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Canonical causes a ruckus

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Wonder if it will be Canonical making their own version of an app, or if they intend on paying companies to make a linux version or something else.
 
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Gentoo lets you set a list of licenses you will accept, and then only that software is available. I have no problem with it; I believe that people should have freedom to choose to pay for software if they like. If Canonical starts developing its own proprietary software, that would bother me.

I use some binary proprietary software in Linux, including Hulu Desktop, nvidia drivers, virtualbox (the binary version lets you do a few things you cannot do in the open source), flash, and some other stuff.
 
Linux is supposed to be about freedom and choice. Complaining that somebody might want to use proprietary software like Photoshop in Linux, and trying to prevent the possibility, is rather hypocritical. FFS, let companies release closed-source stuff. I'd rather have a closed-source application than no application.
 
I use proprietary software... Isn't Firefox proprietary? But I agree with MRD... people should have the freedom to pay for software. I will pay for software that works. I'd like to see better video editing for ubuntu/mint as well.
 
I use proprietary software... Isn't Firefox proprietary?

If you're using the pure definition (something that is proprietary is someone's property), then all software is proprietary, since all software has an owner, whether that owner is a person, organization, or company. Common usage of proprietary refers to "closed-source". Firefox wouldn't count, there :)
 
i would be all for closed source software to be available. if i had itunes on linux, that would be one less reason for me to use windows. as of right now, the only time i use windows is to play games, itunes and for work. i am still a bit surprised that apple hasn't released a *nix version of itunes. i would imagine that there has some be some blog post somewhere about why itunes isn't on linux.
 
I'll tell you, I switched to Mint over Vista because of the out of the box inclusion of "proprietary" closed source drivers. If they could release it with the apps that I used most often in winblows, I would about explode in my pants. The one reason I keep thinking about a small windows partition again is for those apps that I can't find an easy alternative to in linux. I am not afraid of the CLI, but a GUI is just much easier for me to work with after all the time I spent in windows.

The whole open vs closed source thing...meh, I still have the choice to install or not right?
 
Firefox is open source. I always compile my own from source in Gentoo.

Deadbot brings up an important point... you must have the choice to install it or not; i.e. the system itself should never depend on closed source. You might need closed source to do X or Y, but it should be an add on feature, not an essential aspect of the OS.
 
Guys, if you want a totally free operating system the one you want is gNewSense (http://www.gnewsense.org/). It is all free software (all free (libre) software is open-source software but not all open-source software is free software). gNewSense is based off ubuntu but has all the proprietary software stripped out.

Ubuntu by default includes proprietary software. The linux kernel you get includes proprietary blobs they put in there to make certain pieces of hardware work.
 
Guys, if you want a totally free operating system the one you want is gNewSense (http://www.gnewsense.org/). It is all free software (all free (libre) software is open-source software but not all open-source software is free software). gNewSense is based off ubuntu but has all the proprietary software stripped out.

Sounds like Debian. I had heard of gNewSense but it doesn't look like there is an amd64 version, which is the show-stopper for me.
 
With Ubuntu, you have to select proprietary drivers. They are easy to select, but they are optional. They are necessary in some rare cases though for certain hardware.
 
Deadbot brings up an important point... you must have the choice to install it or not; i.e. the system itself should never depend on closed source. You might need closed source to do X or Y, but it should be an add on feature, not an essential aspect of the OS.


+1
 
gNewSense is based off ubuntu but has all the proprietary software stripped out.

Ubuntu by default includes proprietary software. The linux kernel you get includes proprietary blobs they put in there to make certain pieces of hardware work.

This is why I will likely never use gNewSense or Debian. It is my choice whether to install non-free / non-open software on other distros. Other distros have those packages available in the base repository, so I can choose to install them if I want to.

Also, AFAIK, Ubuntu does NOT default install proprietary drivers. It asks you (there's that choice thing again) if you want them before installing. The kernel does not have proprietary blobs, either. There are modules that are proprietary, but if that module isn't loaded, then it isn't doing anything with your kernel.
 
Well, if Ubuntu needs "Standard" apps like itunes and Photoshop to push it out into the mainstream, then I'm all for it :).

I'm all for it as long as I have the option of not installing them

I love the steps canonical is taking trying to make linux more user friendly, but the moment it becomes bloated and closes itself off in any way, I'll drop it like a 300 lb blind date.
 
Doubt they will, unless market share for linux gets over the 15% mark. It wouldn't be that hard, but a port for *nix would open up a lot of paths for copying/remaking their precious IiTunes. *nix makes it to easy to get at the underlying hardware/software interactions and reverse engineer. Risk vs. reward simplicity. still to much risk in it for them
 
As said above if you want to include proprietary software in the base install then offer the install disc in two versions, one with propriety software installed and one without.
 
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