Linux.com (who shares corporate overlords with Slashdot) is reporting that gNewSense has gone 2.0. For the uninitiated gNewSense is a stripped down version of Ubuntu's Hardy Heron for the free software purist. Removing over 100 pieces of proprietary code and firmware, gNewSense offers a user the ability to run an OS where everything is able to be studied, changed, and redistributed. "gNewSense is a great alternative to Gobuntu, the Canonical-sponsored free derivative of Ubuntu. According to its wiki page, the 8.04 version of Gobuntu hasn't been released due to a less-than-optimal reaction from the community. Gobuntu used the same repositories as Ubuntu, and the Ubuntu live CD can achieve the same installation as Gobuntu by merely selecting the free-software-only option in the installer (press F6 twice at the boot menu). Also, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, has indicated that he would rather focus on gNewSense because the work on that distribution can help the Ubuntu community as a whole. "
What's with the weird name? I get the "nusiance" reference but unless they're trying to somehow imply GNU-siance the g seems pretty random. Awful confusing- why do we need random names for all these ubuntu derivatives.. how about freebuntu or something?
If your sales/marketing department can't find a way to sell something that's free, then you're in trouble...
We do quite a number of Ubuntu installs per month. If I wanted, I could substitute gNewSense and the users wouldn't really notice the difference in most cases.
We get paid for these installs, too. It supports my family quite nicely... so try pulling someone else's leg...
Secondly, there is already a free version of Ubuntu, called Gobuntu. gNewSense exists because "pure" isn't good enough for some people. Some of the issues were:
-Gobuntu uses the Ubuntu repositories, so you could, if you wanted, install non-free software. -The binaries had non-free removed, but the source packages, if you downloaded them, would not. -Some Ubuntu OS "enhancements" encouraged the downloading of proprietary software. -Gobuntu/Ubuntu development uses Launchpad, which is a non-open-source server application. (Nevermind that it's not runnning on your computer. Nevermind that you couldn't modify Canonical's version even if it was OSS. Nevermind that these same people use Google, etc.)
So, if any of these reasons make any sense to you, or if you'd just like a pat on the back from RMS, then gNS might be for you.
Seriously. The first time I was told about The GIMP, I asked my friend to provide me a link to the actual site. I was too scared to do a search for "GIMP".
Now there's a Ubuntu knockoff that developers will like because of the totally free software basis of this distro. But as the article says, it's not for everybody. Who wants to give up their wireless networking capability on a notebook? Not me. Who wants to give up 3D capability in X? Not me.
Losing those features is a necessary step toward a fully free desktop. Sure, you might lose them now, but that gives incentive for them to be developed so that we *have* free and open source drivers later.
Now I know there are people who think we don't *need* a totally free desktop, but then again, there were people who thought we didn't need an open source browser because there were Netscape binaries. And isn't everyone glad now that we have Firefox?
Besides all that, you'd be surprised at just how much works without needing any proprietary bits in your operating system at all. Before sticking in a gNewSense CD, the idea that I could run a totally, completely free operating system and still do what I need to do was just all theory to me.
Um... to whom, exactly? Some nerd who's going to spend the next three months in a darkened office reverse-engineering the proprietary drivers? To give incentive to the hardware manufacturers, we need a distro with the widest possible user base, not some fringe OSS purist crap.
You're missing the long view. You call it purist crap, and people have said the same of GNU at so many stages -- and look, today we have a totally free system, precisely because people have _not_ compromised, but stuck to an uncompromisingly free system and developed and worked on it. Who gives a toss, in the long run, about any particular hardware manufacturers today, about Linux's market share, about 3d video drivers, or any of that? There will be totally free 3d video drivers, there will be free drivers, there will be all of what people use proprietary components for today. It's by focussing on that long view that FLOSS has gotten as amazingly far as it has today, and only by keeping focussed on that will it get there. We cannot stop and say "this is good enough" while there are any proprietary components needed for the systems we use. And as a byproduct of this development effort, other people, naysayers or otherwise, will be able to use the system and join the FLOSS world.
Yeah, NVidia and Adobe are really feeling the heat to provide source code now that millions of Linux users have demonstrated that a little temporary convenience thanks to binary blobs is acceptable.
And on the other hand, yeah, Nvidia and Adobe are *really* feeling the heat to provide source code now that some fringe distro with zero userbase (and negligible userbase potential) totally lacks drivers.
Open source drivers would be nice, but I fail to see how this distro does anything to further that goal.
Yeah, NVidia and Adobe are really feeling the heat to provide source code now that millions of Linux users have demonstrated that a little temporary convenience thanks to binary blobs is acceptable.
No, but ATI did, and look, they have open-sourced some drivers. Once ATI starts to, NVidia will, once GNASH starts becoming usable, Adobe will feel the pressure to make Flash better. It is called competition, it is something that these companies really haven't had to deal with, though, with Linux they have to compete, and not having a monopoly, they are.
Preview (OS X), foxit (windows), and xpdf/kpdf/gpdf/ghostview/etc all view pdfs much better than Adobe's PDF viewer. That's competition on 100% of tha platforms adobe is on (give or take cell phones). If Adobe's feeling the pressure, they aren't showing it.
I think you mean, NVidia and Adobe are really feeling the heat to provide source code now that millions of Linux users have demonstrated a desire to use their binary blobs and a willingness to do all the work of packaging and distributing them. Companies are starting to see the benefits of open design in the form of offloading code maintenance and tech support. The only thing holding them back is negotiating open licenses with the owners of the technology they themselves licensed to produce the binary drivers.
Nvidia, for example, has no reason to open source their drivers for windows because, quite frankly, not enough windows users care.
I think that when Linux finally has a relatively large user base, the majority of them won't care either. There are a lot of people on the Linux side that want a large user base simply to get more attention from hardware manufacturers. This is because, to many people, proprietary drivers are better than no drivers. I think we're seeing this too with gNewSense and Ubuntu where the majority of users would rather have some proprietary drivers and non-free software than no software or less functional software.
However, maybe one day all of the hardware manufactures will realize the potential of all these people offering to write drivers for free for open hardware specs.
I think we're seeing this too with gNewSense and Ubuntu where the majority of users would rather have some proprietary drivers and non-free software than no software or less functional software.
You forgot the biggest reason - to most people it's not gNewSense vs Ubuntu, it's either a Linux stack or a Windows/Mac stack. I use proprietary drivers. Why? Because otherwise I'd probably stick with Windows, so how could I possibly be worse off having one bit of proprietary instead of a whole stack? As long as Linux is in the single digit marketshare, nobody is going to fight for a fraction of a fraction. If Linux has a huge marketshare, sure there'd be closed source products but others would open source (or at least give specs) to differentiate themselves. Why do you think people use open source, to have a shitty experience? No, they use it because allegedely this OSS development model works and gives better results. That means a company opening up their hardware, OSS devlopers doing their magic, then people use it because it's better. Expecting people to use crap because it's free as in speech would never get Linux anywhere. It might work for some zealots and developers working to actually make it usable but it will never catch on. I'm all for using open drivers but then the product must be there for me to use first, otherwise it can't do its function. It's like asking a music lover to buy a half-assembled stereo because it's really cool and comes with schematics and any electrical engineering student can tinker with it. He'd just go WTF?
Besides all that, you'd be surprised at just how much works without needing any proprietary bits in your operating system at all. Before sticking in a gNewSense CD, the idea that I could run a totally, completely free operating system and still do what I need to do was just all theory to me.
Doesn't Debian already do this?
The claim that it is too easy to install proprietary stuff on Debian is insane. The same goes for all truly functional OS.
Few things in the world are for everybody, but history shows us that freedom is worth some hard work to build and defend. If that means I do without something for a while, or I have to do something another way, that's a small price to pay. As it happens I don't need 3D hardware and my ASUS cardbus wireless card works with gNewSense GNU/Linux because it requires no firmware, hence there's no issue of uploading proprietary firmware to the device to make it useful. Using it couldn't be easier: I plug it in, it lights up and the system finds a wireless access point. If I leave it plugged in I only have to turn on my computer to get online wirelessly. I think that software freedom is worth some sacrifice and I find that I have to sacrifice less and less over time. I find it interesting to note how dependent on proprietary software many GNU/Linux users are. The push to put more proprietary software on a GNU-based system more clearly illuminates to me the difference between "open source" and "free software" right along the lines described in the latter part of "Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software [gnu.org]":
The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program which is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. How will free software activists and open source enthusiasts react to that?
A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.
The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but not at the price of my freedom. So I have to do without it. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.
Sometimes we should not only see the short-term pleasure that our system works, but also the long-term interest to be able to live in freedom. Of course the convenience of getting all machines to work seems most important now, but free software is not about convenience, it's about ethics. If we stop caring about proprietary drivers then the hardware manufacturers will think we don't care. And they probably even go a step further and DRM+TC [wikipedia.org] everything. Then maybe in twenty years you look back and ask yourself why you let the industry take away your rights.
I don't really understand why you think that "Rights", "Freedom", "Ethics" and "Industry" are buzzwords. They are clearly defined. You are partially correct with "Digital Rights Management" and "Trusted Computing", which are used for propaganda (if you read my post carefully, you'll see that I actually link to "Treacherous Computing". I don't use those propaganda terms, I just cite them).
Your post is the perfect example of why no one gives a shit about what you have to say.
Well, actually some do. For example my post was important enough for you to respond.
Ugh, due to that kind of thinking we still have to put up with crap like Nvidia's drivers.
I really wish all that buggy stuff was removed. I mean nvidia drivers, flash and things you put inside ndiswrapper. If only a fraction of the time we waste working around related bugs was put into nouveau and friends, all this discussion would be moot. And wireless producents would be forced to actually provide some docs.
I'll take your derivative one step further.
It'll be based on MakesMoreSense, but it will replace all of the free bits with proprietary binaries.
I think I'll call it WinBuntu
Not enough layering. The problems I have with the proliferation of variants are that it's hard to pick the specific spin of a specific package that you want and that picking a desired end result will often lead to Ubuntu's installer complaining that that permutation isn't valid because of a conflict, even if the permutation would not conflict if a sane installation policies were in use. What's needed is to break the problem down into more manageable chunks and to provide far greater granularity.
gNewSense seems a bit too nitpicky to me. Ubuntu is derived from totally free Debian, but they add optional libraries for "free as in beer" things like binary drivers and firmware bits they get the rights to distribute. The FSF seems over the top here, if they don't like Ubuntu, just use vanilla Debian with the same package list. I think the issue is that Ubuntu's build system, and bug tracking system are not free software so the "free" distro is tainted because of that? Splitting AGAIN seems silly, especially when Ubuntu makes it really easy to choose only Free Software for your install.
It seems to be the only point is to break Ubuntu's chops over a small thing just because they're not pure enough. Didn't the FSF guys also did this with Debian at one point for including repos with "non-free" software on their servers... how ridiculously silly. This is why businesses don't take the FSF and GNU seriously.
It's great that Shuttleworth is trying to improve the availability of Free (as in speech) software. But I hope he doesn't move too much efforts over to this.
The reason I use vanilla Ubuntu is because I don't have to put a lot of effort into setting up my OS to agree with all my hardware. Instead, from the start I can work more on customizing how I interact with my OS. I remember the hell I had with a Radeon x800 and Fedora Core 4 a few years ago. If "closed" (as if it's always a bad thing) software provides a better solution, I'm more likely to use that. So, I hope Mark still is going to put his best foot forward for plain Ubuntu. I bet the corporate interest is more aimed to that Ubuntu.
When we call software "free," we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of "free speech," not "free beer."...These freedoms are vitally important. They are essential, not just for the individual users' sake, but because they promote social solidarity--that is, sharing and cooperation. They become even more important as more and more of our culture and life activities are digitized. In a world of digital sounds, images and words, free software comes increasingly to equate with freedom in general.
Now, it may be more important to you that your wireless just works. But, for some people, it's more important to promote social solidarity and freedom, and they want a distribution that makes that easy - without then having to figure out all the dependencies and what is "free" and what isn't. This distribution serves that purpose.
Of course, you could go with Debian, but again, Debian suggests non-free software that people like yourself might simply use because they don't understand the differences between open source and free software or that they have free alternatives - like compiling the software themselves as the other reply to your post suggests. Distributions like Debian enable the creep of carelessness, which is why people like RMS (Richard Stallman) want to encourage totally free distributions.
If it's not your thing or if you are in a situation that requires using something non-free, then do what you have to do. But, I would encourage you to at least be aware of the choices you are making and at least try to be free where you can or to present the alternatives to others as I am doing here.
For disclosure, I used Linux (or GNU/Linux, if you'd rather) as my sole system a decade ago, and even then used Applix for office applications. Now, I use Windows exclusively. I need to run software that requires Windows and don't have as much time to spend troubleshooting computer problems. So, you are running more "free" than me. Still, I thought it worth trying my hand at explaining why these efforts are important, and perhaps it is better than someone that isn't a "true believer" present the case.
gNewSense sounds like Ubuntu made to be Debian without the non-free parameter in sources.list. No binary video blobs, fine. Firefox? gNewSense replaces it with Epiphany, while Debian renames it because of trademark issues (specifically, you can't fork Firefox without calling it something else). Debian's course seems idealogical enough already, gNewSense is just over the top, IMO.
The article claims that one benefit of gNewSense is that it is a distribution the FSF can get fully behind. If I recall, the FSF won't endorse Debian because they offer non-free if you enable it in their repositories. That just seems like hairsplitting to me. I can fully understand the desire to have free software/open source replacements and encouraging development of them, but I fail to see how gNewSense achieves that any better than what we had. In Debian you have to go out of your way to get non-free software. In Ubuntu it's fairly straightforward to avoid it if you want to. Is it really worth a distribution with perhaps the worst name I've ever heard for software?
Stallman: "Since I consider non-free software to be unethical and antisocial, I
think it would be wrong for me to recommend it to others. Therefore,
if a collection of software contains (or suggests installation of)
some non-free program, I do not recommend it. The systems I recommend
are therefore those that do not contain (or suggest installation of)
non-free software." (from here [marc.info])
Ubuntu is Debian based... now we have gNewSense which is Ubuntu based trying to be more Free Software conscious than Ubuntu when Debian already is that.:)
I mean is it really worth it to sacrifice functionality just to be a 'purist'??
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to focus effort on building free alternatives to the priority code in Ubuntu rather than maintaining a separate distro that most users will end up installing proprietary code on anyways?
I really don't understand this purist nonsense. I certainly understand a preference for F/OSS stuff, but at some point it becomes more religious than practical. Why screw up your own capabilities just to prove a VERY shallow point like this? Computers aren't here to be religious icons, and anyone with an ounce of sense is going to look at movements like this and say "ok, this is just a bit stupid".
If driver XYZ wants to keep their stuff super secret for whatever reason fine. Let them invest the resources to maintain a working copy for the ever growing variety of linux deployments. Because unless they follow the same path of zeaoltry they will eventually look at their prediciment and say "ok, this is just a bit stupid".
I think F/OSS in general is a better model, and I advocate for it whenever possible. But at the end of the day the computer and the software it is running is a tool to support getting a job done. The computer and the software is not a holy temple and holy writ to be protected.
I have been using gNewsense since October of last year. I have been happy with it. I actually did a major upgrade earlier this month due to wanting the latest version of I-don't-even-remember-anymore, which had X number of dependencies, so it asked to upgrade everything and I went for it. It did run into a few problems, and I even had to edit/var/lib/dpkg/status for one tricky and broken dependency chain, but all was well that ends well and all of that is on the Ubuntu side anyhow. I have an old Debian system in another location which I also did not update much and started to break hard on the upgrading circa spring-summer of 2007, so I just leave everything as it was in spring-summer 2007, especially considering I only have remote access to the machine most of the time. As I said, this is all Debian/Ubuntu related though, and not Gnewsense related.
I had a problem with Gnewsense prior to May where sound would conk off once in a while. The latest update of everything seems to have fixed that. I have to say I have been pretty happy with Gnewsense, I have been surprised about how much has worked automagically.
One exception to this is my HP printer. I am not a CUPS or HP driver expert, but I hooked it up, it detected it - as the proper HP printer, but it is not printing to it. I guess one fear you have with Gnewsense in these situations is some firmware blob that would just make it work is not included - although the situation might be the same on an Ubuntu, I don't know what the problem is, but I only spent a few hours looking at it.
I do install things like non-GPL'd-yet Sun Java, mplayer, vlc and the like on my Gnewsense system in its own little segregatd section. The main thing is, I know they are not free. It is really an awareness thing for me, I have all of the non-free stuff segregated in its own little section. I just installed Gnash, and will test it out and see how well it works. Most of the non-free stuff I use revolves around Java (which is being GPL'd) and movie players. I want to at least be aware of this stuff and have it segregated. Otherwise I might as well use Windows.
Problem is that this distro still contains non-free software in it. Though it might have a totally free (in the FSF definition) *goal*, it's rather dis-honest to advertise something that has yet to be accomplished. Quite frankly, if one wants a totally free *NIX OS, then one should be looking at OpenBSD rather than this thing. You know, the people who are actually fighting against Blobs, etc instead of just removing things that can be easily put back in.
Yeah, really, look at those comments. Apparently now giving a crap about the long term effectiveness of a system and not having to depend on some company that might go broke one day in order to use the hardware you actually paid for has become 'zealotry' or being a purist or taking it as a religion.
While simultaneously, people who put blind faith on corporations - that they will still want to give you updated binary blobs, that they will actually survive the years to come, etc - get the title of being pragmatists.
Oh and to they guys that are ranting about it ruining ubuntu, etc. Please notice it is just an alternative, you don't have to use it if you don't want to.
...except for the proprietary BIOS software, the proprietary microcode in the video card, wireless card, I/O controller, hard disks, floppy disks, monitor, keyboard, mouse, POTS modem, ADSL modem, power control microcontroller, and all the other little bits of electronics with embedded CPUs on your desk.
And if you want to be really picky, you could also talk about the proprietary chip and CPU designs in every single piece of silicon in all of the above. Not to mention the patented and extremely commercial fabber techniques needed to make it all (in China). Free, it's not.
Now that there are genuinely free (as in speech) IC designs out there on places like opencores.com, is it possible to make completely free computers? Even single-board jobs?
I've had it on my Thinkpad R61 for 28 days now and it works amazingly well. I do realize that just because it works for me doesn't make it an awesome release. Just because you have had a couple issues doesn't make it a beta quality release either. Define a serious user for me. Realtek AC888 not working is a corner case and will be patched soon. If you have issues with Dolphin, use Konqueror or Nautilus. I personally avoid KDE - so can't help you much there. If you are a serious user, try having a more descri
Dolphin? Sounds like you may be using Kubuntu 8.04, which I also had a lot of trouble with. In fact, now that I've tried all three I have to say xubuntu is the way to go. Ubuntu claims that switching from kubuntu to xubuntu is a simple matter of "sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop", but that didn't fix the kubuntu bugginess. Downloading and using the xubuntu installer did the trick, and now everything works as it should. HTH.
the name? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the name? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:the name? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless they choose non-free software, because then the OS should make it more difficult, otherwise they might hurt themselves
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Re:the name? (Score:5, Interesting)
If your sales/marketing department can't find a way to sell something that's free, then you're in trouble...
We do quite a number of Ubuntu installs per month. If I wanted, I could substitute gNewSense and the users wouldn't really notice the difference in most cases.
We get paid for these installs, too. It supports my family quite nicely... so try pulling someone else's leg...
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Re:the name? (Score:5, Interesting)
Secondly, there is already a free version of Ubuntu, called Gobuntu. gNewSense exists because "pure" isn't good enough for some people. Some of the issues were:
-Gobuntu uses the Ubuntu repositories, so you could, if you wanted, install non-free software.
-The binaries had non-free removed, but the source packages, if you downloaded them, would not.
-Some Ubuntu OS "enhancements" encouraged the downloading of proprietary software.
-Gobuntu/Ubuntu development uses Launchpad, which is a non-open-source server application. (Nevermind that it's not runnning on your computer. Nevermind that you couldn't modify Canonical's version even if it was OSS. Nevermind that these same people use Google, etc.)
So, if any of these reasons make any sense to you, or if you'd just like a pat on the back from RMS, then gNS might be for you.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Jolly Jellyfish?
Joking Jay?
Jittery Jaguar?
Re:the name? (Score:5, Funny)
The only name I ever remember liking that came out of that was "Killustrator" and I think they had to change it because Adobe are wankers.
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Re:the name? (Score:5, Funny)
There, fixed that for you.
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Stallmanites strike again (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Stallmanites strike again (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Stallmanites strike again (Score:4, Insightful)
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OK, fine... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:OK, fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
Losing those features is a necessary step toward a fully free desktop. Sure, you might lose them now, but that gives incentive for them to be developed so that we *have* free and open source drivers later.
Now I know there are people who think we don't *need* a totally free desktop, but then again, there were people who thought we didn't need an open source browser because there were Netscape binaries. And isn't everyone glad now that we have Firefox?
Besides all that, you'd be surprised at just how much works without needing any proprietary bits in your operating system at all. Before sticking in a gNewSense CD, the idea that I could run a totally, completely free operating system and still do what I need to do was just all theory to me.
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Re:OK, fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
Um... to whom, exactly? Some nerd who's going to spend the next three months in a darkened office reverse-engineering the proprietary drivers? To give incentive to the hardware manufacturers, we need a distro with the widest possible user base, not some fringe OSS purist crap.
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Re:OK, fine... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:OK, fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:OK, fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
And on the other hand, yeah, Nvidia and Adobe are *really* feeling the heat to provide source code now that some fringe distro with zero userbase (and negligible userbase potential) totally lacks drivers.
Open source drivers would be nice, but I fail to see how this distro does anything to further that goal.
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Re:OK, fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but ATI did, and look, they have open-sourced some drivers. Once ATI starts to, NVidia will, once GNASH starts becoming usable, Adobe will feel the pressure to make Flash better. It is called competition, it is something that these companies really haven't had to deal with, though, with Linux they have to compete, and not having a monopoly, they are.
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Re:OK, fine... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:OK, fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:OK, fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, maybe one day all of the hardware manufactures will realize the potential of all these people offering to write drivers for free for open hardware specs.
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Re:OK, fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:OK, fine... (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't Debian already do this?
The claim that it is too easy to install proprietary stuff on Debian is insane. The same goes for all truly functional OS.
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Freedom is worth the inconvenience. (Score:4, Interesting)
Few things in the world are for everybody, but history shows us that freedom is worth some hard work to build and defend. If that means I do without something for a while, or I have to do something another way, that's a small price to pay. As it happens I don't need 3D hardware and my ASUS cardbus wireless card works with gNewSense GNU/Linux because it requires no firmware, hence there's no issue of uploading proprietary firmware to the device to make it useful. Using it couldn't be easier: I plug it in, it lights up and the system finds a wireless access point. If I leave it plugged in I only have to turn on my computer to get online wirelessly. I think that software freedom is worth some sacrifice and I find that I have to sacrifice less and less over time. I find it interesting to note how dependent on proprietary software many GNU/Linux users are. The push to put more proprietary software on a GNU-based system more clearly illuminates to me the difference between "open source" and "free software" right along the lines described in the latter part of "Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software [gnu.org]":
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Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Um, great? (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh.
Re:Um, great? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Um, great? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are partially correct with "Digital Rights Management" and "Trusted Computing", which are used for propaganda (if you read my post carefully, you'll see that I actually link to "Treacherous Computing". I don't use those propaganda terms, I just cite them).
Well, actually some do. For example my post was important enough for you to respond.
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Yes, great. (Score:5, Insightful)
I really wish all that buggy stuff was removed. I mean nvidia drivers, flash and things you put inside ndiswrapper. If only a fraction of the time we waste working around related bugs was put into nouveau and friends, all this discussion would be moot. And wireless producents would be forced to actually provide some docs.
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I'm gonna make a derivative! (Score:5, Funny)
debian - ubuntu - gnewsense - MakesMoreSense
Re:I'm gonna make a derivative! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Too many variants (Score:4, Interesting)
seems a bit silly (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to be the only point is to break Ubuntu's chops over a small thing just because they're not pure enough. Didn't the FSF guys also did this with Debian at one point for including repos with "non-free" software on their servers... how ridiculously silly. This is why businesses don't take the FSF and GNU seriously.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Proprietary Debate (Score:3, Insightful)
It's great that Shuttleworth is trying to improve the availability of Free (as in speech) software. But I hope he doesn't move too much efforts over to this.
The reason I use vanilla Ubuntu is because I don't have to put a lot of effort into setting up my OS to agree with all my hardware. Instead, from the start I can work more on customizing how I interact with my OS. I remember the hell I had with a Radeon x800 and Fedora Core 4 a few years ago. If "closed" (as if it's always a bad thing) software provides a better solution, I'm more likely to use that. So, I hope Mark still is going to put his best foot forward for plain Ubuntu. I bet the corporate interest is more aimed to that Ubuntu.
As I recall... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for open source code, and all, but what guarantee do I have that my laptop would work with that?
This is like saying "It's just like that other free car, but without the ugly cupholder!"
What's stopping you from removing the other software yourself, if it's that unsightly?
Re:As I recall... (Score:5, Informative)
Free software is not the same as open source. Read Why "Open Source" misses the point of Free Software [gnu.org]. The first two paragraphs:
Now, it may be more important to you that your wireless just works. But, for some people, it's more important to promote social solidarity and freedom, and they want a distribution that makes that easy - without then having to figure out all the dependencies and what is "free" and what isn't. This distribution serves that purpose.
Of course, you could go with Debian, but again, Debian suggests non-free software that people like yourself might simply use because they don't understand the differences between open source and free software or that they have free alternatives - like compiling the software themselves as the other reply to your post suggests. Distributions like Debian enable the creep of carelessness, which is why people like RMS (Richard Stallman) want to encourage totally free distributions.
If it's not your thing or if you are in a situation that requires using something non-free, then do what you have to do. But, I would encourage you to at least be aware of the choices you are making and at least try to be free where you can or to present the alternatives to others as I am doing here.
For disclosure, I used Linux (or GNU/Linux, if you'd rather) as my sole system a decade ago, and even then used Applix for office applications. Now, I use Windows exclusively. I need to run software that requires Windows and don't have as much time to spend troubleshooting computer problems. So, you are running more "free" than me. Still, I thought it worth trying my hand at explaining why these efforts are important, and perhaps it is better than someone that isn't a "true believer" present the case.
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Hairsplitting (Score:4, Interesting)
The article claims that one benefit of gNewSense is that it is a distribution the FSF can get fully behind. If I recall, the FSF won't endorse Debian because they offer non-free if you enable it in their repositories. That just seems like hairsplitting to me. I can fully understand the desire to have free software/open source replacements and encouraging development of them, but I fail to see how gNewSense achieves that any better than what we had. In Debian you have to go out of your way to get non-free software. In Ubuntu it's fairly straightforward to avoid it if you want to. Is it really worth a distribution with perhaps the worst name I've ever heard for software?
RMS hair splitting (Score:3, Informative)
Stallman: "Since I consider non-free software to be unethical and antisocial, I think it would be wrong for me to recommend it to others. Therefore, if a collection of software contains (or suggests installation of) some non-free program, I do not recommend it. The systems I recommend are therefore those that do not contain (or suggest installation of) non-free software." (from here [marc.info])
Re:RMS hair splitting (Score:4, Insightful)
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Just. Use. Debian. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubuntu is Debian based... now we have gNewSense which is Ubuntu based trying to be more Free Software conscious than Ubuntu when Debian already is that.
Seems redundant to me.
Who really uses this.....? (Score:5, Insightful)
Zealotry (Score:5, Insightful)
If driver XYZ wants to keep their stuff super secret for whatever reason fine. Let them invest the resources to maintain a working copy for the ever growing variety of linux deployments. Because unless they follow the same path of zeaoltry they will eventually look at their prediciment and say "ok, this is just a bit stupid".
I think F/OSS in general is a better model, and I advocate for it whenever possible. But at the end of the day the computer and the software it is running is a tool to support getting a job done. The computer and the software is not a holy temple and holy writ to be protected.
gNewsense user here (Score:3, Interesting)
I had a problem with Gnewsense prior to May where sound would conk off once in a while. The latest update of everything seems to have fixed that. I have to say I have been pretty happy with Gnewsense, I have been surprised about how much has worked automagically.
One exception to this is my HP printer. I am not a CUPS or HP driver expert, but I hooked it up, it detected it - as the proper HP printer, but it is not printing to it. I guess one fear you have with Gnewsense in these situations is some firmware blob that would just make it work is not included - although the situation might be the same on an Ubuntu, I don't know what the problem is, but I only spent a few hours looking at it.
I do install things like non-GPL'd-yet Sun Java, mplayer, vlc and the like on my Gnewsense system in its own little segregatd section. The main thing is, I know they are not free. It is really an awareness thing for me, I have all of the non-free stuff segregated in its own little section. I just installed Gnash, and will test it out and see how well it works. Most of the non-free stuff I use revolves around Java (which is being GPL'd) and movie players. I want to at least be aware of this stuff and have it segregated. Otherwise I might as well use Windows.
Not as Advertised (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmnn, Slashdot full of inverted logic lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, really, look at those comments. Apparently now giving a crap about the long term effectiveness of a system and not having to depend on some company that might go broke one day in order to use the hardware you actually paid for has become 'zealotry' or being a purist or taking it as a religion.
While simultaneously, people who put blind faith on corporations - that they will still want to give you updated binary blobs, that they will actually survive the years to come, etc - get the title of being pragmatists.
Oh and to they guys that are ranting about it ruining ubuntu, etc. Please notice it is just an alternative, you don't have to use it if you don't want to.
100% free! (Score:5, Insightful)
...except for the proprietary BIOS software, the proprietary microcode in the video card, wireless card, I/O controller, hard disks, floppy disks, monitor, keyboard, mouse, POTS modem, ADSL modem, power control microcontroller, and all the other little bits of electronics with embedded CPUs on your desk.
And if you want to be really picky, you could also talk about the proprietary chip and CPU designs in every single piece of silicon in all of the above. Not to mention the patented and extremely commercial fabber techniques needed to make it all (in China). Free, it's not.
Now that there are genuinely free (as in speech) IC designs out there on places like opencores.com, is it possible to make completely free computers? Even single-board jobs?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Define a serious user for me. Realtek AC888 not working is a corner case and will be patched soon. If you have issues with Dolphin, use Konqueror or Nautilus. I personally avoid KDE - so can't help you much there. If you are a serious user, try having a more descri
Re:Ubuntu 8.04 is too buggy and should be beta. (Score:4, Informative)
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