* Posts by Smac

2 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Nov 2009

Stallman: Android evil, Apple and Microsoft worse

Smac

error

"Stallman has written in The Guardian that Android cannot be considered free because parts of the software are licensed under the ASF licence."

This is erroneous, at best; and dishonest, at worst. No where in the referenced article does Stallman say as such.

From the article Stallman wrote, referenced by this one:

"Google has complied with the requirements of the GNU General Public License for Linux, but the Apache license on the rest of Android does not require source release. Google has said it will never publish the source code of Android 3.0 (aside from Linux), even though executables have been released to the public. Android 3.1 source code is also being withheld. Thus, Android 3, apart from Linux, is non-free software, pure and simple."

The Android software is not free because the source code is being withheld. The use of the Apache licence does not, in itself, constitute non-free software. Indeed, the Apache licence is a Free Software Foundation approved licence.

I suggested the author recheck their facts; I have to wonder why there was no response.

Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Smac
Alert

This should be expected behaviour

Ubuntu has always been: Debian + cutting edge software + tweaked UI. "Everyone Knows" that Ubuntu is not where you go for for a stable, problem-free OS.

I've been upgrading Ubuntu on one of my pc's faithfully since 4.10 and with each release there seems to be more problems. This release has been the worst for me. After upgrading, if I didn't know my way around the boot process, xorg.conf, initramfs or whatever it's called, etc. this computer would have needed a complete OS overhaul. This nasty little bug included just for kicks, too, which brought my system to a grinding halt.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/rsyslog/+bug/453444

Yeah, so maybe it'd be nice if Ubuntu had good, well-tested polished releases, but maybe people should just use other distros if they don't want problems.