Ubuntu's bug #1

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

by lucb1e • 13 years ago

92 46 13 years ago

bugs.launchpad.net

Camillo• 13 years ago

Is that why Ubuntu is pivoting into a tablet OS? So they can finally close that bug? ;)

daliusd• 13 years ago

Well they are moving to everything. Their idea that eventually you will be able to use your phone as your work computer. Go to the office, put your phone to docking station (that has monitor and keyboard) and work.

See first image here: http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android or here http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android/features-and-specs

I can see how that might help close this bug.

StavrosK• 13 years ago

That wouldn't be too bad, actually... All my desktop has over my phone that matters for (web) development is a faster drive (SSD), other than that I just need a dev VM somewhere.

jebblue• 13 years ago

I just spent decent bucks on my first new PC dev and gaming in years. Phones are nice and helpful too but nothing beats a PC (Ubuntu PC not Windows PC) for real work or real gaming fun. Windows 8 and UEFI threw me for a loop but deleting all the Windows partitions and turning all the UEFI stuff in the BIOS off finally worked. :)

pablasso• 13 years ago

"A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software."

Looks like this ticket will remain opened for quite a long time.

derefr• 13 years ago

I don't know--a personal computer, these days--a computer designed to only be used by one person, to only have one account and to be completely personalized to their use--is not a desktop, notebook, or tablet; it's a phone. And the majority of phones run Android. I think we're already there.

saurik• 13 years ago

Android itself is "open", not "free"; the result is that the users of Android--hardware manufacturers, not the end customer--have the right to restrict the rights of others to modify that software and benefit from its openness, a right which many vendors take advantage of: Android is thereby not an example of "free software" (with the exception of the Linux kernel it bundles, which sadly doesn't provide users much benefit in this specific context as, in addition to supporting opaque binary blobs in drivers, it continues to use GPL2, which failed to protect against the threat of hardware manufactures designing locked bootloaders).

hexis• 13 years ago

Although, you should notice that the bug specifies "only free software".

hackmiester• 13 years ago

It's pretty hard to find an Android phone running only free software.

tobylane• 13 years ago

Nvidia et al alone will probably keep that impossible in the mainstream markets, until we get (out of my area, may be misusing words) 1080p decoding on a comfortably multitasking CPU or SOC.

recoiledsnake• 13 years ago

I fail to see how a world with iPads and Chromebooks replacing the traditional PC is any better. Instead of the unhealthy fixation on Microsoft, concentrating on user and developer freedoms regardless of vendor is better.

mattgreenrocks2• 13 years ago

Nothing unites like a common enemy. This anti-Microsoft schtick is FOSS' "think of the children."

neumann_alfred2• 13 years ago

I know attention spans and principles tend to morph into some crazy shit in the perception of those who are not as blessed with them, but this one I haven't heard before.

runn1ng• 13 years ago

The year was 2004. Windows Vista and iPhone were 3 years away, iPod mini was 1 year away.

Also, Chromebook is not that bad, is it? Chrome OS is almost fully free (I am not sure about the details and the difference between Chromium OS and Chrome OS though). Much better than Windows XP back then.

wmf• 13 years ago

Your data is less free under Chrome OS than under Windows XP.

nfm• 13 years ago

It's been 9 years since the bug was reported - how much have the stats changed since then?

sourcefrog• 13 years ago

There are 1780 comments on the bug.

And as http://pad.lv/1000000 observes, "For every bug on Launchpad, 67 iPads are sold."

curiousdannii• 13 years ago

Apple have always managed to get good contracts with schools -- almost all the computers in my primary school were Apples.

It doesn't feel right that tax payer money should go to a company which charges $110AUD for 16GB of disk space.

shmerl2• 13 years ago

Shouldn't this bug have a dependency on bug #0 - existence of Windows tax?

zwieback• 13 years ago

seems almost quaint now

ooorrr• 13 years ago

Bug #1 in the Xbox database: Playstation is not dead yet.

shmerl2• 13 years ago

Nah, their first bug is - gaming on PC is still alive and kicking.

ljd• 13 years ago

I think I have a tough time as both a software developer and a consumer getting behind "the world should be built on free software."

I will gladly pay for the best fit for me, it's how resources are transacted in an economy. You pay for the things that are valuable to you, and you should pay at the rate at which they are valuable.

Why should software be singled out as free? I agree that I benefit from open source and I try to contribute when I can but it still stands that I don't mind paying for a lot of software that is classified as open source.

Every time I read about open source software, I always feel like I'm missing some piece of the puzzle.

takluyver• 13 years ago

Software is subject to very strong network effects, which can lead to monopolies. i.e. applications are made for Windows, so consumers need Windows computers, so developers need to make apps for Windows. Similarly with IE6, Microsoft Office, and increasingly so with Android. Once it's established, the platform owner can rake in money simply by charging users & developers to meet on a common ground.

I don't think all software needs to be open source, but I'd like the basics - operating systems, web browsers, word processors, etc. - to be open source. It's much easier to explore different ideas if you can use existing code and keep compatibility with millions of apps/web pages/documents.

yk2• 13 years ago

To paraphrase: It is free as in freedom not as in beer.

The point is, that if you buy a car, then you are allowed to drive it anywhere and anyhow you want. ( Within legal limits, but the thought that Mercedes would preclude you from driving north of 38° N is simply ridiculous.) You may even paint it in a new color or install a new engine. By contrast if you license software it is not clear what you are allowed to do with it. Are you allowed to use it in a nuclear power plant? ( Java is excluding itself from such an environment.) Or are you allowed to modify the software, after commercial support did run out. So free software is first of all software which is licensed to you in a closer analogy to the rights you get by buying a car.

With this in mind, there is a interesting side effect of free software, namely that you are allowed to sell it just as you are allowed to sell your car. But unlike cars you also have the means of production for software, which means that all it takes for free software to be free as in beer is one guy who is willing to give copies of his copy away for free. ( This is of course exactly the same as with commercial software, the difference is, that free software realizes that abundance is a feature.)

So if you are willing to pay for software and you find that free software suits your needs, perhaps after trying the software, then you should consider a donation for the developers of that software or for the FSF.

quasque• 13 years ago

I don't think the car analogy works well in this case, as both the acts of manufacturing and driving the vehicle have numerous laws and regulations - making it more akin to a software license agreement than not.

YokoZar• 13 years ago

It helps if you recognize software as a public good in the economic sense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good -- a healthy software ecosystem is much like having good street lights and roads.

Expansive use of nonfree software is like having tollbooths and occasional dark alleys: it works just fine for some, but there's some loss to society when the economics prevent it from being inclusive.

QuantumGuy2• 13 years ago

No Ubuntu's #1 bug right now is it is incredibly buggy. I kidd you not every five minutes I get a system error. I am running a machine from last year and everything. It has become a horrible OS and it sold out.

hawkw2• 13 years ago

Bug number one being the amount of bugs seems somewhat...recursive. Also, "I only used it when it was still indie"?

QuantumGuy2• 13 years ago

It is recursive but currently that is my #1 problem with it. I know I am not alone in that either. Back then yeah Ubuntu was awesome but if this keeps up then even less people will adopt it. Canonical needs to get it together.

hawkw2• 13 years ago

Cute.

tonetheman• 13 years ago

Ha pretty sure the last version of Ubuntu put them back quite a bit on that bug.

Maybe it was a typo, they really meant to say Ubuntu has a majority share of linux installs, we really need to reduce that.

Magenta• 13 years ago

"Our work is driven by a belief that software should be free and accessible to all." We can um and ah about what free and accessible means, but Mark Shuttleworth continues to push the goodwill of the community, testing where its breaking point might lie (see the new secret features development system, and Amazon ads/spyware built into Ubuntu 12.10). Hence, this "Bug #1" is just empty posturing that attempts to ride on the rapidly evaporating goodwill of the community.

noahl• 13 years ago

I may not agree with all of the decisions Shuttleworth makes, but this is unfair. The "secret development process" is completely normal - people work on features for a while, but don't make them public until they're really good so that other people will be excited. What he's doing is offering to let other people into his secret process before he normally would.

Similarly, although it's true that Ubuntu by default sends your searches to Canonical, which then anonymizes them and sends them on to Amazon, it's also true that you can turn this off whenever you want. And that you have the ability to send your searches anywhere else you want, including your personally-owned index of products. And that Canonical has clearly stated that the Amazon lens is an example of a much larger class of things that they want to enable via the dash. So yes, sending all of your searches over the network by default is bad for privacy, but that doesn't make Ubuntu less free.

banachtarski• 13 years ago

Can Ubuntu even be considered free anymore? I thought it started bundling ads and stuff in the desktop experience.

newishuser2• 13 years ago

Yes, it's still open source. Freedom is more about liberty than cost.

apetresc• 13 years ago

I think this bug will have to be closed pretty soon -- OS X will probably have the majority in a few years :)

newishuser2• 13 years ago

To me the biggest threat to computing freedom is no longer your operating system vendor but "the cloud". Most people are just giving their data away to companies that can do whatever they want with it including delete it forever when they go out of business.

I'm not trying to dust off my foil hat or anything, but the OS war is almost over, it's the "who own's your data" war now. And I mean OWNS your data.

chris_wot• 13 years ago

The way that Ubuntu is going, I suspect that this bug is going to be flagged as WONTFIX.

Ubuntu's bug #1

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