Ubuntu Board Votes On Non-Free Software Option

[devius]

Why it dominates is because of a large selection of polished software first and foremost.

And why is there a large selection? The thing is it has come preinstalled on every single computer sold in the last 18 years or so, and for a very long time manufacturers HAD to pay for windows licenses on computers they sold even if they didn't include windows.
If starting now linux distros came preinstalled on every single computer sold from this point forward, what do you think would be the dominant operating system 18 years from now?

[deanjo]

Why on earth don't you use windows? Its living proof why proprietary sucks, even with 99% market value because of 99% preinstalled cases.

You know that is a very weak excuse as to why windows dominates. Why it dominates is because of a large selection of polished software first and foremost. Even when people assemble their own machine that does not come with any OS a vast huge majority still go with windows and this is why even component manufacturers support windows as a priority. As far as security goes windows has made great strides in this area as well over the last while and most of the security issues stems from 3rd party. It has very little to do if the the source is open or not as well. Many open source applications have had security holes that sat around for years without anyone noticing despite the code being open *cough* mplayer, xine-lib, firefox, etc *cough*.

[crazycheese]

.. do not even want to allow one single distribution being more user friendly and opening itself up to proprietary software.

Your sentence build is wrong.

Its proprietary software that should open itself(as in free speech) to linux, not vice versa.

Vice versa would be "linux should close itself to proprietary software".

Why not let the users and developers decide? Are you afraid that Ubuntu could actually be successful? It really is not that much of a big deal if one distribution opens itself. There are still plenty of free distributions and they will continue to exist.

Why on earth don't you use windows? Its living proof why proprietary sucks, even with 99% market value because of 99% preinstalled cases.

[crazycheese]

Bullshit. You claim to not be an extremist after making an extreme argument equating Flash with a root kit which you know damn well that it isn't.

Watching a cat video has never killed anything but time, watching a music video has never "unpowered" anyone, and while some videos may make you a little queasy, the codec they use is not unethical. If you are worried about being "spied upon" run a packet sniffer and you will soon see that you are, in fact, not being spied upon when you watch a flash video.

You really are grasping at straws to support an untenable position.

How is he precisely gasping straws, when he claims that pandora box is pandora box?
10 years ago my machine was infected with blaster worm via undocumented RFC service, I was watching a vid with a cat. Cats are the true reason for the world gets proprietary crap preinstalled and get addiction to that, yes.

[crazycheese]

Do you have the source code for your motherboard's BIOS? I bet you don't. Therefore you don't REALLY know what your motherboard's firmware is doing behind the scenes. It might be silently taking every bit that's read from RAM and copying it to the ethernet port, sending it out over the wire to a pre-programmed IP. So I hope you compiled your motherboard's firmware yourself, otherwise who KNOWS what kind of terrible things the man might be doing.

BIOS firmware is only 1Mbit long and has been disassembled many many times. In fact, 99% of proprietary companies have special teams or contracts to "illegally" disassemble the code of concurrence. Talk about double standards.

Hell, forget about your computer -- how about the firmware in your standalone Bluray/DVD/CD player? How about the GPS device running in your car? How about your $5 cell phone? All of these things have code running on them that you don't have access to, yet somehow you manage to live your life while using them. And I'll bet they're pretty decent products, too.

Only idiots use Bluray. Its outdated, conflicting, has incredibly low value per dollar. But wait, I play my OGGs/FLACs -encoded CC-licensed music in cowon player and its working FINE. Its good feeling to support people that don't sh1t on your head.

The point that you're pushing an extremist stance regarding userland software that is not only inconvenient for users, but completely useless considering all the other attack vectors that you're ignoring.

You know what "russian roulette" is?
Take an empty revolver, insert a bullet and try your luck. Lets insert them?
Proprietary is a black box, open source is not. Thats one bullet for proprietary.
Proprietary can only be improved by company(to their desire or physical possibility), where with opensource everyone is free to check, post bugs or fix. Another bullet for proprietary.
If proprietary is incompatible to your taste, but is set as standard, you cannot have no choice. Yet another bullet for proprietary.
Given the situation you use opensource everything running on proprietary BIOS, you will still have way less to worry about, thanks to problems not heaping up. Again a bullet for proprietary.
If you use or support proprietary nothing will change. Your future will stay same. Another bullet for proprietary.
And finally, lets assume linux will be preinstalled on 99,99% desktop computers in the world and microsoft on only 0,5%. A very realistic call, no sarcasm. How will number of attackers change? It will stay same. But thanks to less suck-iness, the software will be fixed much sooner, money will be redistributed much more precise(much more salary for coders), there will be no need to purchase antivirus subscriptions(sec hackers will be actually paid for fixing problems in the software itself), people will be not put to jail for handling information the way it is designed to be handled - by copying it and no more IP mess, no more DRM, no more DMCA. Huge advantages! Last bullet for proprietary.

Revolver is loaded, you have crappy 0% chance.

It's like insisting that everyone in the world must have a 10-inch steel door with 15 locks on it, but ignoring the fact that they leave their windows open all day when they feel like airing out the house. And I've got a funny feeling people will get tired of locking those 15 locks pretty quickly, too.

Yeah, 15 locks if you use shitty windows, correct. I remember that times very good.
If you use linux, you need messing with zero locks and be extremely secure.

But hey, feel free to ignore my advice live out your extremist agenda. It's no skin off my nose if you like tinfoil hats. Just stop trying to preach it to everyone else when they've already told you once to shut up.

He is not extremist - he is enlightened. You are extreme ignorant. Same way Tsiolkovsky and Bruno were not extremists, but were seen as such by ignorant trolling fathead consumers/sextants such as yourself.

But the magic thing is that dinosaurs eventually die, no matter how big or toothy they are.

[crazycheese]

That?s absurd.

You are right.
Ignore the idiots and trolls.

Only open source can solve the problems, and in order for open source be useful we need open source companies and we need clarification for normal people to stop supporting (paying) proprietary crap companies; we need laws that will prevent setting anything proprietary as a standard of any kind(what flash thing); we need payment system that will allow for open source products(where work itself is a product, not information). And most of all, we need to ignore the blabla idiots and have lots of patience.

[yogi_berra]

Again nothing what novell did in the past was legaly wrong I think, but they lost much reputation. And you can not win against the free world in a long run. Thats the point why linux is such successful, because there are people who are idealistic and open.

Is that why the Hurd is such a widely used kernel with just 10 (1) known users? Or is free software just winning (2) ala Charlie Sheen when all evidence points to less than one percent (3) of desktop users using Linux?


(1) http://popcon.debian.org/
(2) http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=190984532
(3) http://marketshare.hitslink.com/oper...e.aspx?qprid=8

[blackiwid]

btw I am no laywer you are not too, so proving wrong or right is not the point its just different view points.

Btw it?s not only a question if its legaly allowed or not, its also if a distro vendor want to be the bad boys (from the viewpoint of the bad bad extremists, or people who want as much freedom as they can get) or if they make a windows like os with a bit other gui.

Again nothing what novell did in the past was legaly wrong I think, but they lost much reputation. And you can not win against the free world in a long run. Thats the point why linux is such successful, because there are people who are idealistic and open.

Lets call it open like thats the "practical" interpretation of the gpl. So even they respect gpk and also the spirit of it, and like the idea of it. Its just a better marketing word. But lets stop it here, we will not (at least right now) come to the same conclusion and you trust such companys or you dont care about possible exploids of your trust I dont do and most developers who share their work under a gpl lisence dont do too. Let it be but stop flaming around and insulting people, just because you have to click 2 times in your gui and reboot one time on a installation that works then for 3-5-10 years. That?s absurd.

[blackiwid]

I said it I am no laywer are you? if not we can not clear that point. But 1. I insult nobody of you personaly. I am not saying that you are a extremist or something like that. We have different viewpoints but I accept that people have different view points that I have.

So if ubuntu would do that maybe they are really legaly untouchable but some users would go away. So if they wanna loose some (we all do not have numbers how many of linux users care about freedom and how much use it just because its a better os) they can go ahead, but I think they would loose more users and more reputation, then they would get new users because they dont have to make this 2 extra clicks, because its still easier to install that drivers in ubuntu than its in windows.

But yes you are right it makes no sense to flame about a decition that is fallen anyway and is such minimal change anyway.

[ean5533]

so its a view point if I am extreme or not, but forget about me, lets say in your example, somebody let people live for free in their houses or even give them away for free, the only condition is to use such from you described doors they are buildin, and the only thing is that they say if you wanna sell or give it away again you have to put in that doors again or let it in in the first place. So whats your problem with that? Respect the house-builders wishes or dont use the house.

Your analogy is fundamentally flawed. You're trying to say that the GPL requires that non-free software is not installed by default. You've already been proven wrong on that point by someone else, so I'm not going to waste my time repeating it.

Actually, I'm not going to waste any more time with this conversation at all. You've already decided that non-free software is evil ("morally wrong"), and you're preaching your morals no differently than people preach their religion. There's no point discussing it any further because you clearly aren't even listening to us; you're just waiting for your chance to advocate your point while ignoring ours.