Gobuntu and Firefox
You may remember, a while ago, Mark Shuttleworth announced that there would be a 100% free version of Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon :
Ubuntu 7.10 will feature a new flavour - as yet unnamed - which takes an ultra-orthodox view of licensing: no firmware, drivers, imagery, sounds, applications, or other content which do not include full source materials and come with full rights of modification, remixing and redistribution.
Later, we learned it would be named Gobuntu.
Well, they didn't quite follow their promise. Yes, Gobuntu includes Firefox, making it a pretty useless failed attempt.
By the way, I'm still amazed so many people believe it was all about the trademarks. For them, I'll quote something I wrote a year ago:
Trademark and copyright are different things. Mozilla® has unnecessarily given a non-free license to “clarify†the trademark situation, but that is not required. To make it clear: Debian thinks the logos are not free because they are not free. Period.
I'm glad at least Mark Pilgrim got it right.
Update: And as seen on Planet Mozilla, Robert Sayre obviously still hasn't understood the issue.
2007-10-19 07:43:57+0900
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2007-10-19 12:20:21+0900
Big deal. They are going to replace Firefox with Epiphany in Gobuntu 8.04.
Having a 100% ultra-hiper-duper-free version of Ubuntu is a long term goal, Gobuntu 7.10 is a first step to achieve it.
2007-10-19 22:42:42+0900
Another uninformed opinion, sadly. This was known before release, but it was decided that it was too late in the release process to change to iceweasel (and not to epiphany as the previous comment incorrectly states). This will be done for the next release though.
There’s always some bugs that have to be punted to the next release, and this has nothing to do with unwill on the part of Ubuntu.
2007-10-20 00:05:54+0900
Chipzz: that’s very interesting if true. Do you have a bug report or feature spec to substantiate that claim? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/121734 doesn’t mention anything about it, and it was touched less than two weeks ago.
2007-10-20 00:13:21+0900
I really sympathize with Rob Sayre… it makes me quite sad when I see posts like the “Gobuntu has already failed” by Mark Pilgrim.
It’s so negative. Instead of encouraging the initiative and helping it reaching its goal.
Do you really think Mark got it right? It looks so wrong to me…
2007-10-20 02:48:10+0900
@j: I filed a bug in February ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/83118 ) and was publicly supportive of Gobuntu when it was announced in April ( http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/04/12/super-strict ). And Canonical went to some trouble to clean up part of the Firefox package ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/121734 ), yet they can’t bring themselves to finish the job. And as you can see, there are still people who deny that it is a problem at all. I have been about as supportive and patient as I can be. Did you expect me to say “Rah rah, thanks for making good on part of your promise?” Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
2007-10-22 19:41:57+0900
I understand it. I don’t think you’re stupid or clueless. We just don’t agree. See the difference?
On the other hand, I think is safe to ignore all the fist pounding and shouting about how simple this problem is. I mean, Debian is still working on it too. See
http://blog.mozilla.com/rob-sayre/2007/10/21/arguing-with-customers/
for more thoughts on this. Warning: you might not agree with everything you read. :)
2007-10-23 20:36:26+0900
I don’t buy this argument.
I could just as well be outraged at debian for including files known to be non-free. Like firefox, the GFDL documentation, etc. before they get removed. GFDL documentations are a good example: the DDs even voted to keep them for one release. So why are you so mad at the Gobuntu deciding to keep firefox for one release? That’s not fair.
2007-10-25 19:52:30+0900
j: the difference is that debian doesn’t release with *known* RC bugs. And it’s not like Ubuntu didn’t know for Firefox.