Stallman: Ubuntu spyware makes it JUST AS BAD as Windows
Free Software Foundation founder and noted weird-beard Richard Stallman has called upon Linux advocates to reject the Ubuntu distribution, claiming the latest version contains dangerous "surveillance code." In a lengthy post to his FSF blog, the GNU Project creator slams Canonical, the company in charge of Ubuntu, for including …
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Re: Canoncial is a business.
There is enough money in Linux support for Oracle to take an interest. Canonical wanted to to emulate Red Hat and turn a massive user community into a viable commercial Linux support business, The fact that they were unable to says a lot about them.
Re: wtf were Ubuntu thinking pulling this stunt?
Only met the guy once or twice, but I have a lot of respect for Mark Shuttleworth. Despite a few major missteps, he's done more for F/OSS than I (or most of us) ever will. And the technical people I've spoken to at Canonical have always seemed on top of their game.
My occasional dealings with their marketing people have, however, often left me scratching my head. I get the impression they don't really know what they're doing, or how to engage with their target market.
This feels like another example of that. Might've been an OK idea if they'd been upfront about it and made it opt-in. But they misjudged their audience and went about it all wrong.
Re: I like Stallman
This tread is a bit old now but the thing that worries me especially with Americans is this left/right thing.
The far left and the far right are exactly the same thing, ideas and people. What was the Nazi called, National socialism. Does that sound more like right or left.
Europeans have a better understanding of basically worthless words like right or left. How can you deal with reality if all you think there is, is either left or right.
To the left - to the right..l.
I totally disagree with the left/right paradigm. I have arguments with my step-dad who is an old labour man.
We talk about Marx, Fascism. The Trots....
So I don't think it is just an American/European thing.
I don't view the world as left or right.
But maybe right/wrong would be too simplistic.
Well, I'm going to go against the grain and say this is a bit of a storm in a teacup. I understand there's a point of principle, but this is hardly malware.
It sends your information to another party without bothering to get your consent or even inform you of what it's doing. That fits the textbook definition of spyware pretty well I think.
Storm in a teacup? If it were proprietary software maybe, but Stallman is right about one thing. OSS users tend to not put up with this sort of nonsense. Personally I've never liked Ubuntu (it pales in comparison to Debian in my opinion), but if I did this would be my cue to find a different distro.
re: It sends your information to another party
It sends anonymized data to a third party, only Canonical knows where the query came from and where to send the results. If you don't like that you can disable it. Did people make the same sort of fuss when Mozilla agreed to push Google search?
it's boot lickers like you who let the top penguins at ubuntu get so delusional as to think this is acceptable! If you really cared about ubuntu, you would be pissed. I guess you shrug it off when your 5 year old is playing around the stove when you'r cooking, too? or do you get extra upset because you care if that bubbling grease gets dumped over on his/her head? also, there exists a totalitarian stench in some corners of the ubuntu temple that needs to be aired out.
boot lickers
delusional
[weird statement involving children]
totalitarian stench
the ubuntu temple
You either got the dosage wrong of have forgotten to take your medicine altogether.
Re: re: It sends your information to another party
"It sends anonymized data to a third party, only Canonical knows where the query came from and where to send the results. "
Canonical servers based in UK and under UK law? So the searches and the key that links the ip of the search client with the terms sent to Amazon have to be recorded for a certain period (ISPs dp, not sure about servers providing a service like this)? Future 'polite request' for 'information useful to us' from a UK government agency? Do I need a foil hat?
Real can of worms this once you start...
Not in any non-U buntu
AFAIK this crud is only in the Ubuntu unity interface, not in the other 'buntus. I moved to Xubuntu when unity appeared because it is as ugly and unpleasant as TIFKAM.
Having said which, Stallman is quite right in this case and Shuttleworth should be ashamed of what he has done to what was a well respected distro.
Re: Not in any non-U buntu
Absolutely. _U_buntu is kinda dead for me. I've moved on to Xubuntu and might Kubuntu again.
Re: Not in any non-U buntu
And how long before in order to remain an official 'buntu you have to include something similar to this? If I were a Kubuntu or Xubuntu maintainer I'd be proposing the project break all links with Ubuntu and Canonical.
Re: Not in any non-U buntu
I don't understand this phobia from Debian, it has to have "buntu" in it?
As a person who hates any kind of needless tech junk, I installed Debian to powerbook g4. It was almost easy as OS X install. Also it was the feared "stable".
Every distribution which is derived from Ubuntu adds to their argument.
Re: Alternate headline
You're right on this and it's a sad situation.
Re: Alternate headline
Go to Ballmer with exact same idea and he will call security to escort you out of campus.
Yes even that guy.
Been using Fuduntu
... which, despite the name, is actually a Fedora fork. It's got, IMHO, the best UI of any desktop distro.
Check it out at http://www.fuduntu.org
Re: Been using Fuduntu
The UI doesn't look much different to Xubuntu. I also think I'd rather suffer Unity than use RPM to be honest.
Re: Been using Fuduntu
I checked out the page. The pic of the desktop reminds me too much of a Mac. Sorry, not a Mac fan so tend to stay away from distros that have show that as the default desktop.
I am a recent Windows convert who switched after finding out about Windows 8 and TIFKAM. The first distro I looked at was Ubuntu as it kept getting so much press on El Reg and other places on how easy it was to install and use. Though I must have been reading articles before that gawd-awful Gnome 3 Menu / Unity mess. I settled on Mint Cinnamon. It us a buntu derivitive without the unity mess.
Even though I settled on Mint does not mean I have not looked at other distros. I have checked out a number, including Opensuse and Mageia. I think I could like Magae 3 if it didn't have that stupid Activities bar which reminds me too much of Unity and Windows 8 Desktop. (Yes, I did seriously check out Windows 8 as well).
As a newish convert to Linux, I actually do not know too much about Richard Stallman, except what I have read in these comments. Reading the article however, I do agree with him about Ubuntu installing spyware.
Btw..
I use an Ubuntu derivative called Mint. Though it is also based on Debian.
I use Debian more and more these days, as my Linux skills come up to snuff.
Debian forums can be pretty brutal, but Mint forums are often indifferent.
I got switchable desktops - lxde/xfce of Debian. It's a fast, efficient distro (Squeeze here).
The default search providers can annoy in certain versions of Mint (Katya for one), but they can be changed quickly.
But I would never install a pure Ubuntu. And that would be more along my dumb skill set. Instead, I go for broke and install Debian. God help me when I run into trouble...
Sorry for the ramble. Maybe someone would find it interesting what a dumb punter is using.
Debian expert installs to hard drive here. Oh Shuttleworth, where did it all go right?
Re: Btw..
Debian people have always come across as almost as big a douches as the BSD crowd. Still both have given us wonderful code so its the price you pay I guess.
According to wikipedia...
... stallman thinks that the belief that "voluntarily pedophilia harms children" is wrong...
could be he has other reasons for avoiding having search results sent to canonical.
Re: According to wikipedia...
was that before or after you edited it? Your title alone pretty much makes reading your post pointless.
@asdf: Re: According to wikipedia...
re: Stallman's attitude towards pedophilia:
"According to wikipedia...was that before or after you edited it? Your title alone pretty much makes reading your post pointless."
You can find that opinion on Stallman's OWN blog. (And it's been referenced on these forums before.) The reference on the Wikipedia page is not in the main article (geez, i feel dirty even have looked at it!) but is referenced on the discussion page, in notes dated 2009 with a link to the original remarks on Stallman's own site (and I feel even dirtier for having looked at that.)
The "pointlessness" to which you referred is, once again, yours. Unless, of course, it was your intention to exhibit your ability to instantly deny unpalatable facts - even when those facts are very easily verifiable.
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
Just because RMS is wrong about one thing, does not make him wrong about another thing (I forget the name of that fallacy). Heck, Dawkins has some rather IMHO strange opinions on this subject. Does that now mean evolution is wrong, or that Dawkins is wrong about it?
RMS is a strange fish (I feel I can say that, I've met the man and spent time with him), if he were British we'd call him eccentric. He is often right on matters technical, although he does sometimes have an odd way of expressing it.
Re: @The BigYin: "RMS is a strange fish"
How does the saying go? Reasonable people adapt to the world around them, unreasonable people try to fix the world. Therefore all progress is made by unreasonable people. (Or something like that.)
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
Someone who thinks raping children is ok, is not someone I want to listen too. If hitler were still alive would you listen to what he had to say just becuase although he was wrong about the jews, doesn't mean he was wrong about anything else.
Ask the victims of pedos if they think pedos supporters should be listend to... I'm amazed at how no one cares about what he is reported to have said. Maybe it's because most nerds will never have the chance to have children and so don't care.
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
@AC Appeal to emotion, appeal to fear, Reductio ad Hitlerum. Come back when you can actually construct a valid argument.
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
Makes you wonder what other freedoms he would like.
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
ditto for you.
So you support his views on pedophillia? Assuming you ever had the chance to have children, I assume you would be quite happy for some adult to rape them, as long as they convince your child before hand that they wanted to do it?
If not, you have no right defending him.
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
"ditto for you"
I haven't presented an argument, merely pointed out that the one you provided was fallacious.
"So you support his views on pedophillia?"
Appeal to emotion. Ignored.
"I assume you would be quite happy for some adult to rape them"
Appeal to fear. Ignored.
"If not, you have no right defending him."
You have constructed a position for me which you have then attempted to tear down. Straw man. Ignored.
I have not discussed my personal views on such acts on children, nor my views on Stallman's purported opinion of such acts. l have restrained myself to pointing out that you have not yet presented a valid argument with regards the current topic; Canoncial's Shopping Lens and Stallman's assessment of that. Oh, and pointing out your fallacies.
So either present a valid argument or, as the saying goes, haud yer wheest.
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
My arguments are perfectly valid... if you think they are not you have no idea what an argument is. You haven't restrained yourself, you have come out with stock dumb answers, that with your limited intelligence, you believe make you sound educated. And all though you appear to dumb to realise it, you have discussed your views and opinions.
So either preset a valid argument that is logic and not childish, oder halt deine klappe.
Re: According to wikipedia...
Maybe if you looked up 'ad hominem', you might manage to grasp the difference between reasoned argument and character slur...
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
Hmmm, bookmarked that one for later use Mr Yin. See quite a few of those fallacies from yourself. How does the saying go? 'Do as I say, not as I do.'?
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
'I haven't presented an argument, merely pointed out that the one you provided was fallacious.'
Which obviously in itself is a good old fashioned ad hominem. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
"'I haven't presented an argument, merely pointed out that the one you provided was fallacious.'
Which obviously in itself is a good old fashioned ad hominem. Don't hate the player, hate the game."
Except for the small matter that it isn't. Pointing out that your argument is fallacious makes no comment about you as a person, belittles you or otherwise insults you; nor did I seek to put words into your mouth (as you did with me).
As for me being hypocritical, I make no claims to being perfect and at least I have the good grace to post under a handle where you can see my past history. I wouldn't go too far back though, the opinions I expressed in the past may not be the ones I hold now. See that's the thing about debate - when one's argument is shown to be weak/false it needs to be reconsidered.
In order to assist you in this matter, I shall make two simple statements:
1) Stallman raises some valid points about the Ubuntu Shopping Lens. I am not certain I agree 100% with his conclusions as he is a exponent of the slippery slope. However when it comes to matters technical, he does have an annoying habit of being rather prescient. He does at least raise many points for debate and I thought Bacon's response failed to address many of them;
2) On the other matter; I can find no reference to your claim on his Wikipedia page, I did manage to find it on his blog from 2006. On that I think he is wrong, assuming he still holds that opinion of course. You could always ask him and see what he says.
As you can see, I have also cited my sources. If you are going to make claims in the future, I suggest you do likewise.
Re: According to wikipedia...
"Ad hominem". To the man and comes in multiple forms. I assure you I can recognise a reasoned argument, I am still awaiting one from yourself. Your abusive ad hominem wasn't really a good start, nor was the straw man you then attempted and which, in my opinion, also strayed into an abusive ad hominem.
Note: I assume you are all the same AC. This may be wrong. But as you are posting AC I have no way of determining if this is one person or many.
Re: @asdf: According to wikipedia...
"My arguments are perfectly valid"
What argument? All I see are some red herring statements on a totally separate topic.
"you have come out with stock dumb answers"
I think you'll find that all I have done is point out the irrelevance of your own statements.
"that with your limited intelligence"
"And all though you appear [too] dumb to realise it"
Ad hominems. This is what I mean about not being able to construct an argument.
"you have discussed your views and opinions."
I may have stated my opinions elsewhere within this forum, but I don't think I have discussed them with yourself; and I just checked, I haven't (until my recent statements, of course).
"So either preset a valid argument that is logic"
I have. I have logically and clearly deconstructed your statements and shown why they do not form a valid argument. I have managed to do this with resorting to personal slurs; something which I note you have failed to manage. A shame you feel the need to resort to such base tactics, if you would present and actual argument they would not be required.
..could be he has more the courage of his convictions
..than an anonymous coward.
Right or Wrong.
Re: ..could be he has more the courage of his convictions
And what exactly are his convictions? Is he on the sex offenders register?
Re: ..could be he has more the courage of his convictions
So Bradley Hardleigh-Hadderchance is your real name is it? Hypocrite.
Re: ..could be he has more the courage of his convictions
It's not necessarily about real names; it's about the ability uniquely to identify a person within a context.
As long as only one user of The Register forum is calling themself "Bradley Hardleigh-Hadderchance", then it's a unique identifier in a way which "Anonymous Coward" certainly isn't.
In its defence Canonical says
they're using money from Amazon to develop software.
Weasel words for Canonical selling their users in bulk to Amazon.
As an impartial observer
It has been interesting to see the amount of bickering and disunity exhibited here.
Re: As an impartial observer
Thats because the Linux crowd is fragmented all to hell.
Which sucks because disunity hurts the movement, as does behavior by developers such as Canonical with this "Selling Users to Amazon" garbage and the abortion of a UI that is Unity. Why in the fuck you would continue to use Ubuntu is beyond me at that point.
You also have so many different layers of bureaucracy involved with any distro, which sometimes turns users against each other for whatever stupid reason. And supporters of one distro tend to hate on other distros. I don't, but others do. Its petty, its juvenile, and its a major social obstacle for development of Linux on the mainstream consumer level. Every time I say this I get the shit downvoted out of me because noone wants to hear it, but damn, I can't be the only person who sees this.
Fragmentation?
Well the point is, no matter if you have Ubuntu or SuSE or whatever, you'll always have the same software. They are compatible except for some minor GUI stuff.
The differences between different Distributions are about as large as the difference between different OEM installs. Some OEMs/Distributions bundle crapware, while others have exotic management interfaces.
Re: As an impartial observer
"It has been interesting to see the amount of bickering and disunity exhibited here."
I think that might be your confirmation bias. I certainly never trust anyone who declares themselves impartial. My impression, reading this forum, that there is broad consensus that RMS is a bit nutty, but often says true stuff, and that Canonical did a bad thing with their Amazon integration. That may of course be my confirmation bias.
If only there were some way of telling which of us were nearer the truth ...
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