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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
Wow!! Amazing.. just the very thought! Long may it continue...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Seems like a decent way for MS to track Ubuntu's growth.
Microsoft paying when people use Ubuntu! Oooooh, my morning just became deliciously enriched. *Thank you* slashdot, these are the moments I know why I come here! =D
Shh.
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.
So by "revenue sharing," this guy really means "Yahoo! is shoveling over the cash for a minor feature change on Ubuntu."
If someone thinks that Microsoft has changed their stripes, they are being foolish.
In 1996, John Markoff said, "Rather than merely embrace and extend the Internet, the company's critics now fear, Microsoft intends to engulf it." Bing and putting Bing everywhere, including a major Linux distro is just a continuation of that strategy.
In other words, this is just more of the same for a company trying to leverage the Internet and in their most grandiose scheme, somehow come to dominate it.
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.
Given the way they would have to track this, I suspect Ubuntu only gets money when you actually USE it.
If you switch the search back to Google, Ubuntu won't get paid.
If you don't, you have to actually use Bing.
What a dilemma.
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.
... Ubuntu's default browser is Lynx!
They removed GIMP? I'm not surprised, GIMP is overkill for what most people need or can understand. Give an older person Photoshop on Windows and they'll get confused, they need something more basic.
Yahoo search financial decision aside, Ubuntu doesn't want to make it as hard to configure to use as Windows, they want to make it as easy to use for the average joe (not us) to use. The Windows 7 adverts are nailing how easy it is to use and how "I suggested this and they did it!" which is probably what Ubuntu and friends need to respond to.
You or I can always install the packages that interest us, out of the box it'd be easier for my sister if it just worked (which is probably why she has a Mac).
I hope their solution is better than what the Linux Mint distribution does. The Google-results from the Mint-search is really poor compared to Firefox-search. And also the way they have implemented their Mint-search makes it almost as hard to go back to Normal-Firefox-search as deleting spyware in Windows. Just take a look at the instructions below. Might not be that hard for Linux-pros, but it's way harder than what the Firefox-crew meant it to be:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=39623
Prosp long and liver.
"Chrome" has long been the term for the browser's UI...the toolbars, status bars, and such that surround the content.
Google calling its browser "Chrome(tm)" would be like calling an operating system "Windows(tm)."
I realize that Canonical needs money and this deal would get them some, but this is still sort of sad in that it's giving M$, the biggest competitor of... any OS really, more money. Also, Google has served Firefox and Ubuntu quite well in the past, so I'm having a hard time figuring out how this serves Canonical well in the end.
removing gimp isn't a good reason to put mono on ubuntu.
add this revenue sharing (aka yahoo default) and add me to the list of users who isn't using ubuntu anymore. This is dipping their toes way too much into a gray area here.
any other suggestions of equally good linux flavors that don't have mono or the firefox move here?
Dear Friends; Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent later. Microsoft and Google are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Bing remains the most widely used internet search engine, Microsoft and Ubuntu are running an e-mail beta test.
When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (If you are a Ubuntu user) For a two weeks time period.
For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00 For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, You will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a check.
I thought this was a scam myself, But two weeks after receiving this e-mail and forwarding it on. Microsoft contacted me for my address and withindays, I receive a check for $24,800.00. You need to respond before the beta testing is over. If anyone can affoard this, Bill gates is the man.
It's all marketing expense to him. Please forward this to as many people as possible. You are bound to get at least $10,000.00. We're not going to help them out with their e-mail beta test without getting a little something for our time. My brother's girlfriend got in on this a few months ago. When i went to visit him for the Baylor/UT game. She showed me her check. It was for the sum of $4,324.44 and was stamped "Paid in full"
...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
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
I was under the understanding that Gimp is still in the repository, but just not automatically installed.
Evidenced by:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/graphics/gimp
Thanks for bursting my bubble! I was enjoying the delicious irony, and you go and tell me there is no irony, that MS is just being MS?
Darn you, reality! Now I'm miffed that once again, MS is using means other than having a better product to gain marketshare. I guess when your product is inferior you have to resort to being underhanded.
Free Martian Whores!
They removed GIMP? I'm not surprised, GIMP is overkill for what most people need or can understand. Give an older person Photoshop on Windows and they'll get confused, they need something more basic.
No, thiy didn't remove GIMP. The removed GIMP from the default install. It was there in the first place as a sort of show-case of what was available but, being a fairly specialised application, it is now a bit of an anachronism in a basic install.
All of which points to a trend that everyone has been aware of for years now: revenue from desktop software sales is becoming less important than revenue from online services; advertising is such a service. It is likely that in the years to come, we will see more of these sorts of deals, particularly on mobile devices.
Palm trees and 8
With the recent google CEO privacy statement fiasco I actually made a concentrated effort to avoid google search and use bing instead.
After two weeks I was pretty much ready to sell all my private information to google just to have a working search engine again.
The search results from bing were irrelevant rubbish (if not just plain wrong) and it was the same thing whether I searched using English terms or those of my native language.
Bing sucks.
could they also install, by default, the addblock plus plugin?
All - I am writing to apprise you of two small but important changes coming to Lucid.
I have asked the desktop team to start preparing
these changes to make them available in Lucid as soon as reasonably
possible. Probably on the order of weeks.
Change #1 In Lucid, the desktop background will now feature Google AdSense.
This will aid users in finding sites closely related to the personal information harvested from their home directory.
Change #2
Change #1 will be unoptional.
Why?
I am pursuing this change because Canonical has negotiated a revenue
sharing deal with Google and this revenue will help Canonical to provide
developers and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and
the Ubuntu Platform. This change will help provide these resources as
well as continuing to respect our user's default settings, except in the case of the AdSense.
Cheers
debian?
But it's very 'raw' I feel, at least, I dabble in using Squeeze (Debian Testing), and there are plenty of bugs that are fixed in Ubuntu, that are still open in Squeeze, at least for me, for example turning off the wifi causes a kernel panic, and it took a while for a kernel to come out that recognized my touchpad.
I'd like to like Squeeze, and when I'm studying for linux exams and stuff, it's exactly what I use, but as soon as I want a system that "just works" I switch back to Ubuntu.
In some ways, it's like Ubuntu is the new Windows for me, in that it's the option that "just works" :-P
do they want to make it as hard to configure Ubuntu as to configure Windows?
I'm happy with Mandriva and haven't tried Ubantu, but isn't Ubantu supposed to be the Linux for Windows users?
Free Martian Whores!
catchy, but incorrect. It should be: Microsoft paying people with other operating systems to use their search engine.
You can choose mandriva (great hardware detection, nice support, with rpm instead of deb as the biggest con), or Arch Linux (rolling upgrades, fast, less clutter, but harder to install), or Debian, or SuSE, or Fedora... Just go to distrowatch and take your pick. I'm setting a Mandriva partition on my netbook straight away. Would switch to arch, but my GMA500 takes too much work to support there, as Arch is already on a more recent X server,
I don't see how removing gimp and adding mono are related... Can someone explain? Did the gimp replacement require mono?
I've switched to using
It's a meta search engine that focusses on privacy by not logging your IP address and your searches. On the technical side, it's nearly as good as the big name search engine I used previously.
Here's a plugin for GNU IceCat / IceWeasel / Firefox: Ixquick, or the https version (which I haven't tried, but I guess is the same to users).
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Can I ask you how do you expect Ubuntu to make money?
You think all of this is free and with no cost?
I see this as a good thing. More revenue for Canonical will mean better Ubuntu releases in the future.
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
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.
But is GIMP on the install DVD, or will people on a slow connection have to download the .deb on someone else's Ubuntu box and burn their own disc?
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.
o hai
I'll have to go back to a default Ubuntu install I did on another disk, but I can tell you that Easy Peasy (based on Ubuntu NBR) does this and replaces it with... wait for it... Picasa.
That was the first thing to get removed and replaced with Gimp. Gimp really is much lighter on resources than Picasa.
The End is nigh!
Tools -> Options -> Main -> Homepage
If it meant Canonical got a big fat check, I'd *want* then to install "IE for Linux".
I mean come on, people, does it really take an unusual amount of vision to prefer a sustainable Ubuntu that's 98% perfect on install rather than one that can't sustain itself that is 100% perfect? Especially when we're only talking about defaults which can be easily changed?
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Simply use https://ixquick.com/ since it searches Yahoo! and many search engines. It has no logs, no IP, nothing! In this way, you can use your precious Yahoo! while truly being protected.
Yes...
They whined about how much space GIMP was taking up only to replace it with something that takes nearly the same amount of space if you include mono dependencies.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Well, that's true and all but that's not the point. Picasa is a more appropriate tool for
the average n00b that wants to futz with a few (or a lot) of photos. It has a good interface
for processing multiple images, a well laid out interface, a reasonably good red-eye tool
and it doesn't try to force a complete separation from the filesystem.
Picasa is something that a Windows user suddenly subjected to MacOS might install in place of iPhoto.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Sweet Jebus, today is the day I need points to mod up posts.
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.
Ubuntu/Canonical is a large enough company now that they could start selling integrated software/hardware platforms that "just work". Sort of like apple, but all open source as the main difference. They could make money that way. If a local mom and pop whitebox shop can put together systems and make money at it, Canonical could too. Perhaps they could focus on the ARM chip to do this, and start with good affordable netbooks and nettops, and work their way up from there. Heck, maybe jump into cellphones for that matter.
debian?
But it's very 'raw' I feel, at least, I dabble in using Squeeze (Debian Testing), and there are plenty of bugs that are fixed in Ubuntu
While I'm sure there have been releases where Ubuntu was less buggy than the nearest Debian release, this simply isn't true in general; sometimes Ubuntu releases are better, sometimes they're worse. What Ubuntu does have, though, is more end-user-oriented support, a willingness to throw in some proprietary apps, and great marketing...
Other than those things, though, the Debian and Ubuntu are extremely similar to each other in feel, feature-set, and general robustness (they're far, far, closer to each other than either is to any other linux distro).
We live, as we dream -- alone....
any other suggestions of equally good linux flavors that don't have mono or the firefox move here?
Can't answer the "equally good flavor" for you but, try Gentoo Linux. Just add "-mono" to your global USE flags and you won't be bothered.
Freedom is somewhat like virginity. 98% free is not free.
Am I the only one reading this and asking, "WTF is Canonical?" Neither TFS nor TFA give much of a clue here. Ubuntu's corporate overlord, maybe?
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Come on, yahoo and microsoft are still two companies, yahoo's business decision is not made by microsoft's management. Yes, yahoo is using microsoft's engine, but so what? You just think too much...
Well, Microsoft is a proprietary software kingpin, so that comes as no surprise. Same old problems, just with different technologies.
Palm trees and 8
I think step three in your plan is something along the lines of "users get fed up with the irrelevant searchh results yahoo seems to be giving them, and switch back to using google."
And really, if this was somehow a good idea, why would they only do it to Ubuntu? Why not hit other alternative operating system users as well? This will really only work if Yahoo steals the user's underpants as well.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I personally prefer Fedora, which gives much more back to the Linux community.
Up next, I really wish Mandrivia was the big boy instead of Ubuntu, it had some really cool and innovative features that made the user experience sweet before Ubuntu even had naked pictures.
It will be interesting to note whether Mint will go with the Ubuntu changes or spin off and avoid them.
Looks like a growing part of Ubuntu's revenue source is "paid" changes/defaults.
Respect the Constitution
That's what I meant.
hey, they're running Ubuntu, not Gentoo...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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...
millions of users wont change it back. some wont even know they can change it back.
some people who see that guy use ubuntu in his house and get inspired will start using ubuntu, and wont change back.
its about supporting philosophy. we are supporting free software, for freedom. software that becomes less free by getting entangled with determinedly anti freedom stance corporations are bad for us to support for future. it may be just the mono and yahoo/bing search change now, but it is just for now. if this is not responded to, other 'changes' may come up.
Read radical news here
Still not quite correct, it should be: Microsoft paying other people who manage an open source operating system to switch their end users default search engine.
I don't know about you, but I don't get paid by Microsoft to use Bing/Yahoo. It seems that the people who are getting paid are Canonical, not the users. I'm just glad they're providing options.
"Lame" - Galaxar
with me, that made 2 'anonymous' cowards.
probably as of this moment im typing these, it has been 3. and probably will be 4 in the coming minutes. in the end, it will end up in a lot of people.
excuse me, but we use free software for freedom. if ubuntu intervenes in our freedom, in order to make profit, for whatsoever reason, it means they left the freedom philosophy. ill find another, more free linux distribution.
Read radical news here
Sadly, it's nonsense. Microsoft are providing a service to Yahoo, which Yahoo are paying for. Yahoo are also paying for Yahoo to be the default in Ubuntu. In short, no money is flowing from Microsoft to Ubuntu.
[FUCK BETA]
Nailed it.
What was it replaced with?
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
their agenda is making money by being a monopoly. and a monopoly that will have the power to control what you see, what you hear through numerous control schemes like drm to boot.
please dont employ sarcasm foolhardily.
Read radical news here
... all combine into one company: Yahooglebinguntu.
FLR
Which would mean that in this case, MS is making money off of Ubuntu, just like your employers make money off of your labor.
I'm fine with googling answers to crap I don't know. However, is it likely I'll be able to at least run the install with no problems? I mean if I know enough to do some apt-get/sudo stuff, possibly edit the xorg init, am I going to be able to get it running?
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.
And that Ubuntu users are actually supporting Microsoft. There is definitely irony in this story, but it's the other way around than what everyone thinks.
yeah, I tried mandriva when it switched from mandrake, before I ever did ubuntu. Fedora and Gentoo were pretty much what else I was considering. I'll play with all of the above and see, I guess my original presumptions aren't that far off.
Uhm, there is absolutely nothing wrong here. It's amazing how many people feel that their principles have been compromised when really, there is only Google, or Bing, and the rest is just fluff. Besides, it's not as if Ubuntu doesn't empower you to change anything you want.
So really, stop the hyperbole and scaremongering already.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
So, Yahoo has a deal with Microsoft, and Ubuntu uses Yahoo as default search engine in their default browser. So Ubuntu users by default will be contribuiting to the income of Microsoft. Where's the part of "or perhaps Ubuntu users giving money to Microsoft" that I don't get?
I feel Google works significantly better for Ubuntu than for Debian: there's just a much bigger community out there it seems, to me.
Google does kind of work though for Debian I think.
For the installation process, I used debootstrap from my Ubuntu into a new partition, since I don't have a dvd or cd drive... so I can't tell you how well the 'official' installer works.
I think debootstrap was fairly painless for me. These were the instructions I followed:
installing debian using debootstrap.
Generally, I feel if you have a cd player and lack masochistic tendencies that using the official installer is most likely going to be an order of magnitude easier than using debootstrap :-P
I think they're phasing it out, but at least initially Microsoft was supplementing some of the cashbacks to get enticing numbers in the double-digit percentages range (much more than merchants would typically offer as an affiliate deal), and I believe the one with eBay (8%!) is still a joint deal.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
f-spot
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
so this only applies to firefox? meh
---
I couldn't find out how much eBay pays currently as they have changed their affiliate model, but Amazon offers up to 20% with game downloads, 15% with endless products and up to 8.5% with general products (I suspect Bing can easily qualify for the highest rates). Before eBay used to pay 50%-75% from their income per sale, so I think it's in the same ranges. Some other affiliate commissions can go up to 30-50%, so Microsoft could actually be making extra revenue with the Cashback program.
There's a subtle negative feedback loop here, and I think it's a bit short sighted for Canonical to contribute to it.
Google is a huge advocate and supporter of Linux. Google helps to make Linux happen. Google helps to make the non-Microsoft ecosystem happen. By sending Ubuntu users to Yahoo search (which, as has been mentioned, is actually Bing), Canonical is helping Microsoft to chip away at Google's market share. This is not good! Google is the non-Microsoft world's single biggest chance of finally taking down the monopolist. If Google falls, Microsoft will make sure that the Web becomes a Windows-only experience. Do we really want that to happen?
Actually, I think that after Google finishes polishing up the Linux version of Chrome, they should pony up a few bucks to make Chrome (and Google search) the default web browser in Ubuntu. What's good for Google is good for Linux, and vice versa. Or as has been said here many times before: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Right now your personal preferences are set to one of two things:
a)Search Engine = Default
b)Search Engine = Google
If it is 'a', you're still going to be using the "Default" search engine. Now the "Default" is Yahoo.
If it is 'b', you're still going to be using "Google".
They have not "changes [your] already saved settings to something [you] didnt choose for".
Go eat a Cheeto, count to 10, and come back once you've gotten your nerd rage under control.
I know you wanted to sound witty, but freedom actually isn't anything like virginity. If it were, then being 98% free would be no different than being completely unfree, and I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that's so.
That said, I'll backtrack a little. I can see how having unfree software in the default install would be too polarizing to make whatever gain would result be worth it. But that doesn't apply to switching default search providers from Google to Yahoo, though.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
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.
But I like KDE. Will there be a flavor for me? Gookubuntu?
How many people will simply switch it back to Google? (Raises hand...)
Correct me if I'm wrong but IIRC f-spot is a photo manager not a photo editor and used to come bundled with Ubuntu along with the Gimp. It's not really surprising that it's a poor replacement seeing as it was never supposed to be a replacement and is a different piece of software with different goals. The Gimp was dropped because most people don't need it. I.e. the functions that the programme provides were deemed to be not needed in a default ubuntu install and were therefore removed (not replaced). If you need the gimp you can still install the gimp, it just takes a couple of extra clicks.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
I assume that Ubuntu decided this was more suitable as a default application, and people who needed the full blown Gimp could just install it anyway.
Not really a big deal for me as you can easily change it. I say if it helps fund Ubuntu then it's a minor change.
I prefer Foobuntu, which defaults to any search engine, past, present or future, real or imaginary, that you care to mention.
Not to be confused with Fu-bunt-u, a distro dedicated to highly skilled fighting techniques against fungal grass diseases; and F.U.-buntu, which is just a pain to use.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Canonical needs to have at least some income to be able to pay the electricity and bandwidth bills. I would like to see them give a bit more back in supporting the projects for the software they most use. Given their recent survey on popular software, I can't help but get the impression they may be funding some developer resources for WINE.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
You don't get money, but you get a free OS (well, unless you contribute back, which most people don't). You're paid in goods :)
Dilbert RSS feed
Yep, they sure are, making money off of someone elses work ... thats the true spirit of OSS.
Fortunately for Ubuntu, its entirely acceptable from Mozilla's standpoint, but it certainly qualifies them as fucking douche bags.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Mono is why I switched to Kubuntu and KDE.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Canonical needs to have at least some income to be able to pay the electricity and bandwidth bills.
In any case, anyone with the minimal savvy required to use Ubuntu will also have the requisite smarts to change the default search engine to one of their choosing.
I don't know about you, but my first act will be to switch default search engines back to Google. I don't trust Bing as far as I can throw it, and there's no place to grab.
So does Cannonical get paid even if I don't use the default? I hope so, but the wording wasn't encouraging.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
But it makes it impossible to demo the liveCD. (Well, possible in certain ways, of course, but not to graphics users.)
Was it just removed from the liveCD or was it also removed from the live DVD? (Is there one? If not, why not? If they're so packed for space that they need to remove the Gimp, then they clearly need to move to a DVD.)
(After checking, there clearly is a live DVD. What I can't tell is whether it will include the Gimp. I'm going to presume so, but the only benefit they mention is added language packs.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
And you trust Google???
My addiction: Arguing with idiots. AKA Slashdot!
If you don't want bugs, why are you using Testing instead of, wait for it, Stable?
Testing is in tests! It's in the name! What were you expecting?
Dilbert RSS feed
How about the other option of not making so many goddam patches? After the Debian OpenSSH debacle, I lost my faith in the Debian "development model" of letting newbs patch core software like OpenSSH for fun. Who try to one-up Theo on security, for crying out loud?
Debian had better rethink the necessity of its myriad patches. So many of the frustrating regressions in Ubuntu are due to some useless patch made to the kernel by downstream.
its about supporting philosophy. we are supporting free software, for freedom. software that becomes less free by getting entangled with determinedly anti freedom stance corporations are bad for us to support for future. it may be just the mono and yahoo/bing search change now, but it is just for now. if this is not responded to, other 'changes' may come up.
I can more or less understand your beef with MS, but this deal does not promote MS in any way. It promotes Yahoo. It doesn't display MS logos anywhere, and it doesn't display Bing logos anywhere. Go ahead, open Yahoo, run some search, and look at the search page and the results page - I dare you to find any mention of MS or Bing there!
Now, Yahoo search uses Bing as a backend, yes. This isn't in any way exposed to the users, however. It's between the two corps. And if being powered by MS technology is somehow detrimental to you, then you might also want to stop using Linux entirely, since the kernel contains some code written by Microsoft.
Or is your problem with closed-source code in Bing, in particular? Then why are you using Google, which is equally closed?
They were doing a seriously stupid (thank you, Microsoft!) deal pre-Bing when they would pay something like 24%. That's how I got my T1 micro red dot scope.
Canonical is payed by Yahoo to use the latter as the default search engine in Ubuntu, and Yahoo was in turn payed by Microsoft to use Bing as a backend for their search. So you could stretch it, and say that Yahoo is paying Canonical with Microsoft's money. And since most users would likely just switch it back to Google, anyway, they aren't paying for much.
Ultimately, of course, it's already Yahoo's money, so how they choose to waste it is up to them (and not MS).
Well Debian['s] goal is to be Pure GNU at all costs even if it [affects] the end user.
The goal isn't exactly some abstract notion of purity, nor is it to be "The GNU Linux".
The goal, I believe, is to deliver a high-quality collection of software which is licensed compatibly with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (http://www.debian.org/social_contract).
I quote: "We will never make the system require the use of a non-free component" and "We will be guided by the needs of our users"
[Ubuntu] is a bit lax on this and its goal is to be more focused on its users
I disagree: Ubuntu isn't more focused on its users. Ubuntu is more focused on its users' pragmatic needs. Debian is more focused on its users' ideological needs.
Note: the key word is more. It's not all or nothing: "We will support people who create or use both free and non-free works on Debian. [...] We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of works that do not conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. [...] contrib and non-free"
In the firefox case, the Debian project decided that 1. shipping only free software in the base system; and 2. shipping firefox in the base system was more important than 3. shipping a branded firefox. Ubuntu decided that 3 and 2 were more important than 1. Pragmatic vs. Idealistic needs.
And my personal spin: sacrificing a cute logo and calling the rose an iceflower---really, is it that big a deal? It still smells like a good web browser, and that's what I want: good software, with good ideals. I prefer the Debian decision.
For what it's worth, that marks my last Ubuntu install.
There are other fish in the sea, and Yahoo is a boat anchor.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
of course!
Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar corporation with it's fingers in almost every aspect of modern computer application development and use.
Google is a... well... Google's logo is better!
as a company Google is certainly the more open-source-friendly.
True, but your example might not be the best:
They give $5M/year to open source projects via the Google Summer of Code.
Google has Google Code; Microsoft has CodePlex.com. Google sponsors Summer of Code; Microsoft sponsors CodePlex Foundation.
its not about promotion. yahoo uses bing now. this change will make a lot of people use bing, and give cards into microsoft's hands. which is precisely what they have repeatedly said in earlier occasions regarding their internet policy and internal memos that leaked out.
you very well know that 'containing' code written by a party is not similar to something that hands out numerous tracking information and statistics about web users to a company. which, is as you know, is the gold of this decade. and the precise extent of what can be done using this information, nobody knows yet.
my problem is with corporate mindset, and going the corporate way and playing into hands of a corporation that has honestly came out with very ill intentions against not only free software, but internet freedom in general. this is microsoft.
if a developer group, a foundation is able to stomach doing such a thing, logic says that they can stomach a lot of other things, and this requires being wary.
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How comes we're so dependent on two major search engines? Isn't that unhealthy on the long run? Wasn't there a project in the past to build our own distributed crawler and indexer? Why won't we "open source" Google... I mean why don't we have a community-driven open search engine? This (hypothetical) open search engine could (or should?) be the default in OSS distributions, IMHO, instead of a closed-source provider (yes, even Google's indexing algorithm is closed-source).
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
i am pretty fine with my 'nerd rage', which stems from my principles and my preferences, and i am not going to control it, and moreover i am going to act in accordance with it. anyone, any group, any company who would want my support, contribution or business should act in accordance with my preferences.
this is what i think.
i am a citizen of internet, a consumer, a developer, a contributor, an administrator, a webmaster, a gamer and many other things, like many other people found in abundance around the net. and i am going to make my choices, purchases, contributions to groups other than ubuntu crowd, just because of this incident. it is because i chose so, because i didnt like what has been pushed in front of me. i dont mind rationalizations either, i do not like this.
and half assed smartass comments like 'nerd rage' and whatnot only increases that determination and alienates me from the subject at hand.
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Well, Google wouldn't match the deal if they tought you'd never close the deal with Yahoo.
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This annoys me but at least it's been announced and I will switch however I've had two Firefox machines that had their keyword search and default searches set to Bing.
I don't know if it's Mozilla or MS doing it. I know Mozilla told people to switch but never said they would do it and apparently I'm not the only one. http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=tr&comments_parentId=361018&forumId=1#threadId368122
Does anyone know who's responsible for going ahead and changing Firefox's search from Google to Bing? I'm not impressed either way. I would not be impressed if it was the other way around too.
It feels like it's an underhanded tactic to try and force Bing on people and I don't think most people will be happy. If it is Microsoft doing this, they won't make people fans of Bing by forcing it on them behind their back.
Or you could switch to Eye of Gnome (probably already on there) and remove F-spot and Mono instead of changing your whole distro.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
... after considering switching back to vanilla debian for some time, this might be the straw that broke the camels back. Where free software meets the corporate world, trust is everything. And trust is not something I have for yahoo/bing search. I don't trust them to provide good, comprehensive search results (I DO trust google to do that), and I don't trust them not to screw the Ubuntu community (tests on google doing that are inconclusive thus far, but fairly promising).
Censorship is the opposite of education. If neo-darwinism were defensible, people would not need to try and censor ID.
It's not that I don't trust Bing, or trust Google more. It's that I just prefer Google.
Besides, Bing is a shitty name.
signature is pants
It proves that Google has an open-source product whose counterpart at Microsoft is not open source. This in turn proves nothing by itself but is one anecdote toward Google having more of an open-source focus.
No, I don't trust Google, but I trust Yahoo/Microsoft even less.
You think the older version is likely to support my newer hardware?
I guess I also feel that Ubuntu seems not only to have fewer bugs (eg wifi and my mousepad support), but also to be using newer versions of the software.
I also liked that it automatically moves me to what it feels to be the cutting edge software - eg grub 2 - without my having to do the research myself to figure out what the latest software is. It just appears, and then I do the research to figure out how to use it.
There are some more controversial decisions occasionally - pulseaudio I'm looking at you - but on the whole, I'm quite happy with Ubuntu forging ahead and pushing the latest and greatest softwares onto my desktop.
I felt that Squeeze was actually older than Ubuntu and more buggy...
The good thing about Squeeze was it made me feel somehow 'clean' and that felt good, but it didn't quite make up for the ease of use for Ubuntu. Not for me. Not quite.
Now there is a new kernel out for Squeeze, and it does support my mousepad, and I'm in the middle of investigating whether it supports my wifi, so who knows? I'm actually typing this from Squeeze whilst I download the latest updates, so who knows?
MS has repeatedly proved that anyone who trusts them is a fool. Google has only indicated it a few times, and never done a thorough proof.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
At the moment, Microsoft hates Google more than they hate Linux.
You can use Stable and a backported kernel.
The Debian actual release is Stable. Everything else is not supported; Testing is not a "newer version", it's more like a development tree (well, less than Unstable, but even so).
Ubuntu simply had a different philosophy than Debian; they are willing to risk some stability (compared to Stable, not Testing!) for newer packages.
But using Squeeze now is ok - it'll probably go "freeze" in March, and then be released, so it's almost Stable. But remember to keep "squeeze" and not "testing" in sources.list when the release happens, or else you'll use the "new" testing, which will start to receives packages from Unstable.
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I agree, they need to make money, but this isn't just making money, this is making money by directly taking away from someone else.
Canonical makes more, Mozilla makes less.
I'm fine with Canonical making money, I like Ubuntu. I'm not okay with them doing so by stealing it from Mozilla.
Of course, if they don't have a viable business model they should fix it or stop, instead of stealing from the people who help make their product useful.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
that anyone is upset here, let me set you straight.
This is actually good, at least in one way: I prefer Google BUT, the G has lately been someone who isn't so concerned with privacy, and anyone bored enough to read my post read the posts about Google's infamous "If you have something to hide you shouldn't be doing it" and the whole story about their data retention policies vs. other providers (notably, Bing moving to what 3 months?)
So, if I install this Ubuntu version, fresh (as stated above an upgrade includes the ability to preserve your settings), and don't care for Yahoo - I just installed Linux. I know how to change my default settings. Most - not all - Linux users, are aware of the ability to select your search engine in the quick search in the top right - its that familiar favicon that gives it away.
"Hmm, whats that purple Y thing? Where's my G!?!? Oh f it, I'll go with the B!"
Some specific things I like about Ubuntu Karmic compared to Debian Squeeze:
- supports AppArmor (I feel naked surfing without it... and I haven't had time to learn selinux yet)
- python is 2.6, instead of 2.5 (might have changed now; I was dabbling a month or two ago)
- touchpad works, (fixed in latest 2.6.32 kernel, but didn't work a month or two ago; maybe the backported kernel would have worked, it's possible)
I agree. If MS wants to pay Ubuntu for setting the default search engine to Yahoo, then more power to Ubuntu. Most people will switch it to Google, of course. Word's getting around that Bing filters results to their own advantage with the now famous "Why is Windows so expensive?" query. MS changed the results to show why open source is so expensive.
Well, Novell has fired the developers of AppArmor in 2007.. From what I understood the project is more or less dead, and never reached a really useful state compared to other alternatives, and distros have been keeping it in "maintenance state".
Yes, python is still at 2.5, which is annoying (2.6 is available, but the python libraries aren't). From what I've read they're having problems with the python package maintainer.
Yes, touchpad should have worked with the backported kernel.
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Fedora. It doesn't include Mono, has a normal Firefox and is much better than Ubuntu in most ways I can think of. Plus Red Hat is committed to Open Source while Canonical isn't.
So quick edits of photos and other images aren't needed?
This is what Gimp provides that F-spot does not despite the fact that there is an f-spot viewer (it's just crippled).
As a "photo manager" F-spot is inferior to just about any other option. An "image editor for n00bs" or a photo manager should be something that anyone can quickly pick up and get the feeling that is at least as efficient as what they've used before. F-spot fails in this respect.
A good "photo manager" should make you think: "where have you been all my life". Not Ew!
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Microsoft owes me $1.5 million for all the emails I have forwarded for them since last week.
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In any case, anyone with the minimal savvy required to install Ubuntu will also have the requisite smarts to change the default search engine to one of their choosing.
Fixed that for you. Some of us have users that can't change it.