Ubuntu Software Center Criticized For Mixing Free and Non-Free Software 216
An anonymous reader writes: Tony Mobily has been watching the evolution of the Ubuntu Software Center for quite a while now. He had doubts about its interface and its speed, but liked the fact that it offered an easy, down-to-earth interface that allowed users to install software conveniently. However, the evolution of USC is worrying him a lot. Mobily is against confusing proprietary software with non-proprietary software, which USC seems to be doing. USC plays an important role — especially for newbie users, who can use it to discover new software more readily than via the package management system. But is there room for improvement?
Tony (Score:5, Insightful)
Tony? Who the fuck is Tony?
Re:Tony (Score:4, Insightful)
Tony? Who the fuck is Tony?
The anonymous coward who posted this story, of course.
Re:Tony (Score:4, Interesting)
He is also the editor of "Free Software Magazine", and too dumb to understand that if you want people to read your articles, you shouldn't cover the content with a big gray box. He is apparently trying to launch a whine-fest that USC, which distributes both free and proprietary software, uses the word "Free" in the price column instead of $0 for closed source software that is free as in beer. I am personally feeling a distinct lack of outrage about this.
Re:Tony (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, cut&pasting from another comment I wrote, I cannot work out how to link to specific comments.
Dumb? Maybe. I care because I actually write free software. This is the rest of the comment...
I feel the need to introduce myself. I am Tony Mobily. I started Free Software Magazine back in 2004 (!). I wrote about 200 articles on FSM (and many others for Linux Journal and other magazines); some of my articles were published here on Slashdot a few years back
I am also a very active free software coder [github.com]. Amongst my repos, the most exiting one is Hotplate [hotplatejs.com]. I am in the process of documenting Hotplate as we speak. However, I am especially proud of JsonRestStores [github.com].
I have been promoting free software since 1994, and have installed Ubuntu _countless_ times for friends, relatives, and for people I didn't even know.
The overlay ad was there because I am rebooting Free Software Magazine, and I am considering _all_ venues in terms of financing articles -- articles which are then released under a free license. However, since I am not here for the quick buck and I anticipate a lot of hits from Slashdot, I turned the ad off.
I love Ubuntu as a distribution and I think Canonical is doing a lot of things right. However, I feel very uncomfortable with app stores confusing free, zero cost, in app purchases, etc. Seeing such a confusion un _Ubuntu_ itself is particularly painful to me.
I hope that answers the question. I happen to be travelling right now, and comments will come during my night time.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you should direct complaints here. [oed.com]
harriet jones (Score:2)
I feel the need to introduce myself. I am Tony Mobily.
Yes we know who you are.
Tab Closed; Didn't Read (Score:2)
The overlay ad was there because I am rebooting Free Software Magazine
I encourage you to have a look through the TCDR blog [tabcloseddidntread.com].
Re: (Score:2)
great site, thank you. I always feel that way ...
Look at the "nobody likes popups, but i am here anyway". They already know the reason, why i am closing the site. Why are they doing it anyway?
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry you closed the tab. The overlay isn't there for any logged in user BTW. Goodbye.
Posting a link isn't consistent web-wide (Score:3)
You can't handle a simple HTML hyperlink
It's easier said than done. Forums running Slash, Scoop, Lithium, or Vanilla software use an HTML subset to make hyperlinks. But some forums expect Markdown, BBCode, or some other proprietary markup instead of an HTML subset. Other forums censor all posts containing URLs that are posted by anonymous or new users in order to prevent spam. Still others censor all posts containing any URL, such as comment sections below Cracked.com articles and pre-Google+ comment sections below YouTube videos. And many forums
Re: (Score:2)
First of all, there is nothing for which Javascript is "good enough" but Logo isn't! (In fact, the last three words are unnecessary...)
Second, you link to a comment by getting the url from the hyperlink in the header (the "#49857789" part):
by tonymercmobily (658708) Alter Relationship on Saturday June 06, 2015 @04:08PM (#49857789) Homepage
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Many implementations of Node.js are asynchronous." I am going to frame this one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The framed printout stands.
Re: (Score:2)
What about the curly fur in the underground grass?!?!?
Re: (Score:2)
It's all fun games till the tape breaks and the driver dives down.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Tony, your "Free Software Magazine". is no Linux Format, ..It's a BLOG, that you founded and are pretty much the only participant of. So when you constantly puff yourself up like that, it comes across as desperate.
It would be like some guy movie blog with less than a dozen posts, demanding a front row seat at the oscars.
Re: (Score:2)
I wrote more than 200 articles and edited more than 2000. I ran FSM for years -- 11 years that is. Free software magazine started as a printed
Magazine, with 5 issues actually printed and "real" subscribers. I am now writing one article a day while rebooting it. I am going to stop here or I will sound "narcissistic" and full of myself".
Baseless personal attacks and attempts to discredit me continue.
Re: (Score:2)
stop being so narcisstic. Your great blog, your full github, your past submissions ... you're the greatest, aren't you?
Just accept some critque, improve your website and move on.
Re: (Score:2)
After countless attempts by Anonymous Cowards to attach me in every possible way, and try anything to undermine myself as a person, when I point out what I actually did, I am suddenly saying that "I am the greatest", I am narcissistic, and that I am unable to accept critique?
This is becoming _grotesque_.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, let's be not too harsh.
You wrote a blog article. On a site, which forces a (dysfunctional) popup first onto the user. You try to push it via slashdot.
Okay, here is much mediocre content, and your point is worth to blog about, it's not really worth a newssite article. Anyway now it's here.
Then you got the critique, just as above, often a bit more harsh.
What are you doing? You're presenting, what you are, what you are doing, why you are deserving that people value your article.
Really you're more definin
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, let's be not too harsh.
You wrote a blog article. On a site, which forces a (dysfunctional) popup first onto the user. You try to push it via slashdot.
I never pushed this via Slashdot. Given the current audience at Slashdot, I with it never got here.
Okay, here is much mediocre content, and your point is worth to blog about, it's not really worth a newssite article. Anyway now it's here.
I am not sure what you are defining "mediocre". I am not sure if it's worth a newssite. I didn't place the article here, so it's not something I can do anything about.
Then you got the critique, just as above, often a bit more harsh.
Oh, I wish I got some critique. Have you _actually_ read the comments, all of them? It was a huge flood of personal attacks, attempts to discredit me, and just plain nastiness. Very little about the article itself, or even the _summary_.
What are you doing? You're presenting, what you are, what you are doing, why you are deserving that people value your article.
Really you're more defining your person, not your article. And this is the first place, where you actually bring your person into the discussion. But when you try to tell us "hey, i am cool, because i have github projects, do this, do that", you challenge us to judge you by your presentation, you challenge us to decide if we think it's worthy or not.
I only br
Re: (Score:2)
And by the way, the popup will stay. People who care about Free Software Magazine will make an account and see it disappear. People who want to read an article every now and then can make the huge effort of pressing the X button. People who consider a modal a reason to leave.. I am happy to see them leave. No hard feelings.
Re: (Score:2)
I read some, not all.
I think your problem is, that you ... ... fed the trolls. You play the "its crap" "no it's not crap, because ..." "your argument is invalid, because" "but my other argument is valid" game with them. ... You brought it to personal stuff and/or replied to personal stuff. This means, you let the flamewar about an article get to a flamewar about if your achievements are great enough. You compiled a rather big post with your achievments. First people can try to dissect it, what are great ach
You are Roy "Chubby" Brown and I claim my £1 (Score:2)
Or where he's gonna go,
I guess he's got his reasons, but I just don't wanna know
'Cos for twenty four years I've been living next door to...
Tony
Tony? Who the fuck is Tony? [youtube.com]
NSFW, 'nuff said. (^_^)
Re:Tony (Score:5, Informative)
> Tony? Who the fuck is Tony?
I feel the need to introduce myself. I am Tony Mobily. I started Free Software Magazine back in 2004 (!). I wrote about 200 articles on FSM (and many others for Linux Journal and other magazines); some of my articles were published here on Slashdot a few years back
I am also a very active free software coder [github.com]. Amongst my repos, the most exiting one is Hotplate [hotplatejs.com]. I am in the process of documenting Hotplate as we speak. However, I am especially proud of JsonRestStores [github.com].
I have been promoting free software since 1994, and have installed Ubuntu _countless_ times for friends, relatives, and for people I didn't even know.
The overlay ad was there because I am rebooting Free Software Magazine, and I am considering _all_ venues in terms of financing articles -- articles which are then released under a free license. However, since I am not here for the quick buck and I anticipate a lot of hits from Slashdot, I turned the ad off.
I love Ubuntu as a distribution and I think Canonical is doing a lot of things right. However, I feel very uncomfortable with app stores confusing free, zero cost, in app purchases, etc. Seeing such a confusion un _Ubuntu_ itself is particularly painful to me.
I hope that answers the question. I happen to be travelling right now, and comments will come during my night time.
Re: (Score:3)
Respects Your Freedom (Score:2)
because the Ethernet support wasn't completely GPL, Debian did not distribute the code in the default installation package to actually put Debian on this server.
A free software purist would use that as an excuse to replace the server hardware with a different machine that is fully compatible with free software. Are there any Respects Your Freedom certified [fsf.org] servers yet?
Re: (Score:2)
In general, server hardware has always "played better" with Linux. This includes the avoidance of BLOBs. Although given the quite often expensive price tag of such machines, it's an interesting idea that one would be put together in such an ignorant fashion.
"I built my server wrong" is simply not a remark that deserves any sympathy.
Re: (Score:2)
Show me the free software you wrote, and we'll talk.
So on the matter of your bias, you are only willing to talk with others that likely have the same bias? Gotcha.
Re: (Score:3)
People do charity works in different venues for differing reasons. Don't be so condescending as to think that only those working in specific venues have the right to speak out on the practices in them.
Re: (Score:2)
matches his article and clickbait here.
Re: (Score:2)
Is pub culture that engrained in the UK that a fucking LUG has to meet there.
i don't know about oz (but i can guess) but in the uk everyone has to meet at the pub, it's the law
Re: (Score:2)
Most American bars would never let anyone plug in/start laptops, let alone occupy that much space or do a presentation. I saw one get hostile with a couple of guys who pulled out a miniature chess set.
In other news... (Score:3)
$0BSD is dying.
Most users do not care (Score:2)
Most users do not care about software being free as in speech. Being free as in beer is the major selling (!) point.
Most of the time they are even to surrender any privacy for free (as in beer) stuff.
Two issues here... (Score:2)
First, there is the question of whether non-free software should be in the Ubuntu Software Center at all. The purist camp of free software, personified by Richard Stallman, believe that it should not. Shuttleworth's vision of Ubuntu includes availability of non-free software, so trying to argue that point will not change Ubuntu. People who want a completely free software distribution are free to create one, and many are already available.
The second question is about disclosure. Some of feel that the USC sho
"Moral" ? More of a fetish (Score:2, Interesting)
Most people don't care. Specifically: Most people just want to be able to get work done, they don't care about your moral highchair.
More like an anti-proprietary fetish, or political extremism, than anything to do with morality. If a person chooses to use a proprietary program there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
The kneejerk anti-Stallman guys are out in force (Score:5, Interesting)
This is about whether or not proprietary software is clearly identified as such. This is useful for pragmatic reasons, not just ideological. I prefer to avoid proprietary software if there is an alternative, simply because it tends to be considerably less future-proof. If it's an end user application, I don't want to waste my time learning an interface that is more likely than not going to stagnate (with no possibility for a fork or a manual build) or get loaded up with crapware features. If it's a driver then I'm a little less likely to go out of my way to avoid it, but I will certainly look at the alternatives if it's a binary blob and I will make a mental note of what hardware doesn't have a good open source driver for future purchases, purely on the basis of future proofing, compatibility and security concerns.
Call me paranoid, but I really have to wonder what the motivation of the anti-Stallman brigade is. His ideas, like them or hate them, aren't negatively affecting anyone at this point. (This is assuming we ignore the fools who insist the GPL is killing Linux; the GPL has enabled access to a plethora of corporate-sponsored contributions that otherwise would have certainly been closed source. If you want to count OS X as a win for the BSD community that is your prerogative, but it is nowhere near customizable enough for my needs. If you want to pretend that Google would have open sourced Android out of the goodness of their heart even if they had been building on a 100% permissive-licensed codebase from the very beginning, you need to pull your head out of the sand.)
Proprietary stuff is and has been widely available. Nobody uses Gnewsense. There is no significant movement to remove proprietary software from the vast majority of distros. But there is every reason in the world to clearly indicate which pieces of software are proprietary... not so we can try to mindlessly boycott it, but so we can take into account how this might affect us in very real, non-ideological ways.
Re: (Score:2)
I prefer to avoid proprietary software if there is an alternative
You are a Slashdot user. Ubuntu has not and never will target you with their desktop platform. You deserve a better class of distro.
Ubuntu target one kind of user with the desktop distribution, the kind who couldn't give a crap about whether a distribution is or is not proprietary.
If this were Debian or Arch creating this kind of repo then I say we man the pitchforks.
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't mean they are all literate on the command line or that they understand a lot of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, but I daresay most of them understand the difference between open source vs. proprietary.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not doing anything at all to the Ubuntu crowd. I am stating what Ubuntu's own goal was, which was to bring Linux to the masses. To achieve that goal they have considerably dumbed it down and worked a lot on user friendliness. It is one of the most insulating distributions I've ever used, and by that I mean it is a distribution that tries to hide its Linuxness. (Not so much as Lindows but it does it's best).
One of the ways of simplifying things down is to remove things that "people" in general don't care
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't mean they are all literate on the command line or that they understand a lot of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, but I daresay most of them understand the difference between open source vs. proprietary.
Don't confuse knowing the difference with caring about it. I've using Linux since the late 1990's. I have a CS degree and am a programmer for a living. I understand very well the "free in beer vs free as in speech" argument.
HOWEVER, most people really only care about the "zero cost" definition of free. And when it comes to open source most only care about the source actually being available, not whether its under the GPL or not.
"Libre" as it is applied by the zealots is a concept that only a very small
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is about whether or not proprietary software is clearly identified as such. This is useful for pragmatic reasons, not just ideological..
Now, let's look at this pragmatically:
What do people want when they open the software center? They want to find software (probably do to some specific task).
And they want to know if they can download it for free or if it costs them anything.
The vast majority of people using the software center don't care about licences or source code, as they only want to use the software.
So the pragmatic solution is do make a distinction between free (as in beer) and pay-for software.
Making a distinction between closed sou
Re: (Score:3)
It is human nature to hate those we have injured (Score:2)
People are anti-Stallman because most people are pragmatists instead of idealists. I applaud the man's ideals. I'm willing to give up a certain amount of my time and treasure to promoting, using, debugging, and creating open source software. I don't consider user software freedoms important enough to be absolutist about. As you say, the primary benefit of open source is that it remains more valuable in the long run, and most people don't have the luxury of only considering the long run.
Personally, I think t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Stallman doesn't say otherwise. Stallman says proprietary software is evil and that HE doesn't use or recommend proprietary software, and tries to convince others of this. I have never heard Stallman saying the user is evil for using proprietary software, the only thing he says is that users of proprietary software are victims of it.
The big problem is that when faced with a contradicting idea millenials get their feeeelings hurt and their narcissistic way of thinking transforms it into a personal offense. T
Re: (Score:2)
The big problem is that when faced with a contradicting idea millenials get their feeeelings hurt and their narcissistic way of thinking transforms it into a personal offense. They cannot stand that other people might or might not have different ethic standards and that might even be vocal about that because in some idealistic way he sees it as a way to change the world for the better.
It's way past time for you to get over the idea that this is unique to millenials. It's how the world works in general. It's why we can't have nice things, even.
Re: (Score:2)
I do see a difference in millenials compared to the older generations. In the 1970s and 1980s, you could have a legitimate political disagreement with someone and remain friends.
I notice a lot of people throw the word "friend" around pretty casually. I don't. I know what it's worth.
With a lot of millennials, just being on the "wrong" side of a single issue can provoke them to choose the nuclear option and never speak to you again.
Also not new behavior. Been there, done that, both sides. X/Y cusper, most of my friends are Xs.
They're so sensitive because they were taught to derive their self-image and validation from conformance to whatever is "politically correct," and the idea that you might form your own opinions or try a different viewpoint on for size is a threat to their very identity.
Yeah, the problem with this idea is that for this generation it's political correctness, for earlier generations it was "the way my pappy did it", before that it was mostly "because god said so"... same shit, different label.
Re: (Score:3)
Not only do mot people not care but his criticism is empirically wrong:
Some of them are marked as "free": they are not free as in freedom, but as in cost. So, a more accurate way of writing it would be "$0".
No where else in the world do people expect "Free" things to also mean that they then own the copyright. If I write "Free" on a sign by my couch by the street I'm not implying that the couch design is free of all copyright encumbrance I'm saying the it costs no money. Open Source redefined "Free" to add the additional degree of freedom to software, but nobody can claim that it's a "more accurate" definition when the existing definition
Re: (Score:2)
This is why so many of us talk about software being FOSS: Free and Open Source. The graphics drivers that nVidia provides are free to use, but they're only provided as binary blobs and the company has never made their hardware specs or programming interface public so that anybody who wants to create an OSS version has to start out by reverse engineering the binary driver and hoping that they haven't m
Re: (Score:2)
Open Source redefined "Free" to add the additional degree of freedom to software,
What? Who told you that? Open Source just means you can get the source code, full stop. That's what it meant before the foundation of the OSI.
but nobody can claim that it's a "more accurate" definition when the existing definition is the broadly known and accepted definition.
In the Linux world, "Free Software" means that it's under a Free Software license. Ubuntu went for the more mainstream definition, but it's less accurate in the Linux world.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Removing non-free software from the USC is removing user's choices, and thinking for users by imposing your moral/political code on them. That's presumptuous and wrong.
Let the users choose what they want to use. The free stuff is there. If they care, they can use it. If not, they have more choices.
-B
Re: (Score:2)
Truth in packaging.
Free, Open Source, Free to use, Demo, Crippleware, cracked all "might" get the job done, but each one is vastly different in the long run.
Don't appreciate peoples work on GNU, Linux, and other Free and Open Source software, use Windows, Apple or a retro platform.
There are NOT enough people that design and code, and way too many that just beatch about other peoples work.
Did you do your best work every day at your job this year ?
Re: (Score:2)
There are NOT enough people that design and code
And way too many that code with no design. Better off without them. While they make code that technical works, they create more technical debt than useful code, making a net negative value.
Re: (Score:2)
Plenty of us do care, Tony, and we care that you care.
Re: (Score:2)
Rate limits imply multiple ACs (Score:2)
Each Anonymous Coward is rate-limited to post only a small number of comments per hour or per day. Registered users are also rate limited based on their "karma" rating, which is based on moderation of their past comments. So there are probably several users who are posting anonymously.
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone behind the same proxy gets lumped into the rate limit bin associated with that proxy's IP address.
Re: (Score:2)
And there is the problem... it goes back to the use of the word "free" for "freedom" instead of cost. If someone walks into a store and picks up an item labelled "free" they expect that the COST of that item is $0, not that it may cost $20 but they then have absolute rights to inspect / hack it. If you walk up to someone and say "I write free software" they would assume you give it away. For free. Not that it's open source.
Re:Cry me a river. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are assuming that I have a problem with people using proprietary software.
What I *DO* have a problem with, is a program that mixes the free software I write with proprietary software, in the same screens, with the same "free" tag attached to it. As an _author_ who spent close to three years developing free software, I DO care. I think there are good reasons why I should care.
Of course it's their choice to do that. But I can at least point out that, as a free software author, I feel that what they are doing is not ideal.
Re: (Score:3)
Your problem is english. Users of software (slashdot crowd being the exception) expect one thing and one thing only when they hear the word "free", guess what, proprietary vs non-proprietary is not at all on their minds.
You should be advocating a special indication for "open source". Not that your "free" software is not displayed along some other company's "free" software, as surprise surprise the end user is usually "free" to use both.
Re: (Score:2)
Given a history book, my personal conclusion is idealist are at best idiots, and at worst genocidal maniacs.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it could actually be an ideal giraffe too. But that would be way too pretentious.
Re:Cry me a river. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I must have missed it.
His post is only two sentences. Then I repeated it. You are missing it because of the religion.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In a fair legion of cats chasing really fast cars.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ubuntu repos have non-free packages for $0. It's non-free if you use the freedom definition, not the free beer definition. Those packages are accessible through synaptic.
Re: (Score:2)
In general Canonical has never done a good job of highlighting interesting commercial software for Linux (payware or otherwise). Muddling things really isn't their problem.
Re: (Score:2)
If the user experience is for shit (and yes, lots of software behaves like shit) then you have a problem, but it's not the price.
Re: (Score:2)
I totally agree. But... in my article I don't complain about USC having non-free software!
Re: (Score:2)
The thing is most people don't care about the license. Unless it means that they are prohibited from running the software.
Architecture support (Score:2)
Proprietary software does prohibit running a program except on those few platforms that the publisher has blessed. If a program is available only for x86, you won't be able to run it on your ARM SBC. Free software, on the other hand, can be recompiled for a different architecture.
Re: (Score:2)
Proprietary just means that the source code belongs to someone and is not redistributed.
If the source code is not distributed to the public, it cannot be compiled by the public.
It doesn't necessarily mean that it won't run for free on any platform
If the source code cannot be compiled by the public, it will work only on architectures for which the program's publisher has compiled it.
Re:Waste of screen real estate (Score:5, Interesting)
Why bother taking screen space from more useful info?
Because some people have different opinions on the usefulness of that information. In my experience, a piece of Free/Open software will continue to be updated for a while, and eventually abandoned if the developer(s) lose interest, or if the project loses popularity for whatever reason. Later, someone finds a use for it and either forks the project to fix it up or just compiles from source as-is, and the capabilities are there for them to use. Open software provides more options in the long run.
As a practical example, look at all the ARM SBCs around. People would like to use them as a little always-on Skype phone, or as a Teamspeak client so their gaming system doesn't have to bother with it. Those programs don't have compatible, open alternatives, and they don't have ARM Linux versions available.
Having those programs available is valuable, but in my experience, being closed is a risk factor for not working on all of my computers, being picky about library versions in a way that's difficult to fix, and being prone to have support dropped by the developer (or at least lagging distantly behind the Windows version of the software).
I'm not a zealot. Almost all of my machines that have Linux have a Windows partition as well, and I do have some closed/proprietary software that I run under Linux. There are more practical reasons to care about something's license than obsession with software freedom.
Skype is ported to Android Linux for ARM (Score:2)
As a practical example, look at all the ARM SBCs around. People would like to use them as a little always-on Skype phone, or as a Teamspeak client so their gaming system doesn't have to bother with it. Those programs don't have compatible, open alternatives, and they don't have ARM Linux versions available.
I have Skype installed on my Nexus 7 tablet. It has an ARM CPU and a Linux-based operating system called Android. Or by "Linux" did you mean "X11/Linux"? In that case, why can't you run AOSP in a chroot and load Skype.apk into that?
Android is not Linux based, its hosted on Linux (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most of my Skype activity is text anyway. Would even typing be a slideshow?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's also the least interesting part of Skype to get working, since it's more widely known for its audio-video capabilities, and that's what I usually see people asking about.
I guess I was confused because I had been using Skype mostly as a replacement for the retired MSN Messenger.
Re: (Score:2)
Because some people have different opinions on the usefulness of that information.
What if the people who have those opinions are not the target market for your product in the first place? This is not Debian we are talking about, it's Ubuntu Linux for Grandma v15.0neverstable
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And if the proprietary software is declared as such but is *better than* the free software, that's not OK? Not sure you meant to say what your sentence seems to.
Re: (Score:2)
> And if the proprietary software is declared as such but is *better than* the free software, that's not OK?
We ran into this with SCO OpenServer . SCO OpenServer was a pretty good closed source UNIX. The company casually published freeware, open source, and proprietary tools. They then turned on the free software community with fraudulent claims of copyright violation in the Linux kernel, claims made against both other software companies but also against those companies' clients. Much of the legal histo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The mess was _controlled_, and protected from, because the Linux kernel had a clear and open trail for all of its source. This isn't available for closed source software. Litigious companies, especially software copyright trolls and patent trolls, can and do make fallacious claims as a matter of course: the clean and clear provenance of free software, and of most open source software, help prevent exactly such lawsuits. I've faced them and, generally, been able to protect me and my clients from such suits.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Duuuhhhh, only a minority of people speak English, yes it is since the end of WWII the De Facto Lingua Franca of this world but why the hell would we translate everything in English?
If my language preference for the OS is "English" only english books should show up. If I change my language preference to "French" I would only expect French books to show up by default. When you go to Amazon you aren't going to see a bunch of books outside of your native language unless you specifically start searching and teach the site that you speak say Italian.
Re: (Score:2)
I can see why you are afraid of Kubuntu but at least you recognised KDE is better than Unity.
Re:bi7ch (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Honest question. I want to know.
Because I run Linux on VMs when I'm trying to do platform-specific work (and, as a core developer for a library with rather a lot of platform-dependent - and platform-OS-version-dependent - code implementing those attempting-to-be-mostly-platform-independent APIs [tcpdump.org], there's a fair bit of that involved).
As a result, I want to spend as little time as possible dicking with the OS, leaving as much time as possible to actually adding new capabilities and fixing bugs. Ubuntu seems to do a good job of that; if you
Re: (Score:2)
Try pure debian.