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RMS Speaks Out Against Ubuntu
An anonymous reader writes "In a post at the Free Software Foundation website, Richard Stallman has spoken out against Ubuntu because of Canonical's decision to integrate Amazon search results in the distribution's Dash search. He says, 'Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.) This is just like the first surveillance practice I learned about in Windows. ... What's at stake is whether our community can effectively use the argument based on proprietary spyware. If we can only say, "free software won't spy on you, unless it's Ubuntu," that's much less powerful than saying, "free software won't spy on you." It behooves us to give Canonical whatever rebuff is needed to make it stop this. ... If you ever recommend or redistribute GNU/Linux, please remove Ubuntu from the distros you recommend or redistribute.'"
Free Software and the FSF is about pragmatism.
Oh come on. The FSF and RMS specifically are pretty much the exact opposite of pragmatic. "All software that isn't completely free (and we have to specifically clarify what we mean by free because the common definition of free isn't free enough) is pure evil". I've seen the man speak, he is a lunatic and definitely an extremist.
Have you actually ever read anything about te FSF and its goals. The FSF explicitely states that Free Softwre is a social movement for the greater good. I'm pretty sure that spying on users and disrespecting their privacy is not for the greater good, even if they never explicitely state it.
That's thin. They don't explicitly state that they are against child slavery but by that argument we should claim free software is about protecting children in third world countries?
Just because people don't give a shit doesn't mean it's not important.
The fact that you strongly believe in a view point doesn't make it correct. You only have to look around to see that society in general is becoming more socially open. Yes, sometimes it bites people in the ass, but by enlarge it seems to be enhancing everyones social life to a point where the slight risk is probably worth it. We are moving into a time when privacy is becoming less and less valuable to most people, and social connection (which is valuable to most people) is growing.
This is probably a good thing, but extreme privacy nuts are foaming at the mouth. Arguments like "well, they are too stupid to understand the privacy issue" just show how much they don't get it.