Richard Stallman Calls Ubuntu "Spyware"

In a post to the Free Software Foundation's web-site, Richard Stallman has called out Ubuntu as being "spyware" due to the Amazon search capabilities that have been integrated into Ubuntu's Unity desktop environment with the Dash.

Stallman equates the Amazon search integration into the Ubuntu desktop as having "installed surveillance code." The controversial free software advocate goes on to say, "If you ever recommend or redistribute GNU/Linux, please remove Ubuntu from the distros you recommend or redistribute. If its practice of installing and recommending nonfree software didn't convince you to stop, let this convince you. In your install fests, in your Software Freedom Day events, in your FLISOL events, don't install or recommend Ubuntu. Instead, tell people that Ubuntu is shunned for spying."

His post in full about the "Ubuntu Spyware" can be found at FSF.org.

Canonical's Jono Bacon has already responded with his own blog post and accuses Stallman of spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) and that at times Stallman is shortsighted.