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Ubuntu 13.04 Will Allow Instant Purchasing, Right From the Dash

Posted by samzenpus on from the easy-buy dept.

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."

9 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Unity by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As the Canonical developer's Unity DE shows, Canonical is not really that interested in the opinions of its current users.

    1. Re:Unity by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      MINT is going to get a lot of traffic.

      ubuntu annoyed me enough over the last year or two that I've moved.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    2. Re:Unity by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Those should be the defaults, in my opinion.

    3. Re:Unity by ifiwereasculptor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm sorry to be overly blunt, but that is asnine. Ubuntu is integrating an app store to its DE, that's all. It's a convenience every other major OS already has (Windows, Android, OSX, iOS etc), only made a bit more convenient by not requiring you to open the store app. It's not the end of the world. As long as they stay firmly based on Debian, strenghtening Ubuntu strenghtens Linux and open source as a whole. The more market/mind share it gets, the better driver support we get, more attention from developers and so on.

      So I wish Ubuntu lots of success. If I dislike a particular feature, I can either deactivate it in Ubuntu, use a different DE, jump ship to their source, Debian, directly, or a derivative that doesn't implement those functions, like Mint. I can even roll my own flavor of Ubuntu, since the source is public. Such plethora of alternatives is exactly what free/open software is all about and people bitching that Ubuntu is "turning their backs on open software" don't seem to understand it at all.

  2. Good for Ubuntu and Some Users by ninetyninebottles · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. This is a good thing by GPLHost-Thomas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For each of such change we're seeing in Ubuntu, people are coming back to Debian. Welcome back!

  4. Re:Stallman has 1 point that's important... apk by thereitis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:Why is this a problem? by Superdarion · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Canonical current users? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No. Ubuntu is created by Debian, mostly.