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Ubuntu Moves To Yahoo For Default Firefox Search
An anonymous reader writes "Starting in Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx release, Firefox's default search engine will be switched from Google to Yahoo. The switch was made after Canonical 'negotiated a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo.' Google will still be available as a choice. Since Yahoo search is now powered by Microsoft's Bing, this would seem to mean that Microsoft will be paying people for using Ubuntu."
Microsoft paying people to use other Operating Systems? That's about right.
It only takes a couple of clicks to change it to a different engine. Hopefully they won't do anything cute and change it back everytime I upgrade (I'm looking at you Microsoft).
Summation 2
Does this affect the Ubuntu - Firefox deal? Debian's version of Firefox is named Iceweasel because Debian legal felt that the Firefox branding was too encumbered to users wishing to redistribute, but Ubuntu reached some sort of compromise that allowed them to keep the Firefox branding.
Will screwing with Firefox's default search affect Ubuntu's relationship with Firefox? I'm expecting "no" but wondering if anyone is able to explain why.
And if one uses Bing Cashback, one is being paid by Microsoft to use Ubuntu and giving them money to shop online using it, perhaps to buy a Linux-friendly netbook and the cycle continues.
Actually, in neither case is Microsoft actually paying anything.
With Bing Cashback, what users are paid are covered by affiliate commissions send to Microsoft from the participating sites.
With paying Ubuntu, Yahoo/Microsoft is actually paying Ubuntu a share from ad clicks.
In both cases Microsoft isn't losing anything. Actually, they're generating more revenue.
Products don't magically sell themselves and make their creators wealthy or even put bread on the table - the lesson of open source.
But if the ultimate goal of the open source movement is to eventually overtake closed source software, this is damning evidence such a scenario will never happen. At the end of the day, closed source is funding much of the open source initiatives. One could say this also includes those of us working closed source jobs by day and open source projects by night.
Or alternately, "selling access to our user base to a corporation". I can guarantee you that's how Yahoo management is thinking about it.
Frankly, this was not what I signed up for when I used Ubuntu to create a largely MS-free environment at home. If need be, I'll roll my own desktop Linux to keep out of this sort of thing. I'm happy to donate time and cash to worthwhile projects, but not if they're going to turn around and get corporate sponsorship.
I am officially gone from
I've used Ubuntu for a few years now and always though it was great. Using a clearly inferior search engine as a default is pretty bogus. I guess I'll just go back to using Debian. Can't say I blame them though they need to make money somewhere.
So you mean to tell me that a business has an agenda? And that agenda is to make money? Wow, I need to sit down.
Self proclaimed wannabe geek. You know how it is. Most of us who read this stuff probably fit in that category.
In both cases Microsoft isn't losing anything. Actually, they're generating more revenue.
My company pays me to do a job. That job, hopefully, earns my company money. Generally more money than they're paying me.
So, they're generating more revenue... But they're still paying me.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
catchy, but incorrect. It should be: Microsoft paying people with other operating systems to use their search engine.
Or you could make *two clicks* and change it back. This is a significant opportunity for Canonical to become profitable and could potentially see a minor, insignificant revenue increase for MS. If they were dealing directly with MS you could argue they're asking to be screwed, but with Bing/Windows on the one side and Google/Chrome OS/Android on the other Yahoo appears to be the least self-sabotaging search engine at the moment. Particularly with Chrome OS, Google is looking to make the desktop ecosystem on which Canonical depends an irrelevant commodity in the face of a closed, in-the-cloud system.
If you'd rather use Google then take the two clicks to change it, but don't act as if you're making an ethical stance against corporatism. Google's end goal is you being locked into their webapps, just as MS' end goal is you being locked into their OS and apps.
Gimp was bloated, extremely user unfriendly and is many years overdue for a major usability redesign. If it annoys you THAT MUCH, that it's gone, just install it via aptitude.
Yet despite all of this: the ordained replacement didn't improve upon any of these alleged failings.
Sure... replace it with something better, not something inferior.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Have you considered Gubuntu? It's a flavor of Ubuntu that aims at the more Google oriented crowd by changing the default search engine to Google.
That simple post sums up SO MUCH of the FOSS/Linux world...
Which would mean that in this case, MS is making money off of Ubuntu, just like your employers make money off of your labor.
umm, fspot uses mono. Mono is equivalent to having .net dependencies on linux, which creates patent issues and other concerns. Does anyone want that in linux? No.