Licensing: Ubuntu or not Ubuntu?
On the second of November the Free Software Foundation has unveiled a new Linux distribution based on Ubuntu named gNewSense. On the 30th of December an Ubuntu member wrote a public letter to FSF asking them to recommend Ubuntu instead of gNewSense.
The gNewSense project was started by two Developers, Brian Brazil and Paul O’Malley, who aimed to deliver
the stability of Ubuntu with the addition of freedom.
Unfortunately freedom has a big price this time, since many WiFi and graphic drivers don’t work at all, or at a minimal level, without some proprietary software. That’s why Debian (the code base of Ubuntu) developers felt that they had no choice but to do include proprietary device firmware.
Now that the Free Software Foundation is recommending gNewSense for beginners, Ryan Lortie has written an Open Letter to the FSF raising some issues.
Read the full story and comments.
I understand why the FSF do not support Ubuntu, Stallman has always been clear about it:
Are we working for freedom, or have we replaced that goal with the shallow goal of popularity?
So I fully understand omment I read after posting on digg, while I wanted to underline how different is the meaning of freedom by different OS projects. I already cited Shutlleworth saying:
If you have an interest in being part of a vibrant community that cares about keeping free software widely available and protecting the rights of people to get it free of charge, free to modify, free of murky encumbrances and “undisclosed balance sheet liabilitiesâ€, then please do join us.
Yes, Dilbert is right: everyone is someonelse’s weirdo!
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