Why does Ubuntu/Canonical support censorship?

[CharlesA]

That's why I think we need some kind of clarification from Canonical about this.

Would be nice, but I don't know if anyone from Canonical actually posts on the forums.

And whine.

What about wine?

[KiwiNZ]

Well, if you happen to have some reliable information about the relationship between Canonical and Baidu, it would be very easy reassure those of us who are worried about this. The problem right now is that there is very little information available.


That's why I think we need some kind of clarification from Canonical about this.

Any commercial relationship between Canonical an Baidu is going to have zero to little impact on you or the vast majority of members here.

Also Canonicals corporate relationships are their business and confidential to them and their partners.

[xedi]

My 2 cents to two responses coming up here frequently:

1. Ubuntu can do whatever they want, they don't have to listen to us:

Yes, they don't but first of all some of us are customers (Ubuntu one, merchandise, buying software through the software-center) and then there is a huge community and transparency focus which beyond direct contributions also includes a lot of advertising and promotion so Canonical would have huge financial concerns in the case the community decides that they are unethical and thus we do have a big say over this matter, even if we're not in any leadership positions of Canonical.

2. Who cares, Ubuntu is not doing the censorship, Baidu allegedly is:

Oh right, so it is perfectly alright to support unethical companies as long as you are not directly involved in unethical activity?

Now, I know nothing about Baidu so I have no idea to what extent if at all they are an unethical company and it seems that nobody here really knows what Canonical's involvement is.

However, I do think that this is an important issue because in the case that Canonical's partners are unethical, it would be important for the community and their customers to know so that they can decide whether they want to support a company which partners which unethical companies.

As I said, I don't know whether this is the case here but since there are concerned Ubuntu users here I think it would be a good idea to get some information on the topic somehow (Ubuntu bug report seems a weird choice but I'm not sure what would be better)

[rg4w]

Baidu operates in the PRC, and must comply with that government's requirements.

If this sort of thing will affect your decision to use products that support companies that reside in the PRC, you may want to boycott everything from the United States, since the US has been renewing Most Favored Nation status for the PRC for decades.

And of course you'd want to boycott everything made in the PRC as well.

So once you no longer buy anything made in the PRC or from anyone who does business with the PRC, what's left?