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gNewSense Distro Frees Ubuntu
Linux.com (who shares corporate overlords with Slashdot) is reporting that gNewSense has gone 2.0. For the uninitiated gNewSense is a stripped down version of Ubuntu's Hardy Heron for the free software purist. Removing over 100 pieces of proprietary code and firmware, gNewSense offers a user the ability to run an OS where everything is able to be studied, changed, and redistributed. "gNewSense is a great alternative to Gobuntu, the Canonical-sponsored free derivative of Ubuntu. According to its wiki page, the 8.04 version of Gobuntu hasn't been released due to a less-than-optimal reaction from the community. Gobuntu used the same repositories as Ubuntu, and the Ubuntu live CD can achieve the same installation as Gobuntu by merely selecting the free-software-only option in the installer (press F6 twice at the boot menu). Also, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, has indicated that he would rather focus on gNewSense because the work on that distribution can help the Ubuntu community as a whole. "
I'ts gonna be based off of gNewSense, and be called MakesMoreSense, and it'll put the missing bits back in!
debian - ubuntu - gnewsense - MakesMoreSense
Period.
:)
Ubuntu is Debian based... now we have gNewSense which is Ubuntu based trying to be more Free Software conscious than Ubuntu when Debian already is that.
Seems redundant to me.
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
I mean is it really worth it to sacrifice functionality just to be a 'purist'?? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to focus effort on building free alternatives to the priority code in Ubuntu rather than maintaining a separate distro that most users will end up installing proprietary code on anyways?
Seriously. The first time I was told about The GIMP, I asked my friend to provide me a link to the actual site. I was too scared to do a search for "GIMP".
Um... to whom, exactly? Some nerd who's going to spend the next three months in a darkened office reverse-engineering the proprietary drivers? To give incentive to the hardware manufacturers, we need a distro with the widest possible user base, not some fringe OSS purist crap.
No, but ATI did, and look, they have open-sourced some drivers. Once ATI starts to, NVidia will, once GNASH starts becoming usable, Adobe will feel the pressure to make Flash better. It is called competition, it is something that these companies really haven't had to deal with, though, with Linux they have to compete, and not having a monopoly, they are.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
You're missing the long view. You call it purist crap, and people have said the same of GNU at so many stages -- and look, today we have a totally free system, precisely because people have _not_ compromised, but stuck to an uncompromisingly free system and developed and worked on it. Who gives a toss, in the long run, about any particular hardware manufacturers today, about Linux's market share, about 3d video drivers, or any of that? There will be totally free 3d video drivers, there will be free drivers, there will be all of what people use proprietary components for today. It's by focussing on that long view that FLOSS has gotten as amazingly far as it has today, and only by keeping focussed on that will it get there. We cannot stop and say "this is good enough" while there are any proprietary components needed for the systems we use. And as a byproduct of this development effort, other people, naysayers or otherwise, will be able to use the system and join the FLOSS world.