I’m not sure that an ultra-conservative approach is the right one. It limits the hardware you can run on (oh ATI….), and can be really irritating when a piece of software becomes abandoned by it’s author. In short, it makes it more difficult to do the kind of things I do now with non-free software.
I love free software, but I’m not sure that I’m willing to make that kind of commitment.
— Nathan 
Nathan,
That’s why it’s a flavor, not the only choice. I think it’s great that they realize that various people want both ends of the spectrum. Heck, some of us might want both ends at different times for different reasons. I can see the new, stricter, flavor being great for compatibility testing and application debugging, for example, even if I’m using regular Ubuntu day-to-day to actually get other stuff done.
— katre
There’s a certain element of self-selection here; people who want to run this distribution will have chosen hardware (such as an Intel graphics card) that doesn’t require non-free drivers to run. For example, in the case of ATI, the “radeon” driver accomplishes quite a lot, but ATI is *actively blocking* the radeon code for their latest cards (which was written under NDA) from being released — see http://airlied.livejournal.com/30885.html .
We all know that it’s often awkward to refuse non-free drivers, but I think it makes sense when you see battles like this one going on. I can only seeing it being positive to allow them if you consider yourself in a bubble, instead of as part of a community that has the power to send messages to companies about what is and isn’t acceptable and about what we want the Linux driver situation to be like in the future.
- Chris.
— Chris
D’oh. That URL should be:
http://airlied.livejournal.com/31180.html
- Chris.
— Chris
Bloody great, isn’t it?
I read it and my first thought was “yaaaay!”. And my second thought, really, was: Mark will like this too. :-)
> There’s a certain element of self-selection here
That was my experience. I bought a new computer to run a Free Software operating system, and I researched on http://thinkwiki.org/ and elsewhere to ensure that my hardware was compatible. Later (after I bought a few extra hardware accessories) I tested gNewSense to ensure that all my hardware was truly operable. (This was before Ubuntu visibly warned you about restricted drivers.)
It appears that this new Ubuntu flavor is essentially gNewSense, plus the community and corporate backing of Canonical. In a part I didn’t quote, Shuttleworth said this would be done in collaboration with the gNewSense folks, so congrats to them.
Of course they’ll still be using a proprietary bug tracking system, but one step at a time.
— Mark
“I bought a new computer to run a Free Software operating system”
I have to ask – what spec did you end up with?
Some details here: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/05/30/bye-apple
More details here: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/11/06/gnewsense
— Mark
Of course, OpenBSD has been doing this for years, and that’s without the “or you can sell out” option.
(They do allow binary firmware images with only free redistribution rights, no source, but that makes sense any way you look at it).
— dbt
I recently made the switch from a Windows environment to Ubuntu, with only some minor snags along the way. I think all of the comments so far about free vs. non-free, open vs. proprietary are valid.
Personally although I do favor a free and open environment, I also depend on my environment for all of my computing needs. Although it would be nice to have the ability to “send a message” on every front, I find that if there is some reason I cannot make something happen without changing hardware or going through an extreme amount of trouble, then my current solution becomes unacceptable. The catch 22 as several of you point out is that it is that struggle, and the sustainability of that struggle, that will ultimately force change.
I am willing to stuggle up to a point, and then give in, for now.
— Ryan
dbt: The article says “[ubuntu 7.10] takes an ultra-orthodox view of licensing: no firmware, drivers, imagery, sounds, applications, or other content which do not include full source materials and come with full rights of modification, remixing and redistribution.”
If OpenBSD allow source-less binary firmware then Ubuntu are going one step further than Open BSD do.
— Dean
I know, let’s all play “My OS is more free than your OS.”
No, really, let’s all do that. Popcorn’s on me.
— Mark
I am a free software advocate, but I don’t get the fuss about Launchpad. Yes, the software that runs the website is not available to the public – but neither is Google Code’s Project Hosting, Google, Amazon Web Services, Technorati or even the specific configuration that runs the GNU website.
Yes, perhaps it might be nice if Launchpad was also a deb(5) package… but I would also like to:
apt-get install google
Oh well. There is a line, just like the one RMS drew between firmware and software.
Get a grip.
— Noah Slater
Not on topic, but is it just a coincidence that you stopped posting your del.icio.us links right when you announced your new job at Google?
— curious
Noah: http://charismacode.blogspot.com/2007/01/powers-and-repositories-ubuntu-and.html and http://eskar.dk/andreas/blog/?p=219 are good starting points for discussing why Launchpad’s license matters. The first is more philosophical, the second more practical. Paging Tim O’Reilly: source code still matters, even on web apps. Saying “but at least you can get your own data out” is like saying “but at least your car’s airbag isn’t filled with gravel.” I expect more.
— Mark
Curious: it’s just a coincidence. People complained about the lack of “real” content, and I found myself agreeing with them. I’m still linkblogging; if you want them, subscribe to the feed on del.icio.us.
— Mark
Ubuntu 7.10 will feature a new flavour – as yet unnamed
“Pilgrim’s Progress”
Mark, having just read both those links you provided I have come to the conclusion that we are approaching this issue from very different angles.
In both essays the argument devolves (or should I say concentrates, it’s all about frames of reference) into a discussion about the “quality” and “motives” behind Launchpad/Rosetta on the impact on the community.
I completely concede that Lanuchpad/Rosetta are not ideal solutions for the community – but I think the issue is one of not having access to the back-end systems or understanding how information flows through the system.
This is not the same as non-free software.
See the following essay from RMS:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html
Quoted:
The BIOS was impossible to replace because it was stored in ROM: the only way to to put in a different BIOS was by replacing part of the hardware. In effect, the BIOS was itself hardware–and therefore didn’t really count as software. It was like the program that (we can suppose) exists in the computer that (we can suppose) runs your watch or your microwave oven: since you can’t install software on it, it may as well be circuits, not a computer at all.
The ethical issues of free software arise because users obtain programs and install them in computers; they don’t really apply to hidden embedded computers, or the BIOS burned in a ROM, or the microcode inside a processor chip, or the firmware that is wired into a processor in an I/O device. In aspects that relate to their design, those things are software; but as regards copying and modification, they may as well be hardware. The BIOS in ROM was, indeed, not a problem.
As far as I see it, a web-site qualifies as a “hidden embedded computer” because it’s not something that you can change or have any uncontrolled access to.
So yes, to summarise my argument – Launchpad, Google Code Project Hosting et al a not free software, but neither are they non-free software – that label just doesn’t apply to them. Launchpad, however, is still a problem for the community – but it’s important to understand the distinctions why.
— Noah Slater
I had inferred that you had gone to Google to work on the XHTML(2) vs. HTML5 debacle. Is the Ubuntu stuff a side project, or is this being done in the capacity of your new day job?
— J$
Noah, what a completely bizarre — and highly selective — quoting of that “free BIOS” article. *THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE* after you stopped quoting states “Since that time, the situation has changed,” and the rest of the article is devoted to a campaign for free software BIOSes, now that they can be flashed.
You are, of course, free to “see it” any way you like, but if I were you, I wouldn’t be passing that link around to “support” your opinion.
— Mark
JS: Ubuntu isn’t any kind of “project” for me, it’s just news that I find interesting.
Sheesh, people need to stop trying to micro-analyze my job at Google. How I spend my days is spelled out pretty clearly in the job description.
— Mark
Mark, what a completely bizarre — and highly selective — re-quoting of that very same article.
RMS goes on to explain how the BIOS situation has changed. He does NOT change his position on “hidden embedded computers” and hence your argument/point is completely flawed.
The ethics associated with systems out side of your control remain the same. At no point in the article does RMS change his position on this.
An “embedded” system (or one outside of your control) cannot be considered as “software” in the context of free vs. non-free for all the (non-refuted) reasons RMS outlines in his essay.
Perhaps you should take another look.
— Noah Slater
Yes, perhaps it might be nice if Launchpad was also a
deb(5)package … but I would also like toapt-get install google
That’s a good analogy, actually, because Launchpad and Google packages would be less-than-useful for much the same reasons. Like Google Web Search, Launchpad is a service — a complex system of software, servers, bandwidth, database administration, network administration, and above all, large quantities of data. And like Google Web Search, it would be very difficult to implement it in such a way that multiple instances communicated to achieve the result (in Launchpad’s case, collaboration between distributions and upstreams) that the system was designed for in the first place.
— mpt
mpt wrote:
Launchpad and Google packages would be less-than-useful for much the same reasons
Many years ago, some random guy named Linus wrote:
I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
… PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.
I continue to be amazed — and more than a little disappointed — in the lack of imagination people have about web-based applications. You get otherwise intelligent people like Tim O’Reilly bloviating about how there’s no point in making Flickr open source, that it’s all about the APIs. Flickr is an incredibly complex system for managing users, tags, comments, lists, groups, pools, votes, annotations, series… oh, and photos too. Of that, the photo-specific part is the actual displaying of the images, and the camera metadata. The rest could easily be reused in other contexts.
Where’s my Flickr for recipes? Where’s my Flickr for cross-stitch patterns? Where’s my Flickr for maps, or map overlays? Where’s my Flickr for PDFs? (I know, it’s Scribd — and they had to start from scratch just like everybody else, that’s my point.)
And don’t say “well, it all depends on Flickr’s backend systems, which nobody could replicate, and so they couldn’t re-use the code anyway.” That’s a load of crap. Give the world the code; you’ll be amazed what they can do with it. I’m sure as hell not running Linux on a 386 with an AT hard disk.
— Mark
Touché. I agree completely with every single one of your points.
This isn’t an issue of free vs. non-free software though – it’s about the much wider ideology of sharing innovation and creativity. One which I believe in passionately.
Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results.
- R. Stallman
— Noah Slater
There are plenty of sites about recipes, and cross-stitching, and mapping. Many far better than Flickr. Innovate on your own without relying on what’s there. Build something based on something new. Flickr is far from the platform we should all be starting with. There are better platforms not yet created. Go build your own and open-source it if that’s what you want to do.
— Craig
Give the world the code; you’ll be amazed what they can do with it.
Ooh, I know, let’s all play “My employer’s flagship Web service will be open source before yours”.
No, really, let’s all do that. No matter who wins, we all will.
— mpt
You’re either using free software exclusively, or you’re not. I find terms like “ultra-conservative” faintly bizarre. It’s as if it’s weird to embrace free software beyond some form of comfort-zone.
— Jon
Jon, I have to admit I had the same reaction, but in the real world the lines are always a little fuzzy and open to interpretation. If everything were cut and dry, debian-legal would have nothing to talk about. Not everyone uses common, well-understood licenses, and even those are occasionally challenged (c.f. Debian and the GFDL).
What does worry me, a little bit, is the possibility that this “ultra-conservative” distribution will be used as an excuse to shove more and more proprietary software into the “classic” distribution. If the Ubuntu forums are any indication, most Ubuntu users seem to be loving Linux insofar as it lets them run Automatix2 and install all their favorite proprietary codecs, drivers, and P2P filesharing software. There has already been movement in that direction in Fiesty, making restricted codecs easier to install. (I acknowledge that this has also been coupled with Canonical’s new “educational” dialogs about restricted formats and drivers.) Still, I wonder if any of these users will “grow up” to understand the philosophy behind the software. Probably some will. I hope it’s enough.
— Mark
Can you guys show some examples of a web app that let go its source code?
I’ve built http://www.epenso.com six years ago and I’ve been wondering for a while now if I should offer the source code to the community. I’ve been on the internet since before the advent of the WWW and I understand the spirit of sharing completely, but at the same time I don’t want to hurt ePenso.com as a company by letting its competitors see our sourcecode.
Sharing vs capitalism…what are your thoughts on this? After all, even do Google is a “do no evil” company (so far), they haven’t shared zilch. Yet they are admired by almost everybody…
You mean like Wordpress?
— Mark
> After all, even do Google is a “do no evil” company (so far), they haven’t shared zilch.
http://code.google.com/projects.html
— Mark
Also Jinzora, TRAC, Zope, Bugzilla, Gallery, X-WRT, eGroupWare, gForge, Horde/Imp, phpBB, MediaWiki, Feed Validator… That’s a real mix of geek and non-geek stuff. Some of it runs the biggest sites in the world, others run on $50 routers.
I won’t advise you on your own code, but there are TONS of open source web apps. Thousands. Freshmeat.net lists 3853 projects written in PHP (OK, 3852 if you don’t count PHP itself). It’s not like you’d be breaking new ground.
— Mark
Mark, while I appreciate your points – Google’s free software projects don’t exactly constitute the same as what people are asking of Launchpad, or anything close to your examples using Flickr.
There is a world of difference between a company like Google contributing something back to the community and a company based upon a web service (in the more traditional business sense) opening the source to it’s product.
— Noah Slater
Noah, we appear to be in violent agreement.
— Mark
I’m in disagreement with Mark and agree completely with Noah. Now my problem is that even though I run a web app or ASP or SaaS or whatever you want to call it, I can’t define in a clear way why phpBB, to name one example, is different than Google Maps, so I have to give some credits to Mark’s comments.
IMO, phpBB is more of a traditional piece of software. It is part of a larger product, it is only one module of a larger website, the forum part. Also, phpBB was intended from scratch to run on as many servers as possible. Same could be said of Bugzilla. On the contrary, ASPs are hosting their apps on their own servers and build them in a way that they can accommodate thousands of “clients” (in the commercial sense) that each have “users”.
With that little nuance, can you still give me examples of companies that had an established client base using their servers’ web apps and let go of their source code?
Cheers
alain
— Alain Azzam