Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Sensationalism in the GNU/Linux world

Today I came across the following blog post entitled Is Ubuntu Set to become Non-free?

Basically they complain how Ubuntu is going to want you to use proprietary drivers for using the default composite manager. The thing that bugs me is that Ubuntu is already non-free. Their own philosophy(which the author even states) specifically says they allow for specific cases of having non-free software. To me, you can't be slightly free or non-free, you are either free, or you are not, it is just that simple.

Try telling that to digg readers though. It is funny to go through their comments on this article, and read many of them say "No", Ubuntu is not going to become non-free.

I think Ubuntu and Debian are both partially to blame here. They pretend they are "free" when really they are not, so now a mass of people believe that is what having a free distribution means. More importantly though, sensationalist posters who are just merely looking to grab attention of the digg crowd are to blame. Why someone would goto the trouble to distort facts and ramble about misleadings just to get a reaction from the digg crowd is beyond me. I guess some people really are just that narcissistic.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is all being done in the interest of "pretty." the ubuntu developer summit lists "accelerated x" with aiglx enabled by default in their next release.

here's a bit of info on it: https://features.launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/accelerated-x it looks like they are considering nonfree drivers by default if it they can get SLA's from the vendors. :(

- j1mc

Anonymous said...

And what "free" distro do you use?

Jordan Wilberding said...

I use Ututo.

I am not saying people have to use a free distro either. I am not that kind of person. I was just simply pointing out that 1.)Ubuntu is definitely not free, and 2.)Making a big deal out of something that isn't even really true is negative for everyone.