Richard Stallman: stop hurting and dividing Linux communities. Stop your harshness. Stop exaggerating and creating FUD.
To be clear: I have critiziced the Shopping Lens before (as I think it’s currently poorly implemented, but I’m not completely against the idea), but calling the operating system “spyware” was just out of place.
It was ridiculous moaning. It was immature, and it was trollish. Richard, you should not prove your points so aggressively, it just doesn’t fit with your age. But I guess you have your “freedom” [1] to do so, isn’t it? I tell you: it’s not nice having to deal with rude people.
I think of Ubuntu (and all Linuxen) to be all fun, creating and improving stuff and meeting cool people… Oh, why am I writing this? It’s just not worth to feed the unshowered.
We are not that strong yet, to be shooting our own foot.
—Guillermo Garron
[1]: That’s actually debauchery.
I must admit I do find (his) absolutism in all circles really annoying. Call it what you want:Extremism,Hate, Evangelism. It gets annoying and frankly turns people off. That is never going to encourage more users.
I agree R M Stallman is a bit over the Top! Ubuntu gives a disable option whidh ic mote than any other OS gives. Ubuntu is fighting against more money than you can fill an ovean with. Apple being the Richest Company on the Planet and has far more to complaign about than this minute opinion based fuss. I feel sure RMS supports more of a Geeky OS that most of us cannot and will Not operate. I back Ubuntu Totally and believe it will always give a way to disable a controversal option. It is the best OS I have ever used and has kept me safe for almost 4 years now something Microsoft and Apple CANNOT Do!
What does his age, showering, and whatever have to do with anything he said about Ubuntu? Ad hominem attacks are no better than rudeness.
The shopping lens is an advertized feature of Ubuntu. So how is that “sneaky?” And how is it “greedy” if Canonical makes a deal with Amazon, Google, or Dell to help fund the innovations and development of an awesome operating system which they then give away for free? I wonder why anti-capitalism is so rampant in the Linux/FOSS communities.
I started using Ubuntu shortly after it first came out, and switched almost entirey from Debian a couple of years later. i love a lot of things about it. But this post & Jono’s are pretty disappointing. RMS lays out a pretty convincing set of arguments when he describes the shopping lens as spyware. In fact, Canonical now by default inspects your search queries and insecurely relays them to one of the world’s largest corporations. Calling this spyware may not be very friendly, but it’s also entirely accurate! Here, as in Jono’s post, I don’t see any substantive responses to RMS’s concrete suggestions. Why not?
I don’t think this is fair at all. RMS may not always be the most tactful, but he has legitimate concerns. Put simply: RMS has reasons to dislike Amazon because of issues in how they treat workers, how they support DRM and such. So he’s anti-Amazon, not anti-capitalist, at least in this context. Now, what Ubuntu should have done was opt-in not opt-out. It’s that simple. RMS would have idealistic reasons to object still, but he wouldn’t have been so aggressive. Imposing this opt-out system is an agressive (if arguably understandable) action, so they shouldn’t be surprised at defensive reactions.