Comments on: Thoughts on Canonical’s Approach to Non-Free (Non-Libre) Software

By: your_friend

your_friend — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 05:19:58 +0000

Software that has owners is always one downturn or buyout away from extinction or ownership by a company like Microsoft. Given a choice, users should always go for the free software alternative. From both a practical and moral standpoint, proprietary software is always bad for the user.

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:02:12 +0000

Yes, exactly my sentiments. Groklaw and others reckon there’s gaming of Ubuntu being done that way (e.g. Mono).

By: NotZed

NotZed — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:31:29 +0000

“We are trying to gather preferences for the apps that users would like to see in upcoming version of Ubuntu. ”

Asking isn’t always a good thing. The loudest voices are not necessarily the most representative. Actually they are probably the loudest because they know they are not.

By: Dennis Murczak

Dennis Murczak — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:05:08 +0000

A somewhat delicate topic – on the one hand, support for proprietary software attracts users/customers who rely on closed vendor specific technologies, on the other hand its use should be strongly discouraged because it damages everyone except the vendor in the long run, especially when the technology becomes dominant.

My idea would be that Canonical makes the offering a separate service for paying customers, with a disclaimer that support for the software can only be obtained from the respective vendors. Mandriva does something similar in their commercial offerings IIRC.