Responsibility, Empowerment, and Education should really be combined as part of what is called the user experience, not just ease of use and convenience.
your_friend
2010-01-24 17:12:07
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-24 18:12:40
I'm talking about building applications from scratch here, as opposed to porting some.
"Shouldn't we leave the [Microsoft] elephant alone and stop poking it with sticks? Well, the problem is they aren't going to leave us alone."
--Jeremy Allison, LCA 2010
dyfet
2010-01-24 19:00:41
Roy Schestowitz
2010-01-24 20:09:52
MegaMania
2010-01-24 17:54:49