Yahoo Pays Canonical, Now They're The Ubuntu Default

[Jimmy]

Who cares... this is one of the most ridiculous discussions I've come across on here. They both cater to Windows, both Yahoo and Google.

Google is opensource friendly? Bah. Look at the Google Earth page. Yeah, real friendly installation page for installing in Linux. Yeah, except I come across feedback of people saying it took them 1 minute to install GE on Windows and only an hour on a Linux machine. Yeah, Google is really friendly to opensource and Linux. Yeah. So, who gives a crap. Dull topic.

Perhaps a better way to say it would be "Google is friendlier to open source than X." When people say "open source friendly" they often mean "friendlier than other prominent software vendors." Given that the most prominent vendor around is Microsoft, it's easy to be friendlier than X.

So while Google could be even more friendly to Open source they certainly aren't hostile to it and in many examples they are downright helpful to open source.

In short "open source friendly" by popular use doesn't mean that every singling thing they do is for the betterment of open source everywhere. It means they don't call it a cancer that infringes on unspecified patents and engage in proxy wars aimed at defeating open source projects.

FWIW, I just installed Google Earth on Linux in under a minute. Also, if "open source friendly" meant "user friendly" than many Linux projects would in fact be hostile to open source even though they are themselves open source. So, your one example of how Google is so evil sounds more like FUD to me than anything else.

[movieman]

Google is opensource friendly?

Don't Google own Youtube? Which is apparently switching to H.264 video, which Chrome can display but Firefox can't, due to patent restrictions?

And I have to admit, I find Google search less and less useful the 'smarter' it tries to be. Type in a relatively uncommon IT acronym and I typically have to hunt through about ten million spurious responses of words similar to that acronynm until I find something useful, because it just knows that I don't really want to search for the word I actually entered.

[Panix]

Who cares... this is one of the most ridiculous discussions I've come across on here. They both cater to Windows, both Yahoo and Google.

Google is opensource friendly? Bah. Look at the Google Earth page. Yeah, real friendly installation page for installing in Linux. Yeah, except I come across feedback of people saying it took them 1 minute to install GE on Windows and only an hour on a Linux machine. Yeah, Google is really friendly to opensource and Linux. Yeah. So, who gives a crap. Dull topic.

[portets43]

ubuntu is the beginners distro, right?
it's full of new users that just came from windows, right?
microsoft made a deal to make yahoo bing powered, right?

wouldn't it be crazy if say, microsoft wasn't just trying to shut down google.

what if microsoft made a separate side deal with yahoo to give an offer to canonical? the linux place that would be easiest for microsoft to gain back old users!

[val-gaav]

They do realize that yahoo will be powered by Bing (MS) eventually? LAME.

How is the current Mono (MS) powered ubuntu different from that? Why isn't Mono (Ms) lame in your opinion then ?

I mean this is a bit alike don't you think ? Yeah there are anti-mono people running all around, but since ubuntu took a pro mono stance so why are so many now surprised on the yahoo/bing thing ?

It would be news if debian or fedora switched to bing, since both are anti-mono/ms but ubuntu ? No surprise for me ...

[L33F3R]

an interesting decision. Quick to note, canonical likes money and actually wants to make it. A very risky move they are making.

I dont think they will have much of a problem changing back to google at any time should they need to.

[d2globalinc]

Wow..

Ok - ubuntu is going downhill quick ... Now has me rethinking our linux strategy.. They do realize that yahoo will be powered by Bing (MS) eventually? LAME.

[MaestroMaus]

Edit: Another thought on size: Ubuntu is the biggest Linux. Does that mean they are also the evil Linux?

Carefull with that one. There are lots of crazy people in every community...

[yotambien]

So in order to get a share of Ubuntu users' search revenue, Canonical Inc. will default existing and new users to Yahoo!?

Seems fair to me. They are putting an OS together for you. It can be even claimed that they gave that extra step to bring linux to a broader audience. Changing the default search engine is pretty unintrusive, and you have the choice to change it later.

Certainly Canonical Inc. is aware that Yahoo! has collaborated with eg. the Chinese regime and decent people are languishing in the regime's jails as a result. Yahoo's Chinese arm remains aggressively pro-regime and recently strongly attacked Google for siding with the users' rights.

Clearly Canonical's intent on getting a share of Ubuntu users' search revenue spoils trumps any consideration of human rights or common decency here.

That's quite a stretch. You could also argue that Google is collaborating with tax dollars with the american government, and as a result hundreds of thousands are languishing dead in Iraq and Afganistan. You also know that Google collaborates with the chinese government, so your argument doesn't hold much.

Then there is the question of decency wrt. Mozilla's own revenue agreement with Google. Does simple very minor rebranding give Canonical the right to deny Mozilla their development revenue??

That is an interesting argument to debate. I don't know, in principle, since Mozilla has made a particular choice of license, nobody should be surprised about others taking the options that license offers and make changes as they see fit.

Finally there's the little issue of user experience. People are using Google search for a reason and the Mozilla default option has not been controversial. Especially for users of open source software Google seems very unbiased towards proprietary, let alone Microsoft's proprietary search results.

I don't think you can blame Ubuntu for not thinking about user experience. I myself don't agree with many of the choices they make, but I see where they're coming from. Changing the default seach engine is hardly an issue with regards to user experience. Again, you can change it if you don't like it.

[Jimmy]

The question is how often you try other search engines? This is the Yahoo chance to show that maybe they are not that hopeless. I'm willing to give em a try. Would be lazy to do otherwise. And if it helps Yahoo to survive longer I see it as a very positive thing.

I try Bing from time to time. Since Yahoo will soon be Bing is there much of a point to trying Yahoo again? It's a lame duck that never really was that great (except when they were powered by Google of course). I have in fact tried Yahoo search many times over the years. Although they did have a number of other interesting offerings over the years, search just wasn't their cup of tea.

Some history: Yahoo->Altavista, then Yahoo->Google, then Yahoo->Altavista as an acquisition, and now Yahoo->Bing. Talk about a roller coaster.

Altavista was good when there was no Google.