Comments on: OpenSUSE vs Ubuntu

By: Emmanuel

Emmanuel — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:26:06 +0000

Free Free Free. You know. The next time you go for lunch, ask the cook to give it to you for free, or the doctor to provide his service for free. Why is it that the tech world “hate” with passion companies that want to make a bit of money. Not for greed, but to be able to use to to “hire” other people who can dedicate their whole day for development for a tool you can use. When I here the word free, it makes me ….. I will fight for cheap. Yes, OS and software’s needs to be cheap like food(don’t mean the same prices but i mean affordable). We don’t complain when we go out to eat and shell out $20 on a plate but if i sold a software for $20, my inbox will be full of “make if free”. Developers work, and they also need to make a living. That’s my take.

By: Nathan DBB

Nathan DBB — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:47:13 +0000

While Canonical is not perfect, they are not trying to destroy the Linux movement by aiding the wrong side in the software patent fight. Novell is not just adding some proprietary drivers (that can be freely distributed), they are helping change the legal landscape in their favour.
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If you don’t approve of Canonical’s action, you can use Gnewsense (or such). You can’t remove Novell’s treacherous actions.
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If you don’t approve of Novell’s attempt to FUD/FUK the Linux community with Microsoft’s help, you should drop SUSE/OpenSUSE now.

By: THK

THK — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 17:34:52 +0000

This problem is best handled at time of installation. It would be so easy to add a few simple questions to the installation dialogs which would allow the user to specify their preference regarding proprietary code. I see a lot of opportunities lost in the effort to pare installation questions to a minimum largely owing to the fact that reviewers always harp on the number of installation steps. They should be asking if those installation steps are useful and transparent. I’d also like to be able to set the Ubuntu color scheme at installation.

By: pikkio

pikkio — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:10:35 +0000

Jonathan, I think you’ve hit the target.
Even though currently I have not the intention of switching to Debian or to another distro (for I still believe in the *great* community Ubuntu has got), I feel quite upset that Ubuntu developers, working on _free_software_, have to be subjected by closed platforms like Launchpad, Rosetta, Malone and so on.
They’re all great products, but I really don’t see the reason for them to be closed.
Ubuntu developers should be able to work on a completely free (as in libre) platform. Or I’ve misunderstood the Ubuntu philosophy?
I hope that will be a reality in the closest future.

By: Kris Marsh

Kris Marsh — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 14:34:04 +0000

IMHO, it wouldn’t make sense for gNewSense to create a meta package for Ubuntu and push it back upstream.

What *would* make sense, however, is for Ubuntu to have a meta package (e.g. ubuntu-libre), conflicting all of the proprietary/binary blob packages installed. The Ubuntu installer could then offer a simple choice “Do you wish to enable proprietary packages?”. Surely this would keep all parties happy?

By: Simon80

Simon80 — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 12:02:37 +0000

Agreed – whenever a company chooses to include non-free software when they could have made the effort to use or release free software instead, it just sends me a negative message about their attitude towards free software. I’ve always thought of Ubuntu as the _free_ distribution that exists for its users rather than as a beta for an enterprise “shadow” distribution like RHEL is to FC, and I’m hoping that things stay like that.

Arguments for usage/shipping of free drivers:
-better features/performance
Against:
-performance using the free drivers is usually adequate for AIGLX where direct rendering support exists
-gamers will probably be using Windows to play, or else they can grab the closed drivers after install if they really want to (I can’t wait till the free drivers are good enough for something more advanced than quake 3)
-Guess who is going to get blamed when a user fires up Ubuntu on their machine and it locks up because of an unstable closed source driver?

And let’s not forget that closed kernel code is a clear instance of copyright infringement.