Re: [gNewSense-users] Glossy GNU ?

[Mitch Wiedemann]

Matthew Flaschen wrote:
> Mitch Wiedemann wrote:
>   
>> Koh Choon Lin wrote:
>>     
>>>> Having a fully free official
>>>> Ubuntu variant will also mean there's more attention drawn to the ideals
>>>> of free software, and it'll probably be easier to find help for any
>>>> problems as there'll be more people using a completely free Ubuntu
>>>> variant. However, I still prefer using a distribution which has freedom
>>>> as it's main goal.
>>>>         
>>> If I read the announcement correctly, Canonical is following what
>>> Linspire had done - releasing two distribution, one non-free and one
>>> free. And looking at history, I guess more would download and use the
>>> former than the latter.
>>>       
>> My conspiracy theory is this:
>>
>> Ubuntu is under a lot of pressure (from freedom-oblivious users) to
>> release a much less free (more non-free drivers) distribution.  There
>> are some in the Ubuntu community who would like this not to happen.  For
>> them they are producing a token Free distro.
>>     
>
> All right, except it will only be token distro if no one uses it.
>   

I think that this will unfortunately be the case.  Thus resulting in a
net loss of freedom for the Ubuntu community.  Ubuntu has a fair amount
of sway in the industry at the moment.  They could have used that
influence to pressure hardware manufacturers to release free drivers,
but their priorities seem to be to make "Linux" "just work" with
non-free software instead.

This is all conjecture at this point.  I hope it doesn't turn out as I
envision it.