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Proprietary software is not evil, is just bad for society. Or at least not as good as free software. I don't like that kind of behaviour from ubuntu, such as o

by aflag 19y ago

Proprietary software is not evil, is just bad for society. Or at least not as good as free software. I don't like that kind of behaviour from ubuntu, such as offering restricted drivers and suggesting for the user the installation of proprietary codecs -- I've been told it does that, I might be wrong. That's supporting the use of proprietary software, which I don't think shouldn't be the goal of any GNU/Linux distribution. In that sense I only wish ubuntu has less support for proprietary software, not more. The thing that should attract people into GNU/Linux is the free software philosophy. If they're going to use GNU/Linux without even worrying about what free software is, then I don't care at all if they are using it or not. Why should anyone involved in free software development care about people who doesn't care about free software? Why should I care about someone who doesn't even make an effort in trying to stay away from non-free software, unless they have absolutely no choice? Ubuntu doesn't ship with Flash to the convenience of the users who want to use free software -- so they don't have to uninstall it (or worse, use it without realising it's non-free).

krschultz 19y ago
There are a lot of things that attract people to GNU/Linux, philosophy is not the one that got it this far. Philosophy got you Hurd, practicality got you Linux. I jumped into GNU/Linux because I use it for robotics and I could develop and deploy on the same platform, free software came later after I appreciated it, and now I contribute to several open source projects and work for an open source company. If I had been turned off by these difficulties early I wouldn't be doing what I am today, that is what Ubuntu is for, not the purists, it is for an introduction.
mmmurf 19y ago
People get involved in free software for all kinds of reasons. I personally prefer the MIT license philosophy (pure freedom) over the GPL philsophy (restricted freedom)... the GPL has done better than the BSD license b/c it's more free, and over time the MIT license will likely triumph, at least to the extent that linux itself being GPL doesn't hinder progress too much. It's a bit ironic that the whole point of the GPL is to control how others use the code! My point is simply that Ubuntu is not an ideological undertaking, it's a business. Thus, it should have a simple screen that loads on the first boot that lets a new user avoid ending up with a crippled system, when perfectly good (free as in beer) software exists. This will only help the Free Software world, since more people using Linux means more support for existing open source code and for new projects. The real problem with closed source is that it fails to harness the willing contributors who would fix bugs, etc. Even OpenLaszlo uses the adobe runtime... so by shipping Ubuntu w/o a working swf runtime installed, Ubuntu's maintainers are harming at least one vibrant open source project.

by aflag 19y ago

krschultz 19y ago

There are a lot of things that attract people to GNU/Linux, philosophy is not the one that got it this far. Philosophy got you Hurd, practicality got you Linux. I jumped into GNU/Linux because I use it for robotics and I could develop and deploy on the same platform, free software came later after I appreciated it, and now I contribute to several open source projects and work for an open source company. If I had been turned off by these difficulties early I wouldn't be doing what I am today, that is what Ubuntu is for, not the purists, it is for an introduction.

mmmurf 19y ago

People get involved in free software for all kinds of reasons. I personally prefer the MIT license philosophy (pure freedom) over the GPL philsophy (restricted freedom)... the GPL has done better than the BSD license b/c it's more free, and over time the MIT license will likely triumph, at least to the extent that linux itself being GPL doesn't hinder progress too much. It's a bit ironic that the whole point of the GPL is to control how others use the code! My point is simply that Ubuntu is not an ideological undertaking, it's a business. Thus, it should have a simple screen that loads on the first boot that lets a new user avoid ending up with a crippled system, when perfectly good (free as in beer) software exists. This will only help the Free Software world, since more people using Linux means more support for existing open source code and for new projects. The real problem with closed source is that it fails to harness the willing contributors who would fix bugs, etc. Even OpenLaszlo uses the adobe runtime... so by shipping Ubuntu w/o a working swf runtime installed, Ubuntu's maintainers are harming at least one vibrant open source project.