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The news means Ubuntu-stewards Canonical will work with China's National University of Defense Technology... ....to ensure that the platform is relevant for th

The news means Ubuntu-stewards Canonical will work with China's National University of Defense Technology... ....to ensure that the platform is relevant for the Chinese market... Exactly which features does the University of Defense Technology consider relevant? Is Canonical enabling repression or military aggression?

laumars 14y ago
Canonical aren't enabling anything. They just repackage open source software (bar their custom themes and Unity). If the Chinese populous don't like any of the governments additions, then those users can grab the binaries / source code directly and roll their own customisations.
- jff 14y ago
  > If the Chinese populous don't like any of the governments additions, then those users can grab the binaries / source code directly and roll their own customisations. If the repos are accessible.
  - laumars 14y ago
    Indeed. I did consider that when I made my post but came to the conclusion that China would have an impossible job blocking every PPA and tar-ball mirror. And even if they do manage that, then people will just redistribute it offline once one guy has downloaded the content via his proxy / VPN.
- YokoZar 14y ago
  If you don't think building a usable linux distro is an enormous amount of work you've never actually tried to do it. Canonical (and the Ubuntu project) is an awful lot more than a few Canonical-originated upstreams.
  - laumars 14y ago
    I have built my own distro before. But that's not the point of what I said. I was saying the Canonical didn't write the software in question and that said software could be installed on any distro. Which means it's a bit of a stretch to blame Canonical for enabling censorship in China. It's a bit like when people blame ISPs when customers use their services for piracy. The difficulty of setting up an ISP (or distro) is completely irrelevant in this discussion.
spindritf 14y ago
> Exactly which features does the University of Defense Technology consider relevant? Here are the features promised by Canonical to be included in the next two releases or later https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuKylin https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuKylin Basic stuff, like Chinese Input Method, Chinese Calendar, Taobao and Baidu Search on Dash... nothing special.
kps 14y ago
It's a one-line fix: send searches to them rather than Amazon.

laumars 14y ago

Canonical aren't enabling anything. They just repackage open source software (bar their custom themes and Unity). If the Chinese populous don't like any of the governments additions, then those users can grab the binaries / source code directly and roll their own customisations.

jff 14y ago
> If the Chinese populous don't like any of the governments additions, then those users can grab the binaries / source code directly and roll their own customisations. If the repos are accessible.
- laumars 14y ago
  Indeed. I did consider that when I made my post but came to the conclusion that China would have an impossible job blocking every PPA and tar-ball mirror. And even if they do manage that, then people will just redistribute it offline once one guy has downloaded the content via his proxy / VPN.
YokoZar 14y ago
If you don't think building a usable linux distro is an enormous amount of work you've never actually tried to do it. Canonical (and the Ubuntu project) is an awful lot more than a few Canonical-originated upstreams.
- laumars 14y ago
  I have built my own distro before. But that's not the point of what I said. I was saying the Canonical didn't write the software in question and that said software could be installed on any distro. Which means it's a bit of a stretch to blame Canonical for enabling censorship in China. It's a bit like when people blame ISPs when customers use their services for piracy. The difficulty of setting up an ISP (or distro) is completely irrelevant in this discussion.

spindritf 14y ago

> Exactly which features does the University of Defense Technology consider relevant? Here are the features promised by Canonical to be included in the next two releases or later https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuKylin https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuKylin Basic stuff, like Chinese Input Method, Chinese Calendar, Taobao and Baidu Search on Dash... nothing special.

kps 14y ago

It's a one-line fix: send searches to them rather than Amazon.