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Canonical and Linspire Make a Deal
Nate writes "Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, has teamed up with Linspire to share technologies between the two distros. When Freespire 2.0 arrives in April, it will use Ubuntu as its base, moving off of the current Debian. Ubuntu users will get access to proprietary software (DVD players, media codecs) via Linspire's newly opened Click 'N Run. Check out the press release and the obligatory FAQ."
Looks like someone has figured out that maintaining a distro is expensive.
http://outcampaign.org/
Um, last time I checked, Ubuntu was itself a Debian based distro which would mean that even if Freespire were to base itself on Ubuntu, it's roots would still be in Debian.
Not really sure if I'm all that thrilled about getting access to a bunch of proprietary software that I have to buy through somebody's portal.
Yeah, I guess the automated installation is nice for those living in the Land of Ludd. But I have little use for it.
That could just be me though.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I don't want access to proprietary software and codecs. I run Linux to use free software. I want open codecs, and GPL'd DVD player software et. al.
No todo lo que es oro brilla
It's nice to see. :)
If we are to compete with the evil M$, we need cooperation between distros, not bickering.
United, we stand.
Sure, I have my favorite distro(s), but as long as it's not Microsoft, I'm happy.
Ubuntu doesn't include any proprietary stuff, really.
And honestly, the only "proprietary" or "closed" things that EVER get included with ANY distro are things like *decent* drivers for 3D video cards, and codecs.
The video card driver situation kind of sucks, but it's just a driver. It would be nice if there were open-source drivers that worked well, but the fact is that Nvidia and ATI are better at writing drivers for their own hardware than anyone else could ever hope to be.
The codec thing ALSO sucks, but there is nothing to do about it. If you want to keep you system "pure", then you aren't going to be watching any Quicktime or Windows Media files or DVDs.
"It" is referring to Linspire, not Ubuntu.
I actually had a similar thought. I've been using Linux for about a decade with Debian being my first distro. I liked Ubuntu because it seemed to clear up the cobwebs a bit and let me use apt. I've run Suse, Slackware, Gentoo and all 3 BSD (going to be building a new freebsd fileserver tomorrow) but ubuntu filled the niche on my laptop where I want to install programs quickly without compiling. Maybe I'll try Fedora on my desktop the next time they have a respin. I hear good things about yum these days and I'm curious about Selinux. I guess I could try CentOS as well.
So we get more ways to easier install proprietary stuff on that OS that was originally proposing to 'support free software'. Sigh. Can anybody enlighten me how Canonical is actively supporting and advertising free software? By pulling in more and more options for proprietary software?
I know they argue that the lack of certain applications and / or drivers is hindering adoption of free software and there is certainly some thruth to it. Well, I don't know. I think as long as I have the choice to exclude the proprietary repositories I'll be fine with it. But I probably wouldn't encourage people to install Ubuntu first, like I did in the past, but instead point them to Fedora.
Roman Kennke
Because with the CNR technology, Linux is closing the gap between Windows and Macs in ease of use.
:)
Give it time... it will catch on. RPMs are great but if you need XXX dependancies first to install something, people get confused (as I did). This is the best thing for Linux since sliced bread
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Yes, Ubuntu has it's roots in Debian. However, it does for Debian what Mandrake did for Red Hat when it came on the scene. Adds support for far more devices, codecs and has far more up to date releases of the applications.
Debian Stable is usually about a year or more "behind the times", though it does what it says on the tin (I use Debian for servers that really need to be stable, but I'm not too fussed about having the latest shiny release number).
Ubuntu makes for a far shiner desktop. Although some of the tech affictionados around here may drop the distro and head for pastures new (perhaps back to Debian, Gentoo or some other distro, maybe even Free BSD!), there are a lot of plain ordinary people out there who just want things to work, and be able to play DVD and have the codecs available to play the media they get sent in attachments via email, or on the web.
Ubuntu merging with Linspire, and getting access to all this could be a rather big step forward in getting the ordinary, everyday person who knows little to nothing about computers to have a closer look (especially when you can hand them a live CD, and say "Go play with it and see how it works for you").
Debian is a great base, and Ubuntu is all the easier for the hard work put in by the Debian team. It just wants to be less political and 'proper', and just get on with the job of making the framework work better for the average uninitiated person in the street.
No one will forced to buy anything trough Click'n'Run. It will just offer users who will want to use some commercial apps their way to do so.
What bother me more is prioritary codecs. If they are Fluendo ones, I am fine, but if they are some thirty party hacks, sorry, I don't think Ubuntu should get involved in this.
Anyway, interesting move. If it means that Canonical things more about commercial offerings, more power to them, because I would like to recommend some enterprise crowd to use Ubuntu instead of RHES/SLES, because I don't think very good about them.
What I don't want to see either is Add/Remove and Synaptic gone. It would be very foolish.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I'm starting to really like Kevin Carmony - the Linspire CEO. First the Desktop Linux Summit, then CNR for all major Linux distros, now this partnership with Ubuntu. Anyone else get the feeling that Carmony is taking all the right steps to setup linux as a viable alternative to M$?
No shit.... when I run Ubuntu, my idea was to have a mostly freely maintainable system with as little to do with Windows as possible and that I can install without fear of licensing keys and having WGA issues (not that I don't use Windows, i do - XP also runs just fine for me, it is more of a PITA to install IMNSHO). *Sometimes* you need a few extras that aren't free or open-source and I find that upholding this OSS-only front, keeping to "principles" (whatever "principles" these people are trying to exemplify) and denying yourself certain things that run well even on free/oss operating systems is a bit retarded. I go for what works, $$ or not. However, that's me... some people find those principles important I guess.
This is what Eric S. Raymond was on about at Christmas, that this is what was needed to be the desktop of the future in a 64bit world. Remember ESR's Desktop Linux 2008 Deadline?
Ubuntu isn't really proprietary. CNR isn't a bad move, honestlly (and I'm as much an OSS zealot as almost anyone). CNR itself is open source, it simply gives you access to closed source software, should you want to interoperate with someone who uses such software (Opera, Skype, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Flash, etc.) Many of these pieces of software many Linux users will install anyway, but now at least they are manageable via Linux's own mechanism: package management.
In the end, no closed source software has been added to the distro by default, the entire CNR add-on is optional (at least in it's use), and we may even stand to gain some ground in the OS wars. I'll count it as a win.
I think the plan is to make CNR part of many "big" distros: openSuse, Fedora, Freespire (duh), Linspire (duh), Ubuntu to name those listed at the top of CNR.com. At least when people try to switch, they will see some familiar applications available.
Pretty much. If you want a totally free (as in freedom) variation of Ubuntu, there's gNewSense.
Keep in mind that it does come with a price, though, since open-source GPU drivers are still lightyears behind IHV solutions, and limiting yourself to only Ogg media is also a pretty lofty prospect.
Oh, come on. Are you trying to tell me that if only ATI and Nvidia would open up the specs to their video cards, someone would write a FREE driver that worked better? Or even nearly as well?
They've been writing 3D drivers for almost a decade at this point. They have entire teams of guys writing the drivers. How can anyone compete with that? And why would they try?
That means if you want to, you can buy proprietary codecs and stuff. But it's not part of Ubuntu's distro, and nobody will twist your arm.
This might help make it possible to finally switch grandmas and girlfriends from Windows.
It seems to me that the folks at Canonical are positioning themselves to be the distro of choice for users coming from Windows that have expectation of certain types of software, and are not averse to proprietary software, that is, the non hard-core linux users. By keeping themselves in the public's eye they stand a good chance of doing so.
For every present, there is a past
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
...I was debating over whether to recommend Ubuntu or Freespire to one of my classmates, but I guess I'll have to go for either Freebuntu or Ubire. Both are 1337er than *buntu and Freespire put together... Never mind, they're about the same as *buntu and Freespire put together.
Plus, "Ubire" sounds like "Uber"...
I use Fedora and Ubuntu Linux. I advocate Free Software at my school. I am a PROUD GEEK!
I agree. I see a lot of people posting here are trying to make this out to be a bad thing and some even saying they are planning on switching distros because of it. And thats fine, its their choice...thats what its all about right? But if linux ever wants to become a serious competitor in the OS market, it's going to have to "just work" and be easier to manage for your average joes.
Just because linux is free, doesn't mean people don't want to run non-free software on it. I want too. I'm sure a lot of businesses are holding out because their favorite application doesn't support it. This almost feels like a bunch of people's favorite band garage band has an opportunity to become famous and they're pooping on it because then they won't be memebers of an exclusive club anymore! Linux needs to get popular to gain some traction with hardware makers and people that make a lot the desktop software the world uses. That'll create a chain reaction.
Yea, I have a principle that murder is bad.. But meat is tasty, so I eat meat. See life is full of compromises its not just the computer world.
The drivers might work well enough and that's the key. If I can run e.g. Compiz and UT2004 with decent framerates, good enough, especially if the 2D acceleration trickles over to fbdev.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I'd read a paper a while back that spoke of the need to provide legal and simple codec plugins for linux. The authors had mentioned that Linspire was in the unique position as the only linux distro with legal right to use wmf.
The paper was Here
The portion about Linspire was towards the bottom.
To the authors: Congratulations and thank you for tackling one of the large hurdles preventing mainstream adoption.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
My FreeBSD desktop is quite shiney thank you... Fast and pretty graphics... *drool*
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
Why would you lambast something for accomplishing what it set out to do? I don't believe Ubuntu ever claimed to be a distro for power users.
The Ubuntu developers strongly support the ideals of the Free Software movement. They also want to make an operating system that's useful to their users.
One of the primary usage patterns that the Ubuntu developers expect for their software is for it to be installed on computers that are outdated or even second-hand. They feel that it's better for these machines to have a binary driver or two then for them to not work. With Fiesty Fawn, they will warn the user about binary drivers, but it's important to make the hardware work anyway - $30 for a new ethernet card just isn't a good deal on a second-hand computer donated to a school in Africa.
This deal with Linspire is a little bit different - it's a legality issue about software patents. Sure, it has the secondary effect that Linspire will get to sell proprietary software to Ubuntu users, but the important thing is that it provides a legal way to play Windows Media files on Ubuntu in the USA. Not having to tell all your users to break the law to watch a video is a good thing.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Use Debian. Some of us want a system that works out of the box to compete with Apple and MS.
Ubuntu was never created to be a Free distro the way Debian was.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
Oh, and by the way, I hope you're very happy satisfying your OCD with GCC flags in Gentoo and being generally unproductive.
Funny you say that, Linspire 5.0 is was out way ahead of Vista and many of the features in Vista look alot like my Linspire desktop. I think I still boot into Win XP every few months to update my AV software, then I shut it down again.
I lost my sig...
I'll keep using Netscape as an example. Using a closed source app was a stopgap measure until an open replacement was available. Are we such purists that we'll disregard anything that contains any non-free software? Or are we going to be willing to allow linux to prove itself a valuable part of the computing ecosystem? Then leveraging that to push open standards and codecs and formats.
It's a fscking codec, it's not like MS is pushing office down our throats. And these same codecs are already being used (possibly)illegally(in the US, perhaps the EU) in many systems today.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
Q: someone would write a FREE driver that worked better? Or even nearly as well?
1- peer review
2- in the long run the free drivers would be better. They would be maintained long after the official ones would get unsupported
3- I am pretty sure the people behind the various Linux system/drivers are pretty bright and I would trust them to better
4- Linux is pretty different from other operating systems in terms of development practises. e.g. APIs are not stable. I trust kernel developers to do a better job at integrating the driver and following the proper conventions than external writers
5- they would write drivers supported on more Linux platform than just Linux i386... for those people, little bit support is better than none
6....
note there are various components that have worked out of the box on Linux systems long before they existed on alternative systems.
I can't wait for the 'nouveau' driver to be stable for me to use it. I run the nv driver today on my brand new thinkpad and it works OK for my needs.
Q: why would they try ?
pick your reason(s): challenge, itch, fame, money, nothing else more interesting to do...
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
Indeed, some consolidation is needed - makes it easier for people to identify Linux through 1 distro rather than 10.
Incorporating proprietary software is not as scary as it sounds - noone forces users to buy the stuff and as we know, every Linux app has 5 alternatives.
I think this would be some motivation for proprietary software writers to port to Linux. This makes the "but my app does not run on Linux" excuse go away (I've heard that a lot).
you can change the default sudo privileges if that bothers you. Compile apps from source or bring in ones from other distros (alien, etc.) if ubuntu doesn't have package. Compile custom kernels if that floats your boat. Add another runlevel to the two-step one. What exactly can't be tweaked in Ubuntu that some other Linux distro allows? I threw my SuSE in the garbage can a few months back, and Kubuntu isn't lacking anything, nor is anything not tweakable.
"If you are a tweak freak power user, forget Ubuntu. BASIC.. And yes, I enabled all the extra repositories. Still, BASIC..:
This stupid comment bothers me as it only represents FUD. How does Ubuntu (or any other distro) prevent you from tweaking your system, or being a so-called power user. Give me a break.
Last time I checked, the Ubuntu repo's had over 21,000 packages. What more do you want, and what does the repository have to do with it in the first place? What did you think would happen when you enabled more repos? The distro is supposed to automagically turn into Gentoo or "Enterprise Ready(TM)" ?
I want stuff to work. I don't care about binary blobs etc and neither does the average user? If Ubuntu frustrates you go back to using slackware or some other distro where hardly anything works...
Debian's goal is general-purpose distro that consists entirely of Free software, while Ubuntu's goal is to have desktop and server distros that are highly-polished and ready for the non-technical end user. Hence, the default menus and such differ signficantly between Ubuntu and Debian. So it's a bit disingenious to say that Linspire continue to be based on Debian.
Linspire is pretty much a desktop that's polished and ready for use by nontechnical people now. It looks like Windows with "My Computer" and "My Documents" on the desktop and the ubiguous start button which Linspire calls "Launch" instead of "Start", probably for legal reasons. Where Linspire differs from Ubuntu is that while Ubuntu has as you say a server distro Linspire is specifically for the desktop mass market. A few months ago I got a new desktop, tower really, PC with Linspire preinstalled however I also would like to install Ubuntu and start working with servers.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"It" is referring to Linspire, not Ubuntu.
Both are Debian based.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
2. Relevant for old hardware, yes. For new hardware, use the closed-source ones.
3. Ha ha. Good devs aren't common or expendable. nvidia has some VERY good devs working at these drivers. A 3D graphics driver is not trivial to develop. And unlike many free-as-in-freedom evangelists think, it IS much more difficult than a NIC driver.
4. Unfortunately, this is one reason why IHVs tend not to support Linux (read "support" as in writing drivers by themselves and providing call-center support).
Nouveaux is the closest thing there is to a free, decent 3D graphics driver, and guess what - its because they use reverse-engineered stuff. Its not just the specs. A lot of the 3D functionality is in the drivers themselves.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
wait... what... murder is BAD? *hides bodies*
What a lot of people seem to be forgetting is that running Ubuntu with proprietary binaries is optional. They still have their restricted/universe/multiverse repositories, and so you make the choice of whether to include proprietary/unstable/etc packages. And that's what Linux is all about, being given a choice.
If you want to support free software, just don't install proprietary packages. If you just want things to work as best they can, then having these extra options is a good thing.
And honestly, if one is such a zealot for free software, why would that person be using Ubuntu anyway? Last I checked, it included the "controversial" Firefox browser, as opposed to something truly free, like Iceweasel.
The point is that Ubuntu hasn't entirely been strictly free software for quite some time now. But their default setup is, (else why would people be using scripts like Automatix to install all the non-free stuff quickly) and they only offer the choice of using non-free packages. They don't force people to use it.
The fact that Ubuntu is BASIC is why it's so great. Normal people don't want to tweak shit and work with the console/terminal and all that crap. We want to be able to browse the web, type a paper, send some e-mail, and instant message, and damnit, we want to do it "out of the box," as in right after the install is done. We don't give a shit about your free software jihad and your extreme phobias of running non-free/proprietary software. We want an operating system that simply works.
I think you're confused about something. At one point, Linspire was configured such that the user always ran as root. Ubuntu does not, and to my knowledge never has. Perhaps you are thinking sudo/gksudo? Ubuntu is not the only system that has this ability. Every day I run Ubuntu as a non-root user. When I need to perform administrative tasks, I am prompted for the root password, which elevates the process to run as root. I don't understand how you can think this is insecure.
http://www.mhall119.com
A long term criticism of Linux has been the number of different distros leading to numerous ways of performing the same tasks.
Absolutely. Another perennial criticism of Linux as a desktop OS is the lack of proprietary codecs and software, which hamper its usefulness with regards to digital media in its default configuration. An operating system that can't play DVDs without some shady "wink, wink, nudge, nudge, here are the addresses of some mirrors in France," is a non-starter for most people.
Hopefully, the collaboration between Linspire (who are one of the only distros that I know of, who actually license the codecs and thus can have a fully-functional, U.S.-legal distro out of the box) and Ubuntu (which seems to have the largest desktop userbase, and the most mindshare among users), will move Linux a little closer to parity with Windows.
Windows zealots are always going to have something to use as an excuse for the inferiority of Linux; ultimately, their objections (and many PHB's) tend to boil down to "Linux is not Windows," and are really sham arguments used to justify a decision that's already been made. These people are not convertible. Linux isn't Windows, and shouldn't try to be; to attempt to make Windows more attractive to them is probably to damage it. However, there are a significant number of people 'on the fence,' without strong feelings for or against Linux, and who are kept from being more interested because it's perceived as too complicated or limited. Providing U.S.-legal media codecs in mainstream distributions -- even if this means knuckling under and paying royalties in the short term -- is an important step towards bringing those users onto a Free platform.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I dunno. After a small hack I have Slamd64-current up and with a bit of digging I can now play every damn thing except the perhaps .EVO VC1 fies. I have video working, latest mplayer from SVN and the sound will work in a day or two, fudged ac3 AFAIKT.
... had em' for a long time now.
So I can't find a file or stream I can't feed to my sweet Sony HDTV. Distribution independant codecs
Interesting. Many of the reasons you cited for moving away from Fedora are what keeps me running it. FC5 was much faster than FC3 (skipped 4), and FC6 is even faster still. I have found that many of the ppl that cite slowness have SELinux enabled and enforcing. My theory is that is their issue. I always disable it, and think that is the way things should be for a desktop. If you're running a server that is a potential target, then SELinux becomes a higher priority.
I tried Ubuntu, but I couldn't get things running as easily as Fedora. That could be because I'm more experienced with Fedora than Debian and know the quirks, but that means that your reasoning for sticking with Ubuntu is the same as my sticking with Fedora, negating the point.
I think your issue with updates is that you left AtRpms and Livna enabled for automatic updates. If you need one of those packages (I use Livna for nothing, and At for my wireless drivers), then enable it when you install those packages and nothing else. Dag is picking up drivers for the things that I use At and might use Livna for in the future, and their update system is friendlier, so I might switch to those packages soon.
I found on Ubuntu that I didn't have nearly the package selection that I do on Fedora. You mentioned that you have to have more repos enabled, but that is one of the least significant problems you could mention. It is well known that RedHat is not able to include a lot of things for license reasons.
On my x86_64 system, I did have to remove a couple of i386 packages to get updating to run right, that's one irritation that I hope to see go away. They include a lot of duplication that really isn't needed there, but make it very difficult to install i386 packages once the system is running. I don't have any issues on my core duo notebook though, that's exclusive to amd64, and easy enough to deal with once you realize the problem.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
The line:Should read:It doesn't really make sense as it was written above. Durh.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
But the main thing is that ubuntu has changed so much of the stuff that even though it is based off of debian it still has so many changes that kinda makes it it's own version. Sure it is still based off of debian, but with so many changes it is hard to revert back to pure debian. But this is just my view...
hello
You answered your own question:
.orig if you want.
.diff? As you note, it includes build scripts and DIFFS, so it is a diff containing diffs. You've basically asked for exactly what they already provide except for some reason you want the archive as a .tgz instead of a .diff
.tgz instead of as a .diff. *shrug*, it would be possible but why would you want to? It won't save space since the whole archive is compressed, it won't increase readability since the diff expands out to a series of changed/new files, and in many ways it will reduce ease-of-use since currently you can search the diff which you wouldn't be able to in a binary-only format.
"the name and contents of the original file should be untouched."
something_1.0.orig.tar.gz is the upstream source code, complete with matching MD5SUM. Every single debian specific thing from patches to upstream to debian control files are left out of it. That gives lots of advantages:
1) It makes it really easy to see what changes Debian makes. Either a change is in the official upstream package or it is in a relatively short diff.
2) People can easily replace the orig with a later version and with very little editing create a package with the debian patches for a different upstream.
3) People can easily tweak the diff and create a debian package that has things like different compilation options but is still using the official upstream package.
" any build rules/scripts should be externally defined, and not be required to be put in the original source."
They're not. They're carefully put into the "something...diff" you mention. Use the origional source from the
"- all the diffs needed should not be required to be combined unnaturally into one. The should be separate diffs, logically."
Oh? And how do you propose to show the differences between the debian package's source and the upstream package EXCEPT with a diff?
"The diffs, build rules and extra build scripts should be archived together. Optionally, the original source two. But two files is manageable."
They are, it's called "something...diff" And it really is a diff, so why shouldn't it be called
It seems then you have two arguments against the deb file format:
1) the orig. file does not have the upstream filename but instead a standardised and consistent name across all packages. I wonder how many upstream packages are called src.tgz? Would you want them in debian with that name? I personally prefer consistant names across packages to consistant name with upstream.
2) the set of diffs should be provided as a
Incidentially, the source based distributions like Gentoo all do it Debian's way rather than RedHat's way. Does that tell you something?
Your post is full of misinformation. I don't know where to start. I have been running Ubuntu since it came out.. October of 2004, I believe.. I have web servers, mail servers, ftp servers, file servers serving Linux and Windows workstations.. all running the long term support version (6.04) as of now. Security you say? None of my Ubuntu machines has EVER been rooted, infected with a virus, or in any way compromised. It is as stable as anything I've run (much more than WinXX). I also run it on a Dell laptop. The repositories are huge.. and if you can't find what you are looking for there, then there's nothing stopping you from compiling from source.. just like any other distro.. Don't like using "sudo" to do things as root? This can be changed in seconds. Package management? Apt-get and Synaptic make "dependancy hell" a memory.. Don't like the Gnome Desktop? Change it to KDE, Fluxbox, Xoffice, or maybe Enlightenment.. By BASIC, do you meen a menu that isn't cluttered with 5 different choices for how to listen to an mp3 or burn a DVD? You can download all that bloat if you care to.. customize away.. It's all about freedom of choice! Enjoy MicroSuse if you like! Choice is good.
"The codec thing ALSO sucks, but there is nothing to do about it. If you want to keep you system "pure", then you aren't going to be watching any Quicktime or Windows Media files or DVDs."
*coughs* VLC.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Ubuntu was never created to be a Free distro the way Debian was.
That's not true. Even on today's Ubuntu front page:
The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Philosophy: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.
These freedoms make Ubuntu fundamentally different from traditional proprietary software: not only are the tools you need available free of charge, you have the right to modify your software until it works the way you want it to.
You can't customize non-Free software in whatever way you want to.
I understand your concern about possibly undermining the F/LOSS movement, but I don't think you need to worry. Here's why.
First, Linux itself is Free and Open Source; that's a given, thanks to the solid foundation formed by the GPL.[1]
Atop this operating system (OS), we need to run applications, like email clients or word processors. These can be F/LOSS or proprietary. You are concerned that too much proprietary software might dilute the pool of Open apps, but here's why it won't happen: for Linux there are far more Open apps than proprietary ones, and the Linux community is used to getting Open software. Whereas Windows users would readily pay for black-box apps with names like "Norton Incorporeal Being" that do the same as a 'dd' bash command, Linux users demand apps that are Free. Most happen to be zero-cost, but above all it must not be black-box, because Linux users tend to want the ability to tinker around with the software. They don't necessarily plan to do it, and there are more and more people using Linux just to get the job done rather than tinker, but they need to know that they are not being locked in to some proprietary system that gets frozen the moment the software maker company goes belly-up. They need to know that someone can get into the project and fork it.
So, in the Linux environment, the demand for F/LOSS is there, and for the right reasons. (Contrast this with the Windows environment where people download freeware because it's zero cost, whether proprietary or not.)
Now we are letting makers of proprietary software into the community, giving them a foothold, a marketplace from which to sell their wares. Unlike in the Windows world, this is what will happen:
1. Free/Open Source was here first. The standard to which they will be held is higher. In particular, the company will need to justify why their stuff is proprietary; they will be asked: "So, why should we buy your stuff rather than Open Source?" This is a good thing. The competition from FLOSS will force proprietary software to bring added value, and respond to market forces, in order to generate income.
2. Thus the proprietary company will need to identify where they can be better than F/LOSS. This, too, is good. One of my peeves in F/LOSS: useability in software, which is lacking in many Open Source applications. If Adobe PhotoShop For Linux starts selling like hotcakes, it would send a message that there might be a market need unfulfilled by the GIMP software. Competition, whether amongst Open Source software (e.g. KDE vs GNOME) or between FLOSS and proprietary (Firefox vs IE), brings out excellence.
3. On particular disadvantage at which the proprietary companies will find themselves is that they can't use Open Source software for stepping stones. If the Filelight program has this brilliant idea, the Konqueror team can just take that and put it into their own software.[2] The proprietary software team, however, has to reimplement it on their own. So it's not like the proprietary software will gobble up the Open Source one.
4. Once the proprietary company is a bit more accustomed to the Linux and Open Source market, I hope they'll start being able to differentiate between "commercial" and "proprietary". Really, what they want is "commercial" (and the "proprietary" part is really just a means to that end), and they'd be more comfortable exploring commercial Open Source. They'd become an example of one of the Open Source business models, showing that it works, or perhaps they'd dream up a new brilliant way to profit from Open Source.
In summary, competition is a good thing, and will only benefit all participants. The FLOSS community is robust enough not to be overwhelmed by th
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
As long as this deal doesn't turn [k]Ubuntu into a Linspire clone, I'll be happy.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
Well, I will reserve my opinion as it comes to nVidia, but how could anyone do a worse job of writing drivers than ATI? And frankly, the nVidia drivers aren't the most stable thing ever. But the most telling fact is that the free ati driver is dramatically more stable than the commercial fglrx driver for the few cards that support both. Or so my ATI-using pals tell me, but then, they bought ATI cards, so their judgement is suspect.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That's true, which is why we have vlc.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hmmm...this is a promising development. It'll be nice to have a convenient way of obtaining commercial software. My question, though, is how this will integrate with the package management system. I don't know much about CNR in Linspire. Are the programs distributed as .debs, or is the package tracking done separately (or not at all)? In other words, if I use CNR to install StarOffice, will it show up in Synaptic when I browse through my installed .debs?
For the record, those of us who hate copyright will not despise someone for disregarding copyright law.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
from
by Richard Stallman
The choice of liberty in all things, even things so small as a printer driver.
They're there affecting their effect.
And how hard was that to do, exactly? Something you'd be comfortable handing over to someone's techno-illiterate grandma? (I run Slamd64, so I know the answers. :-)
You have it, but it was a PITA. Too much so for most people.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
How is the legal status of VLC any different from that of any other Free Software media player?
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
very day I run Ubuntu as a non-root user. When I need to perform administrative tasks, I am prompted for the root password
No, you are asked for your user password.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I'm primarily a Mac user at home and it is a system I have grown quite comfortable with. But I love the concept of FOSS like Linux. Ever since Red Hat 6 I have tried various distros every few months or so. The biggest issue I have run into is things like display drivers and codecs. Dependency hell is really hard to deal with. Thats not to say that I couldn't figure it out, but I just dont have the time. This sounds like a great solution for people who want to get to use Linux without dealing with some of the issues that I have seen over the last few years. Linux is awesome when it is set-up properly, very stable, fast and best of all free. But if 95% of the world cant instal an app or tweak a driver it is gonna have alot of trouble breaking into the desktop. Looks like I'm gonna give Ubuntu a shot. For the people that hate non-free software, thats fine, just dont install the binaries.
Jesus christ. This distro will be one helluva hard one to argue against if stuff like streaming video "just works" for Joe Schmoe using binaryonly bullcrap proprietary codecs and the desktop does cool threedee using proprietary closed binaryonly crap drivers...
First Novell-M$, now this.
Thank GOD for GPL.
Thank RMS for GPL.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
VLC breaks the law in the good 'ol US of A. Specifically the DMCA's restrictions against circumventing copyright. Please, try to keep up.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
It worked for 3dfx in a simpler era. My Voodoo3 can still do hardware 3d acceleration in Linux.
First and foremost, free and open drivers would be integrated into the operating system far more easily. All linux and bsd distributions would be able to provide out-of-the-box 3d acceleration to better than 95% of the pc userbase. That means a lot when it comes to eye candy. Things like glitz could be brought up to universal compatibility, and XGL and AIGLX would be able to move forward much faster with the larger user and developer base.
http://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/
I believe when that hits zero, Testing becomes Stable. It's currently at 105.
If you want to help debian:
http://www.debian.org/intro/help
Care about privacy? Read this!
There's nothing illegal about playing Windows Media files. It's just a question of licensing the appropriate patents. Freespire just happens to have the right to use Microsoft's tech without paying, thanks to their antitrust lawsuit.
So, it's really just a question of money... and a very small amount of money at that.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Feb 15th, 2007: Microsoft announces that it has purchased Linspire, closed down the cnr.com website and changed the licensing of Click 'N Run to conform with MS's EULA standards. Ballmer is quoted as saying: "The thought of one-click installation of free software without at charge whatsoever to the End User is against everything that Microsoft stands for and endangers Freedom and the American Dream.
With our announcements today, Microsoft has taken extensive steps to thwart this threat because, were it not for this, the future of the free world is at stake. What kind of a world would it be if people could simply upgrade or install software free of any charge whatsoever?"
*** Don't be dull.***
But distribution is...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
VLC (as well as MPlayer, Xine, ffmpeg, etc.) have not paid license fees for the patented audio and video codecs they use. So it's illegal anywhere that software patents are enforceable.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
So how would getting those patent licenses work for Canonical then? It's not like they're selling copies of Ubuntu.
This deal with Linspire provides an answer to that question, and the answer is actually pretty good.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Okay, maybe "canspire" would be better, but it would not be as funny.
But wouldn't "Linonical" have been more comical?
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
Mostly true, except in that Vista doesn't support older hardware very well at all, breaks compatibility with many older (read: brand new) software packages (most notably iTunes/iPod drivers). XP is the only MS OS that really can make that claim at this point, though I'm sure as the driver framework becomes more expansive, we'll see more compatibility in Vista's hardware support.
You'd be surprised how much hardware auto-detects well on Linux, though, both new and old. Only real hitch comes in the binary video drivers for nVidia/ATi cards...
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
I use the open source radeon drivers instead of the binary drivers. I chose Firefox over Opera. I use kvpnc and vpnc instead of Cisco's VPN client. However I also use Adobe Flash, Google Earth, and on very rare occasions I'll load up VMWare Player to use Windows. I want to get the most out of my computer, and there are projects I've given time and money to for the sake of improving the available software.
Having a computer with Free software doesn't have to be boolean. I once heard someone ask "If you're going to run a binary video driver, why don't you just use Windows?", as if running one proprietary application (admittedly in kernel space) were as bad as using 100% proprietary applications on every level. Personally I'd rather have a system that was 95% free and as friendly as possible than 100% free and a pain in the ass, (or 100% proprietary and a pain in the ass, as is often the case with Windows). I'm not saying people who want to keep their computer 100% Free shouldn't do so, but I try to find a happy medium between Free and functional.
My favorite distro is Debian. I still use Ubuntu on my laptop though.j pg .deb from the CNR. I'm not sure
As long as the standard apt-get and dpkg tools work in Linspire I really
don't have a problem with it. But if you will look at this:
http://media.linspire.com/cnr/images/CNR-system2.
What I want is that CNR plugin that crosses from CNR directly to you desktop
to use dpkg to install it. That means I want
but it since CNR is also shooting for Fedora and OpenSuse that this might not be the case......
That's what I want (at least it's not a pony). But does any one know what the
underlieing package management looks like with CNR?
Money is the root of all evil?
That seems pretty obvious...
The Open Source(y) option would be to take donations, and use that to pay for the licenses.
Another option would be to offer a licensed version up for sale, eg. on their website, much like CnR. Unlike Linspire, they could license the standard, open source codecs, instead of proprietary ones, which probably perform much more poorly as well.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Having read TFA, my take on it is that the only real news is that Linspire is changing from Debian base to Ubuntu base. Ubuntu is, as you say, basic and that's the appeal. I installed it and everything just worked, easier than any version of windows. If I want to build my own binaries, tweak things, etc, I can. My wife, btw, gets a glazed look if I show her a terminal, but here is a system with which we are both happy.
At first I was also a bit concerned about the sudo only approach, until I figured it out. I restrict access to sudo for all the normal users, myself included, and create a hidden account for super user tasks. This prevents us from inadvertantly screwing things up in day to day operation. It also means that if someone broke in, they'd have a harder time figuring out how to get root access than if they could su or could log in as "root". Apart from that, security isn't much better than other distros.
CNR is an free tool that makes it easy for people to find and install non-free blobs and Linspire have already announced that they would make it avalaible to other distros. Ubuntu already allows easy installation of free software, so Ubuntu saying they will include CNR is barely news. The only news is that Linspire is changing it's base, oh and perhaps that the companies are announcing cooperation.
Perhaps you're just trolling, or perhaps you are a religious zealot. If the latter, please RTFA again and realise that, at least as far as Ubuntu goes, not much has really changed. In any case, as you're obviously not interested in Linspire, or Ubuntu for that matter, please STFU.
I don't therefore I'm not.
My response to the Pre-Installation Problem would be to get Canonical to send people to the large resellers with an edition of Ubuntu LTS which functions as a system restore desktop. Pre-installed by, say HP to recover when Windows goes bad. It would need a sizeable back-room management suite to prepare disk images with customised-for-hardware settings, a method to check that the other-OS image isn't trashed or compromised, and could easily provide a web browser, e-mail program, office suite, media player, and photo album in a desktop environment in the space the LiveCD takes up, stored with the recovery suite.
I apologise that I have a PhD thesis to finish right now or I'd be trying to build this in my spare time, rescue desktop, the back-room management suite and all.
Ok, I stand corrected, it does ask me for my user password. However, that is only because I have sudo access, and I do have to enter my password. A code execution exploit on a program I run as my username will not have root access to anything, and unless it knows my password it can't elevate itself to root. I have two other accounts on my home desktop, neither of which have sudo access. Again, I don't see this situation as being insecure.
http://www.mhall119.com
"Some European Moves Towards Linux"
????
At first, I thought this had been piped into my reader from The Onion's rss feed.
I guess we can look forward to "Area Man Reaches for Pretzel Bag While Updating Lilo"
No option that involves paying patent license fees is compatible with Free Software, or even with the Open Source definition. That means that there is no option to license these proprietary codecs that is "open sourcey".
As temporary compromises go, the deal with Linspire should work fine. It's not like this stops people from downloading the existing codec packages, this just gives an option that is 100% legal - which is really good for system resellers.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Don't you know that RMS wrote the GNU Manifesto, and then powered down his computer until Linux came out in 1991? No, really.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
It skips the extra click.
And honestly, the only "proprietary" or "closed" things that EVER get included with ANY distro are things like *decent* drivers for 3D video cards, and codecs.
Actually I remember using Netscape 4 with an early version of Red Hat (3.5?). Only decent web browser I could find :) (Also, for a while Adobe Acrobat Reader was pretty important for me, despite xpdf being available)
That's moronic.
USING patented software may not be compatible with the FSF, but the act of paying for the patent license makes it no worse, nor better.
You certainly don't speak for Open Source. There are a vast number of open source projects out there that are quite happy to coexist with patents.
Using closed-source, patented software is WORSE for everyone, not better. The only benefit they get is not having to pay the few cents per copy for the codec patent licenses.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I don't think it's insecure either. I just didn't want to let it stand as you wrote it, there is enough confusion among newbies on the ubuntu-users list as it is :)
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Both the ATI and the nVidia proprietary video drivers are extremely unstable and I have seen them often crash the entire kernel, hard. The nVidia driver in particular also has fundamental security issues (anybody with access to the video device has effective root); the same thing's probably true of the ATI driver, but I haven't heard of anybody figuring out how yet. These drivers are almost as bad as their Windows equivalents, needing patching every time somebody tries to run a new piece of code.
Microsoft have been writing operating systems for over a decade at this point, and they still suck at it. ATI and nVidia have been writing drivers for almost as long, and they still suck at it. The problem is not experience, it's objectives. "Providing a stable, secure operating environment" is not on their list of objectives, because that is not what sells video cards. Games, noisy fans, and cards that take up huge amounts of space (and therefore look more impressive) are what sells video cards. All that time and effort has not been put into making drivers more reliable, it has been put into making new visual effects that only work on the new models of cards, so that people have to keep buying new cards.
Yes, anyone can compete with that if they had the necessary information. There is plenty of scope for competition here. The reasons why they would try should be obvious.
Quicktime is MPEG-4. Windows Media is VC-1. DVDs are MPEG-2. All of these are published, open specifications that anybody outside the US may implement. You probably already have free implementations of them installed.
The problem is not codecs. The problem is DRM. If you have a WMV that won't play, it's encrypted.
In the opposite direction. You do not defeat oppression by oppressing other people.
It's true this is my toy but just installing SVN mplayer handles nearly every codec known to man. I tweak the setup so it's how I like it but it sure ain't rocket science.
There is considerably more noise about Windows Vista. Why don't you go there, if media noise (read hype) is all that you care about?
ahem Debian core is Ubtuna folks.. Ubtuna contributes their stuff back to Debian.. Just knoppix and all of debian derive4d distros..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
A mandatory patent license fee violates point #1 of the Open Source definition. The OSD requires free redistribution - obviously if there's a mandatory patent license fee, I can't freely redistribute the software.
A fee of a few cents a copy would compromise one of the basic commitments that the Ubuntu project has made: Ubuntu is zero cost, which allows Ubuntu CDs to be freely copied and redistributed. That would be lost if there were any patent fees involved. It's much better to not have the freedom to modify one tiny portion of the system than it would be to not have the freedom to share the system as a whole.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Wrong!
" With Ubuntu, our vision is to make the very best of free software freely available, globally. To the extent we make short-term compromises, for drivers or firmware along the way, we see those as bugs, and ones that will be closed over time. "
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
I think mostly they're talking about codecs that are free software that implements formats that are restricted by patents. In other words, the code may be released under the GPL, but nevertheless it's illegal to use it in the US, Japan (and where else?) without paying a license. That kind of proprietary...
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
Wrong: The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale. Nothing about patents. Such a payment clause is just not allowed in the license.
Scroll down to "export restrictions" to see another similar case.
Do you even bother to READ what I write?
the act of paying for the patent license makes it no worse, nor better.
The Linspire deal may allow Ubuntu to use WMV/WMA codecs for zero cost, but it certainly doesn't extend to third parties who want to modify and/or otherwise redistribute Ubuntu.
So, as I keep saying (and you keep ignoring):
"So, it's really just a question of money... and a very small amount of money at that."
"The only benefit they get is not having to pay the few cents per copy for the codec patent licenses."
And in exchange for not having to pay a few cents per copy... they're forced to use closed-source, binary-only codecs. That can't POSSIBLY be BETTER, for a FSF/OSS project.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It kinda makes sense now why *spire is going to be bassed on Ubuntu so that there won't be any repository problems.
But in the end it sounds like you can do CNR their way or you better not do CNR at all....
Money is the root of all evil?
Nitpick: Not knowing something is ignorance, not stupidity. Being less ignorant is just a matter of learning information.
All good points. Just to comment on the "one CD-ROM" issue: take a look at Mepis, which coincidentally has made a deal with Ubuntu and is using their repositories. Mepis is perhaps the main reason that I like Ubuntu's strategy since it is my current distro of choice, having been a Red Hat/Fedora user since RH 6.0. As far as I am concerned, the better Ubuntu gets, the better for me. Now if Kubuntu could be a bit more like Mepis....
For every present, there is a past