Ubuntu Launchpad is non-free

[tim1]

I just read a blog post (http://www.tribulaciones.org/blog/computers/software/rosetta_06-03-2005) where someone complains about rosetta (http://launchpad.ubuntu.com/rosetta) being non-free.

He makes a good point there and I just wanted to ask whether there is an official statement about this, because I couldn't find anything and this doesn't seem to be in line with the rest of the Ubuntu project where everything is clearly defined.

greets, tim

[ember]

Hmm,

I didn't find much information either. I even do not know, which parts of Rosetta are actually non-free. Anyone here who knows more?

[asimon]

Well Canonical Ltd. is a company and as such it must earn profit.

I was not able to find Rosetta's lisence. But Ubuntu (as written at ubuntulinux.org) encourages people to use free and open source software. And if Rosetta is indeed non-free is should of course never be part of Ubuntu main and IMO should not be encouraged by Ubuntu to be used for translations.

[tim1]

Well Canonical Ltd. is a company and as such it must earn profit.

How do you think they can make money with launchpad being non-free? They should rather sell CDs instead of giving them away for free.

greets, tim

[asimon]

How do you think they can make money with launchpad being non-free?

That is a question you should ask the authors. I don't even know what lisence Rosetta is under.

Canonical's stuff and software has "a proven track record of success in the commercial software industry." (http://www.canonical.com/) Thus one should not expect that everything which comes from Canonical is free and open.

[ember]

I do not question Canonical is inclined to earn money somehow. Yet a non-free software as an integral part of Ubuntu is not compliant with the philosophy I would say. Maybe we just wait for someone to clarify.

[tim1]

Thus one should not expect that everything which comes from Canonical is free and open.

I totally agree on this, but there are things that should be free (as in speech) and that includes the tools that help on developing Ubuntu and are thus a core part of the whole project.


I don't even know what lisence Rosetta is under.

Because there is no information about it at all. Which makes it proprietary closed source.

greets, tim

[Lovechild]

I like Rosetta as a translator, but if there are licensing issues I will avoid using it the same way I avoid using bitkeeper for my kernel work.

To bad it good software, and I would have liked to contibute to it (mainly cause I would like to see it move towards encouraging review teams rather than individual efforts - we have had extra succes promoting common terms and group review in the Danish translator effort and I would like to see Rosetta move more towards that)