[uylug-varios] On Richard Stallman and Ubuntu

Sebastian Gurin sgurin at montevideo.com.uy
Tue Dec 11 07:34:41 PST 2012


Le doy toda la razón a Stallman. Aunque se pueda desactivar, si eso viene por defecto, entonces 
1) hay plata de por medio 
2) se le pregunta al usuario ? (Hasta Windows nos pregunta, a veces, cuando quiere hacer ese tipo de cosas). 
3) con las nuevas legislaciones en EEUU no hay privacidad en ese país 
4) la postura de stallman, que a veces roza la paranoia, esta vez está totalmente justificada

On Sun, 09 Dec 2012 13:23:24 -0200
Federico Kouyoumdjian <fedekp at autistici.org> wrote:

> Otro punto de vista:
> 
> http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/12/07/on-richard-stallman-and-ubuntu/
> 
> On Richard Stallman and Ubuntu
> 
> by jono on December 7, 2012 in Community, Desktop, Planet Ubuntu, Ubuntu
> 
> This is a personal post and does not neccessarily represent the views of 
> Canonical or the Ubuntu community.
> 
> Today Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU project and Free Software 
> Foundation wrote a critical post accusing Ubuntu of shipping spyware 
> (which is referring to the online search capabilities of the Ubuntu dash).
> 
> He goes on to suggest “in your Software Freedom Day events, in your 
> FLISOL events, don’t install or recommend Ubuntu. Instead, tell people 
> that Ubuntu is shunned for spying.“.
> 
> This is FUD.
> 
> When controvosies such as this kick off from time to time about 
> Canonical and/or Ubuntu, my approach has never been to try and convince 
> our critics that they are wrong. My goal is not to turn the unbelievers 
> into worshippers at the church of Ubuntu. My only goal has been to 
> ensure that everyone who participates in the debate trades in facts and 
> not in misinformation and FUD; there is enough misinformation and FUD on 
> the Internet without us all adding to it. :-)
> 
> If someone has an accurate set of facts and accurately respresents the 
> topic but is critical about the position…no problem. We can then engage 
> in respectful, accurate debate that will likely enrich all perspectives 
> and ultimately result in better software.
> 
> The goal of the dash in Ubuntu has always been to provide a central 
> place in which you can search and find things that are interesting and 
> relavent to you; it is designed to be at the center of your computing 
> experience. Now, this is a big goal, and we are only part-way along the 
> way to achieving it.
> 
> Today it is not perfect – we need to improve the accuracy of the 
> results, present the data more effectively, and continue to expand the 
> coverage and capabilities of the data in dash searches. With each new 
> release of Ubuntu we get awesome feedback from our community and users 
> and we strive to refine and iterate on all of these areas so that 
> subsequent releases offer a more and more compelling experience, freely 
> available and sharable for all.
> 
> Naturally, privacy is critically important to us in doing this work. In 
> the eight year history of Ubuntu and Canonical we have always put 
> privacy forward as a high priority across the many, many different 
> websites, services, and software that forms the Ubuntu platform and 
> community.
> 
> The challenge of course is that privacy is a deeply personal thing and 
> the way in which you define your privacy expectations will likely 
> radically differ from each of your friends, and vice-versa.
> 
> With this in mind, just because someone may have differing views to mine 
> on the implementation of privacy in software doesn’t mean they are 
> wrong. Likewise, just because my views may differ to theirs doesn’t mean 
> I am wrong. We are all different and we all manage our information and 
> our expectations around information sharing in different ways.
> 
> Just look at Facebook; the privacy debates there have been raging on for 
> years and have encompassed many different views and perspectives ranging 
> from “I want to control every detail of my privacy in Facebook” to “I 
> don’t care, if it is on the Internet, I don’t care who sees it”, and 
> everything in-between.
> 
> We want Ubuntu to be a safe, predictable, and pleasurable platform for 
> everyone, irrespective of their personal views on privacy, but we also 
> respect that there will be some folks who don’t feel we are doing enough 
> to represent their particular personal privacy needs.
> 
> When we implemented the Amazon search results feature we didn’t get it 
> 100% right with the first cut in the development release of Ubuntu, but 
> that is how we build Ubuntu; we add software to our development branch 
> and iterate on it in response to feedback and bugs. We did exactly this 
> with these functional and privacy concerns…responding and implementing 
> many of the requirements our community felt were important. We will 
> continue to make these improvements in the future in much the same way.
> 
> Now, some of you may share Richard’s concerns over some aspects of this 
> feature, and as I mentioned earlier, I am not here to convince you 
> otherwise. Richard has every right to share his views on privacy, and 
> who am I to tell him or you that he is/you are wrong?
> 
> What concerns me more is the FUD in his post. Statements such as:
> 
>      In your Software Freedom Day events, in your FLISOL events, don’t 
> install or recommend Ubuntu. Instead, tell people that Ubuntu is shunned 
> for spying.
> 
> …and
> 
>      Any excuse Canonical offers is inadequate; even if it used all the 
> money it gets from Amazon to develop free software, that can hardly 
> overcome what free software will lose if it ceases to offer an effective 
> way to avoid abuse of the users.
> 
> These statements simply generate fear, uncertainty, and doubt about 
> Ubuntu; a project that has a long history of bringing Free Software to 
> millions of users around the world with an open community and governance.
> 
> But then again, this is not particularly surprising from Richard.
> 
> I have tremendous respect for Richard and his fantastic work in laying 
> the foundations for the Free Software and Open Source world that we have 
> today, but I think he is short-sighted at times. His views on software 
> projects are pretty binary: either a strict set of ethics (defined by 
> him) are observed, or it should be shunned.
> 
> The challenge here is that freedom is also a deeply personal thing.
> 
> I believe that freedom is far more than simply freedom of source code or 
> a specific policy around privacy. When I got involved in the Free 
> Software community 14 years ago my passion from then onwards was not 
> driven by creating awesome Free Software code, it was more about 
> creating awesome Free Software experiences that open up technology, 
> education, creativity and collaboration to everyone. Free Software code 
> is simply one mechanic in how we deliver these experiences; it is not 
> the be all and end all of what we do.
> 
> A completely free set of source code that implements a system that is 
> difficult to use, lacks the features that users want, is not competitive 
> with proprietary competitors, and/or does not offer a desirable and 
> delightful experience is not going to bring Free Software to the wider 
> world. It may bring Free Software to a passionate collection of 
> enthusiasts (as we saw back in the early days of Linux), but in my mind 
> true freedom is software that is not just available to all but usable by 
> all, even those who are not enthusiasts.
> 
> Just look at the success of Apple. General consumers have voted with 
> their feet, and people want beautiful, desirable products that let them 
> do useful and fun things with their friends, families and colleagues. 
> There is absolutely no reason why we can’t achieve this with Free Software.
> 
> In Ubuntu we want to build a platform that is even more beautiful, 
> elegant and delightful than Apple, but is infused with the Free Software 
> values that empower that technology, education, creativity and 
> collaboration in everyone.
> 
> But unfortunately, as far as Richard is concerned, if Ubuntu doesn’t 
> meet his specific requirements around privacy or Free Software, 
> irrespective that it has brought Free Software to millions of users and 
> thousands of organizations, and despite the fact that you might not 
> share his viewpoint, you should shun it.
> 
> This just seems a bit childish to me.
> 
> Let’s turn the tables around. Do I agree with everything the Free 
> Software Foundation does? Not at all, but I do think their general body 
> of work is fantastic, worthwhile, and provides an important and valuable 
> service, and I would never want to suggest you should boycott them if 
> you disagree with one part of what they do. Quite the opposite, I would 
> encourage you to see their website, donate, and consider joining them as 
> they provide a valuable piece of the wider Free Software ecosystem, in 
> much the same way Ubuntu provides another piece. Let’s work together, 
> not against each other.
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-- 
Sebastian Gurin <sgurin at montevideo.com.uy>



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