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I have been watching the evolution of the Ubuntu Software Center for quite a while now. I had doubts about its interface and its speed, but I liked the fact that it offered an easy, down-to-earth interface that allowed users to install software easily. However, I have to say that the way the Ubuntu Software Center has evolved is worrying me -- a lot. I am not against the idea of selling software. What I am against, is confusing proprietary software with non-proprietary software, The Ubuntu Software Center seems to be doing just that.
[ Editor's Note: The submission appears to have come directly from the author of the original article. ]
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Ubuntu Software Center is Mixing Proprietary and Free Software in a Dangerous Way
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Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gravis on Monday June 08 2015, @03:40AM
this is not about people being confused about software licenses, this is about libre software being put in direct competition with proprietary software. i'm all about libre software but sometimes libre software doesn't measure up to the capabilities or design of proprietary software. if this was really about "but i dont want any proprietary software" then you should just remove the non-free/restricted sections from you list of repositories. however, what this really is about is "but i dont want anyone to use proprietary software" which is a misstep because that does just what you are railing against, taking choices away from the user.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @03:49AM
The actually-taking-away-freedom-but-pretending-we're-granting-freedom tactic isn't new. It's what the GPL does. It takes away the ability to use and redistribute the software freely, by forcing modifications to be shared if binaries are distributed. This takes away the freedom to make and distribute closed-source modifications.
Thankfully, there are numerous other open source licenses out there, like the BSD and MIT licenses, that maximize freedom for everyone. When written out, they're typically a small fraction of the length of the GPL, and don't impose tyrannical restrictions like the GPL does. These licenses that promote real freedom tend to be short and succinct; the licenses that take away freedom tend to go on and on.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimios on Monday June 08 2015, @04:50AM
If complete freedom includes the ability to take away said freedom then yes MIT/BSD licensing is right up that alley.
The GPL is about ensuring that you give others the same freedom that you received. In the strict sense that is a restriction and it lowers the overall freedom provided. However in the long run I'd argue it provides freedom to more people than the MIT/BSD type of licensing.
Just think about it this way: true freedom is anarchy, yet not many places exist where anarchy is the form of government (or lack thereof).
(Score: 2) by TLA on Monday June 08 2015, @06:32AM
does either the GPL or the BSD licence specify that derivative code has to go out on the same terms, or do one or both of them allow you to distribute derivative code on a different licence?
Example:
I take a piece of GPL code, modify it and distribute the modified code under the BSD licence, is this allowed by the GPL?
Alternatively, can I take BSD code, modify it and distribute the modified code under GPL?
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 5, Informative) by hemocyanin on Monday June 08 2015, @07:31AM
No.
You can take a piece of MIT/BSD software, use it in your project, and GPL the combination -- for that matter, you could even decide to go closed source with the MIT/BSD stuff you cribbed, all you have to do is indicate that you used some BSD/MIT code, acknowledge who you got it from, and reference the license (you could even just close source MIT/BSD software, make no changes, and sell it, though that seems sort of pointless).
However, you can't go the other way and relicense GPL software under an MIT/BSD style license, because the MIT/BSD licenses allow you to do things with the software (e.g. make it proprietary closed source) that the GPL forbids. If you could do this with GPL software, it would provide a mechanism to defeat the entire purpose of the GPL, which is to prevent publicly released software based on other GPL software from being made secret.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday June 08 2015, @06:39PM
because the MIT/BSD licenses allow you to do things with the software (e.g. make it proprietary closed source) that the GPL forbids.
Technical point, the GPL doesn't forbid anything. Neither does the BSD or MIT licenses. They simply allow differing amounts of stuff.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 08 2015, @07:36AM
Suggestion: "anarchy is the form of governance" - shorter and sounds less awkward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @05:17AM
Using GPL
is encroaching on our rights
to encroach on yours
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday June 08 2015, @07:45AM
Correction:
Using GPL
is limiting your right to close source free software,
to protect everyone's rights.
I take issue with "encroach" because if an author wants to release software under the GPL, that is wholly his or her right to do so. The GPL doesn't encroach on that author's rights in any way -- the author embraced the terms of the license but could have chosen any other license or even made a custom license for the software. As an affirmative choice then, the GPL can in no way be an encroachment.
As for all the not-original-authors who want to copy the work, they have total freedom to ignore the GPL'ed software and use something else, or write their own from scratch, but to look a gift horse in the mouth like that is really dismissive of the original author's intentions. If you don't like those intentions you have total freedom to not use the software and thus there is no encroachment on your rights either.
Last, I understand that your rights to modify and close source some piece of software is limited by the GPL, but it's more than a little presumptuous to think you should have any rights you want over someone else's work.
(Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Monday June 08 2015, @07:31PM
Furthermore, in many jurisdictions the default copyright automatically granted upon writing the code is far more restrictive than the GPL. The GPL restores rights that are taken away by copyright. It doesn't restore *all* those rights, but it is still copyright laws that are limiting the rights, not the GPL.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 08 2015, @02:08PM
Forcing modifications to be shared under a license that allows others to reshare them doesn't restrict your freedom to redistribute the content.
While the GPL does require source code to be released, other than that it should be noted that freedom doesn't come from government. Your desire to take someone else's hard work, modify it slightly in a way that requires minimal effort, and redistribute it under a restricted license is typical of IP defenders. IP defenders are typically hypocrites, after all Hollywood was built on piracy. However what you want requires government and so is not freedom. Freedom is the absence of IP law altogether. What you want is a tyrannical government that enforces laws to your economical benefit at the expense of everyone else. What you want is not to be confused with freedom.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Monday June 08 2015, @08:08AM
It seems more that it's about being able to make an informed decision. If I use a piece of open source software that is a bit rough around the edges, then I'm suffering pain now, but with the potential benefit of being able to fix it if it matters that much to me. If I use a piece of proprietary software that's better, then that's less immediate pain, but there are more likely to be file format lock-in problems later and, if it's free then I want to know what their revenue source is (is it selling my data to third parties? Is it downloading ads that provide a potential vector for attackers?).
Sometimes I'll choose to use proprietary software, but I want to make an informed choice and I want to know at install time what the license is. On my phone, I'll use F-Droid to find things first, and then fall back to either the Amazon or Google store if I don't find anything. In F-Droid, I know exactly what the open source license is, and if it's not in F-Droid then I know that it's proprietary. For some things, like my bank's app, there's no open source alternative (and not yet a model for developing one). For other things, I want to be able to at least try the open source version first.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday June 08 2015, @07:00PM
The software *could* be in separate repositories. That's the traditional solution for Debian descendant systems. If it is, then I don't see the problem. If it isn't...that's unreasonably bad.
Separate repositories allows one to decide which categories of software one will install. Even if you have all the repositories installed, you can, at least with apt-get, synaptic, etc., decide at install time which repositories you will allow to be used AT THIS TIME.
OTOH, I haven't used Ubuntu recently. Perhaps their "Ubuntu Software Center" program doesn't allow one to make this decision...or even to know that one is making it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.