On Fri, 26 Oct 2012, Alan Truesdale wrote: ...
It is not the choice people are making that disturbs me it is your right to use any OS you want. It is the venom and hyperbole surrounding this issue I find frustrating.
Not much venom or hyperbole. Legitimate distaste for ads on a linux OS is not hyperbole. Not wanting your personal (and yes search info is personal) data sent to the OS distributor is legitimate and relevant. Not wanting amazon on your OS is relevant.
How is it okay for Canonical to profit off of distributing a Linux OS? What about the countless volunteers who contribute to Ubuntu who aren't part of Canonical and who don't get paid? The original profit model of Canonical was to provide support for those who needed it or wanted it. I find it disgraceful that amazon is on your linux distro. Where do we draw the line? When I run find on my home folder the first listing will be an ebay item related to my search term? I think the 'venom' you refer to is legitimate disgust at the fact that Canonical is bundling a Linux release and sticking advertising on it.
Actually, it makes me wonder what kind of legal implications there are with Canonical profiting off of the distribution of GPL'd code. Can their deferred revenue stream be implied as a sale in a legal context? At what point will their revenue constitute profit and violate the terms of the GPL?
The anger / distaste that people have over this is because the whole point of the GPL, the reason people give their code away under the GPL, is to prevent other people from packaging it and selling it. Throwing ads on top of linux and profiting from it that way seems like pretty much the same thing. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth and I imagine that this will not be good for the company's image.
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