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Ubuntu 13.04 Will Allow Instant Purchasing, Right From the Dash
sfcrazy writes "Ubuntu is becoming a shopping center. Instead of addressing the queries raised by Stallman and the EFF, Canonical is now pushing for making Ubuntu a shopping cart. With Ubuntu 13.04 Canonical is going one step forward, and soon you will be able to purchase software and music right from the Dash without opening the software center or web browser.This is intended to make the whole experience even more interactive and useful for the end user."
As the Canonical developer's Unity DE shows, Canonical is not really that interested in the opinions of its current users.
... you can just download another distro. Because it's Linux and Linux comes in more flavors than ice cream. Heck if you don't like any of the flavors, make your own. No need to log on Slashdot and moan and cry about how terrible Ubuntu is and how much it reminds you of them terrible yanks uppin Micro$oft yonder, because you don't know anyway. You wouldn't come within 1000 feet of it, right? You despise it, you loathe it, yes? Good.
And so it begins.
HI bsd!
It's one of those polarizing subjects. Some see absolutely no problem with this kind of thing, whilst others are mortified by it and can't understand why everyone else is ok with it. Both sides call each other idiots who "just don't get it" for whatever reason, no ones opinion changes, and life goes on.
How they want to compile it is their choice. That's the entire point of open source.
From the Canonical Blog Post on the new feature:
Privacy is extremely important to Canonical. The data we collect is not user-identifiable (we automatically anonymize user logs and that information is never available to the teams delivering services to end users), we make users aware of what data will be collected and which third party services will be queried through a notice right in the Dash, and we only collect data that allows us to deliver a great search experience to Ubuntu users. We also recognize that there is always a minority of users who prefer complete data protection, often choosing to avoid services like Google, Facebook or Twitter for those reasons – and for those users, we have made it dead easy to switch the online search tools off with a simple toggle in settings.
So while I think the privacy concerns with sending data to Canonical when you'e doing searches is significant, so long as the user is aware and has the option, more power to them. I don't think I want to integrate my desktop and network search, but I certainly see a mass market that may want this. Depending upon how easy it is to create and configure these "scopes" to plug into this system it might be a great way to build customized searching without the need for Google to know everything about me.
I think people are too reactionary when it comes to both privacy and commercialism. From the previous posts you'd think this was a mandatory feature and Canonical was selling user data or something. They seem to be responsible players here creating cool tech that some of us may not want. I see nothing for me to get upset about.
For each of such change we're seeing in Ubuntu, people are coming back to Debian. Welcome back!
This is an absolutely unacceptable spyware 'feature' from Canonical. I'm sad to say they've obviously lost the plot. Thankfully there are other Linux distros that behave much better.
Or your private data?
I read through the whole thing and I can tell you that he said nothing at all. No reason for the decision, no address of the privacy concerns, no nothing. He wrote a huge page of politician dribble.
The boneheaded decisions of Canonical, plus the existence of Mint Linux, have all but decimated the Ubuntu userbase. Yes, I know there must be some Ubuntu users out there still, but they're somewhere at the fringe of society: you know nobody in your circle of friends, colleagues, family or acquaintances who uses Ubuntu.
It's like IE: who the fuck uses Internet Explorer at this stage? Yeah, there must be people using it, according to various webstats... but nobody know those characters.
IOW, Ubuntu has become the IE of the Linux distro world: they exist somewhere out there, but nobody gives a shit about them, except malware writers.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I'll say this before and I'll say it again, if you haven't ditched Ubuntu for Mint, now is the time
http://linuxmint.com/
Its also funny to note that install base of Ubuntu has taken a nose dive in the last year(two?). with mint taking up the slack.
I wonder why.
And Ubuntu is created by elves, they cost nothing to employ, singing joyous songs of open source and ideals while they work tirelessly just to satisfy you and your bunny world.
No. Ubuntu is created by Debian, mostly.