-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 andrei raevsky wrote: > I wonder how the Ubuntu/Debian people view gNewSense, as a subsegment > of Ubuntu/Debian, or as a fork alien to its origin? I tried the > Ubuntu IRC and they seemed to be somewhat less than enthusiastic about > gNewSense :-( Either way - I think that gNewSense is a fanstastic > idea and I very much believe in its future.
I am also a new gNewSense user (or more precisely, about to become a new user when I get off my fat ass and make the switch). I can as well introduce myself. My name is Tryggvi and I come from Iceland. I fell in love with the ideals of free software some 5 years ago and I am actually researching free software, for my PhD degree. I have been lurking the gNewSense mailing list for quite some time as I am very excited about where the project is heading and especially how gNewSense is developed, slowly building up the courage and time to contribute :) Enough about that, and onward to andrei's question. From what I have read I believe Mark Shuttleworth is very supportive of gNewSense. As he said on his blog (www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/84): "In fact, I worked quite hard to get Gnubuntu (an ISO of Ubuntu without any restricted elements) off the ground - it has effectively now emerged as gNewSense and I would encourage you to use that if this is a touchstone issue for you." However, I don't have a clue on how the Ubuntu/Debian community sees gNewSense but I don't see why they should dislike it as long as they are aware of that gNewSense focuses on users' freedom and they on building an attractive distribution. One thing I can't make up my mind about is the proprietary drivers. As I see it closed hardware should not hinder the normal function of the operating system. IIRC, Stallman used proprietary UNIX in the beginning in order to be able to work on GNU and then switch as soon as he had a working operating system. In that my opinion is that one should be able to use proprietary software when free alternatives aren't available. This defends the approach Ubuntu is taking. However, I also believe that if corporations can get away with creating proprietary drivers/software only, they'll never release free alternatives which goes against the ideals. That, IMO, defends gNewSense's approach. What I've done recently is get friends to use Ubuntu and then start preaching about the ideals of software freedom. To my point, I believe that Ubuntu and gNewSense should coexist as friends, not enemies. So that saddens me if the Ubuntu community does not approve of gNewSense. Maybe they see it as gNewSense is taking developers and users away from Ubuntu. I think the gNewSense community must make it clear that it intends no harm to Ubuntu. I personally would have preferred to see gNewSense as Gnubuntu, supported by Canonical Ltd. and not dependent on Canonical's proprietary development tools. However, gNewSense as an independent offspring distribution, gives the community the chance to take it in any direction it wants (freedom in development). So, the above should not be read as some kind of a disapproval of the "gNewSense way". I hope I didn't go too much off topic. I just wanted to share my thoughts on the gNewSense/Ubuntu matter. /Tryggvi -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFr7ulTfUwC3N5Fj0RAsFuAKDCYXVwiElkgR+ZK8Y5+32vdDAtPgCdEIyx xHZrKw7dOlGNDY/W+6dDkd0= =Ys3b -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ gNewSense-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-users
