Ubuntu ships non-free

[zenlunatic]

"Ubuntu is entirely committed to the principles of free software development; we encourage people to use free and open source software, improve it and pass it on."

Why do they ship binary drivers then? I heard shuttleworth say this. What other non-free (speech) do they ship with?

[poofyhairguy]

What other non-free (speech) do they ship with?

Just the drivers.

[mstlyevil]

"Ubuntu is entirely committed to the principles of free software development; we encourage people to use free and open source software, improve it and pass it on."

Why do they ship binary drivers then? I heard shuttleworth say this. What other non-free (speech) do they ship with?

I think Ubuntu's moto is to ship a complete desktop OS for free as in beer. They use software from various sources to just that and all that matters to them is that the license gives them permission to freely distribute it.

[iand675@gmail.com]

plus it kinda fills up the cd with stuff you can get online anyways once it's installed. btw everyone around here is always talking about free as in free beer. I'm a bit confused. Could this be explained?

[mstlyevil]

plus it kinda fills up the cd with stuff you can get online anyways once it's installed. btw everyone around here is always talking about free as in free beer. I'm a bit confused. Could this be explained?

You pay money for beer. If you get it for free then you get something of value at no monetary cost to you.

Free as in speech means that it is open to the public to add and take away as they wish and distribute it as your own. That is why we refer to some thing as free as in speech.

[briancurtin]

more on the free as in beer/freedom stuff: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

[gil-galad]

You kinda have to use the drivers though. There is really no way out of it for nvidia users.

[zenlunatic]

Its easy, don't buy Nvidia cards. IMO Shuttleworth is a hypocrit for jumping on the "lets sucks RMS' ****" bandwagon, and then shipping these non-free components. I can at least partially understand debian, offering non-free repositories, but shipping non-free and arguing against it at the same time is idiotic. I have no respect for the man, no matter how much of his money he blow on this "revolution".

[poofyhairguy]

Its easy, don't buy Nvidia cards.

Hey, thats a mighty pratical way of looking at things. Not.

Actually Ubuntu does not ship with Nvidia driver out of the box. Just things like the madwifi driver. So its a non issue.


IMO Shuttleworth is a hypocrit for jumping on the "lets sucks RMS' ****" bandwagon, and then shipping these non-free components. I can at least partially understand debian, offering non-free repositories, but shipping non-free and arguing against it at the same time is idiotic. I have no respect for the man, no matter how much of his money he blow on this "revolution".

Mark made Ubuntu partially so that a free version of Debian exists that is not so strict about free and non free components. That is the POINT of Ubuntu.

He praises Debian for its purity and respects that but he understands that most users care about things working for them before they care about Libre software. If a person's wireless does not work (say because Ubuntu stopped shipping with the Madwifi drivers) then Ubuntu will not appeal to them. The majority of the planet does not care about RMS's software philosophy. They care about what works.

Of course, Mark understands that. That is because he is a pratical and reasonable person, unlike some people that I wish I could point a finger at.

[quonsar]

I have no respect for the man

don't you just know he's up nights losing sleep over that.
/sarcasm

[hscottyh]

I've been playing with alternate OS's to Microsoft since Windows 3.1 came out. Never liked Microsoft OS's, it really bothered me when I watched people and corporations flock to Windows 95, when I had been using OS/2 for 2 years and it was so much superior; again I had been using it 2 years prior, and it just worked multithreading and all....... I even got certified as an OS/2 engineer!

When I realized OS/2 was going no where (IBM just never got how to market for the PC really) a great thing happened, Linux hit the seen. I've played with it off and on for 10 years now. There have been big gaps in between..... I make a living as a software developer, so I've had to use Microsoft. Everytime I've came back to play with it, I've been impressed with the progress, but when I tried Ubuntu (it had been about a 2 year gap), I was amazed. I've always wanted it, but I finally became optimistic that big percentages of people could start leaving the grips of Microsoft and open standards may actually take hold. What convinced me. My brother, who knows nothing about computers and realies on me for support, got hit with his third virus in a year. This one was going to take a reinstall..... He said, "I'm about ready to get a Mac". I said l, "If you feel that way, I can but Linux on it, and it won't cost you anything". He said, "Go for it". He hasn't booted into windows in 3 months. He loves it, and knows nothing about computers.

Now do you think you could get people like my brother, much less the masses make the move, if it were a pain to get the video card, sound card. etc... to work. Nothing is that black and wight.

The more people that make the move the more open standards we will have. Which means the better it will get. If that means we have a few drivers on the box we don't have source code for, then I say that's ok, they'll come. They never will, if you can't get people like my brother using it. It's just the facts, the more that switch, the better it will be.

Actually, the more open source and free software there is, the more money I can make. If someone is confindent in say PostgreSQL and willing to leave Oracle they will be more willing to go ahead and do that project they've been putting off, because it just extremely cheaper; database CALs don't have to be paid for.

You've got to get systems to work, before people will use it. If you can't get people using it, you can't get them to see your point of view.

Compromise is not always a bad thing!!!!!!

Build it, they will come!!!