Ubuntu Board Votes On Non-Free Software Option

[crazycheese]

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If you don't use Linux for the Freedom, go get yourself a copy of OSX

I removed "happy life", since its marketing slogan, do not confuse it with reality.

[Temar]

What's the point of Linux for the masses if you completely rape the foundations that the system was built on? Just give up and use Windows already.

You call it a rape of the foundations the system was built on. I call it strengthening the foundation:

Why do you think RedHat is able to pay so many OSS developers? Because they make money! A Linux distribution which really is built for the masses would strengthen FOSS a lot more than anything else. The OSS licenses guarantee that the software will always be free but the distributors will have a lot more money to spend on developers to build this software.

Most idealists fail to see that. They think they could compete with the business world and they could replace any proprietary software out there. But they can't! However they would come much closer to their goal if they would make a few compromises. Does it really harm to use proprietary software until there is a good FOSS replacement? Most Ubuntu users will install Adobe Flash anyway. Why make it harder than necessary?

[Temar]

Average Joe is always stupid, primarily thanks to windows and co.

And average Joe windumbs PC is sending spammail, works as free proxy and has botnet integrated. As you correctly mentioned Joe does not care, he just keeps reinstalling.

I hope you don't believe that this would be any different in a pure FOSS world. Even if every single computer on this planet is switched to FOSS, the computer of average joe will still be a spambot. Many people fear updates because they are afraid that something goes wrong and there is a problem they can't fix. So they just don't install updates. FOSS will not change that.

How much do Adobe content creation tools cost?

Doesn't matter. It doesn't help if there is a FOSS tool which does not support the features you need. As soon as FOSS offers the required features, people will use it.

Flash is a moving target, unlike more consistent PDF. Even if Gnash integrates full Flash8 support even with video-accel support, Youtube starts using Flash10(thanks god they switched to VP8, but they still suck as site though) - and user comes yelling.

Just proves my point. It's delusional to think FOSS could provide a full-featured replacement of every tool out there.

Ubuntu, Debian and co do not have "maximum freedom". You are allowed to install skype and other garbage. They are just not included per se to prevent proprietary addiction of new Joes thanks to ignorance.

Well we have many distributions out there which handle it that way. I really understand why Debian tries to be as free as possible, but it would be very nice if at least one big vendor would supply the needs of normal people. Especially if that vendor claims to be a distribution for the masses. Otherwise I would suggest another slogan: What about: "Linux for less idealistic geeks".

You want Mark to loose one of his sources of income?

Hahaha, source of incoming? How much money did he earn? How much did he spend?

Do you really think he makes more money than he spends on Ubuntu? Until now Ubuntu is still a huge money-sinkhole. Without the masses it will never be profitable because the enterprise segment is already taken by RedHat and Novell. Ubuntu HAS to make money with the masses and if the developers don't understand that, THEY will be the one who lose money (= manpower in this case). This will hurt FOSS much more than a strong Ubuntu which is able to pay for lots of developers.

[mirv]

If proprietary was "just ok until....", then many projects would never have gotten off the ground.
No matter what Canonical are trying to hammer things in to, GNU/Linux was (and in my opinion still is) based more around technical and engineering considerations than anything else. That is where it's mostly used, after all: the more advanced users.
It's also based on an open community. Bowing to corporate and proprietary wishes would be very bad for this. Freedom of choice of program allows freedom of how you save your data, encourages compatibility between programs, and avoids vendor lock-in.
And as many companies have already shown, you can make money with open source software.

[Kano]

It is not always possible to get full functionality without using closed source software. If it is a driver or the flash plugin, this does not really matter. flash is relatively easy to install live for u users (at least for 32 bit) but some other design decisions like no mp3 playback affect mainly people who just want to try the live version. I consider live usage much more important and i see no huge drawbacks adding those things by default - well for flash i only provide a simple script to get the current version from the net. But there are even systems which do not work correctly without binary drivers, so a solution to enable em on boot would be much better. This happens for example with new gfx cards (especially with rare oem ones) which might work with the binary nvidia/fglrx driver but not with the kernel nouveau/radeon drivers. So lets summarize: for live mode there are much butter suited distributions (like my own) but at least for hd install it is basically simple enough to add closed software, maybe you get only outdated binary drivers, but at least you get some. At least it is easy to create a much more powerful distro than pure u

[crazycheese]

I hope you don't believe that this would be any different in a pure FOSS world. Even if every single computer on this planet is switched to FOSS, the computer of average joe will still be a spambot.

So there is a spam bot that made it way in Debian and many of my friends actually have it installed? Not.

Many people fear updates because they are afraid that something goes wrong and there is a problem they can't fix. So they just don't install updates. FOSS will not change that.

Many such people should really consider using stable branch instead of riding experimental alpha.

Some problems do happen though, but thats very exotic cases.

Doesn't matter. It doesn't help if there is a FOSS tool which does not support the features you need. As soon as FOSS offers the required features, people will use it.

You managed to miss the whole point - money equals programmer attention.

With proprietary closed source you are (in many cases) forced to pay for bubble(license) of pandora box and thus support its reign even further.

With commercial opensource you pay for what you wish to be implemented or released as open.

Just proves my point. It's delusional to think FOSS could provide a full-featured replacement of every tool out there.

Of course it could. Given enough resources and love - everything is possible.

Well we have many distributions out there which handle it that way. I really understand why Debian tries to be as free as possible, but it would be very nice if at least one big vendor would supply the needs of normal people.

We had one huge vendor, that failed, because it started(and still pushing) to push own 3E standards and nearly died from money fat.
And as soon as gnu/linux distros started kicking its fat in most area's and users started migrating it woke up and wrote version 7, now with extra layer of digital restriction management and used some of the money to bribe and enforce hardware companies dedicating all their attention on its own while, at same time, keeping every single right for this to themselves.

Especially if that vendor claims to be a distribution for the masses. Otherwise I would suggest another slogan: What about: "Linux for less idealistic geeks".

There is no such thing as "less idealistic geeks", same as there is no such thing as "clever idiots". Just because everyone likes to live(and support) stinkhole and some point to the stars, there is no need to label them as "idealistic geeks".
OGG would never have a chance if there would be only windows world.

Hahaha, source of incoming? How much money did he earn? How much did he spend?

Yes, source of income. Is income not something that commercial companies target? Otherwise it would be named Canonical Foundation, Canonical eV or Canonical Org.
But Mark earns and spends much more money on other activities than Ubuntu(Linux),
There is nothing wrong with it. There is nothing wrong with commercial. Canonical however, does not produce much beside marketing and even now its engagement in development of desktop is something let to be desired(and I'm not referring to buttons management). Read this and this. Right now Red Hat, Novell and opensource folks do way more for linux than Canonical. Intel and AMD do something (but lacking) in GPU segment that linux badly needs. Google does it with Android. There is nothing wrong with paying for a product that will belong to you or is desired by you, and that is open source.

Do you really think he makes more money than he spends on Ubuntu?

$30 million (2009), if you desire you and have ?1 - you can retrieve the fiscal situation for this year.

Until now Ubuntu is still a huge money-sinkhole. Without the masses it will never be profitable because the enterprise segment is already taken by RedHat and Novell. Ubuntu HAS to make money with the masses and if the developers don't understand that, THEY will be the one who lose money (= manpower in this case). This will hurt FOSS much more than a strong Ubuntu which is able to pay for lots of developers.

Ubuntu is established as bug-testing playground on users. Most users with brains switched to Mint/other distro or wait several months after its usable.
The money thing should not be made on specific distribution, but rather there should be independent non-commerical supportive entity that can market and redistribute the money for opensource projects.

[Temar]

So there is a spam bot that made it way in Debian and many of my friends actually have it installed? Not.

I was talking about a future where most/all people would use FOSS, not about the current situation. If you honestly think spammers would not try or would not be able to exploit Linux systems than you should start reading security mailing lists.

Many such people should really consider using stable branch instead of riding experimental alpha.

Some problems do happen though, but thats very exotic cases.

I had a good laugh here, thank you. You should check the bugtrackers of any distribution (including Debian) after a fresh release.

With proprietary closed source you are (in many cases) forced to pay for bubble(license) of pandora box and thus support its reign even further.

With commercial opensource you pay for what you wish to be implemented or released as open.

Sure, commercial open source has advantages over commercial closed source. But most software can not be developed that way if you want to make money. Imagine i.e. Adobe Photoshop being commercial open source software. How should Adobe make money? Of course you can always use a non-free open source license, but then you have to count MS Windows as commercial open source software as well. I don't think that's what you had in mind.

Of course it could. Given enough resources and love - everything is possible.

That's the delusion I was talking about.

We had one huge vendor, that failed, because it started(and still pushing) to push own 3E standards and nearly died from money fat.
And as soon as gnu/linux distros started kicking its fat in most area's and users started migrating it woke up and wrote version 7, now with extra layer of digital restriction management and used some of the money to bribe and enforce hardware companies dedicating all their attention on its own while, at same time, keeping every single right for this to themselves.

That is a very poor attempt on your side. My english might not be the best but I'm sure you understood what I was talking about.

There is no such thing as "less idealistic geeks", same as there is no such thing as "clever idiots". ...

Yes there is. As Ubuntu already tolerates binary drivers, these geeks are less idealistic than i.e. the Debian people who removed all proprietary drivers from the installation CDs. Of course, if no geek is using Ubuntu, than you are right.

OGG would never have a chance if there would be only windows world.

OGG _does_ not have a chance. It has been around for years and can not compete with modern codecs at all. Only very few people use it and it will stay that way.

$30 million (2009), if you desire you and have ?1 - you can retrieve the fiscal situation for this year.

According to Shuttleworth 30 Million is the break even point. So until now, Ubuntu has been a huge money sinkhole. But I'm glad that they are on the way to actually make money. I hope they'll make lots of it so Shuttleworth can hire more developers and does not need to accept these kind of bad decisions.

Ubuntu is established as bug-testing playground on users. Most users with brains switched to Mint/other distro or wait several months after its usable.
The money thing should not be made on specific distribution, but rather there should be independent non-commerical supportive entity that can market and redistribute the money for opensource projects.

Hmm, I guess you are not an Ubuntu user if you consider it to be a bug testing playground. I wonder why you are interested in Ubuntu that much and start a lengthy discussion with me? If you don't use it you are not affected by their descisions. Is it jealousy of the success Ubuntu has? Do you fear it could become even more popular if it would be more user friendly?

[Remco]

OGG _does_ not have a chance. It has been around for years and can not compete with modern codecs at all. Only very few people use it and it will stay that way.

When is Linux going to do better? It's been around way longer than Vorbis.

[Temar]

When is Linux going to do better? It's been around way longer than Vorbis.

Hehe, nice one. I guess Linux will become more popular as soon as it becomes more user friendly. As you can see, not everyone wants that. :-)

[yogi_berra]

When is Linux going to do better? It's been around way longer than Vorbis.

What are you talking about THIS is the year of the Linux desktop!1!1!1one1!1