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GNU is Not Unix

RMS Speaks Out Against Ubuntu 597

An anonymous reader writes "In a post at the Free Software Foundation website, Richard Stallman has spoken out against Ubuntu because of Canonical's decision to integrate Amazon search results in the distribution's Dash search. He says, 'Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.) This is just like the first surveillance practice I learned about in Windows. ... What's at stake is whether our community can effectively use the argument based on proprietary spyware. If we can only say, "free software won't spy on you, unless it's Ubuntu," that's much less powerful than saying, "free software won't spy on you." It behooves us to give Canonical whatever rebuff is needed to make it stop this. ... If you ever recommend or redistribute GNU/Linux, please remove Ubuntu from the distros you recommend or redistribute.'"

Comment Re:Clouds Need To Be Free (Score 4, Informative) 152

I think you might have to think this through again with the launch of Windows 8. The new interface means that a lot of people no longer "know how to use it." The desktop paradigm that everyone has been using for decades is still there, but Microsoft seems to be doing their best to hide it. But I must agree with you about the cli. I use it constantly on both Windows and OS X, but then I learned in the days of DOS. Most of my high school CS students have no idea it even exists, much less have any idea how to use it. I get a lot of looks of fascination and horror when they see me use it.

Comment Re:Semantics maybe... (Score 1) 140

Dogs, and indeed most domesticated species, are poor examples to use for evolution. They have been selectively breed by humans to enhance or eliminate various traits. Dogs didn't evolve, they were created. Same thing for cats: they have been selectively breeding humans for 6000 or so years....

Comment Re:Wankers (Score 1) 404

That will be their name after Homeland Security tosses them in prison. It's not rocket science. Fuck with corporations, they pay politicians, laws get passed, profit. Fuck with the US Senate, the FBI, they _find_ you. And you know very well the US doesn't care about jurisdiction.

Comment Re:Godwin (Score 1) 179

I'd have to question that definition of a failed state. The United States government has never had a monopoly over the use of force within it's borders. The general populace has always been better armed than the state, and it is a founding principle that this is the correct way to do things, that the people should retain the ability to overthrow the government should it turn tyrannical. While I would find merit in a statement that the US is failing, indeed seems in danger of imminent collapse, it has nothing to do with force, or a monopoly on violence.

Comment Re:not necessarily (Score 1) 494

I have to agree on this one. It seems the one thing the Mac haters refuse to acknowledge is that, at it's core, OS X is a *nix. I have the Terminal app on my dock, and spend as much time on the command line as I do clicking things. BootCamp takes care of games, and VM's for any Linux/Whatever application I need that I can't either find a port of or compile myself.

Once I got "under the hood" (on my teacher issue Mac) and realized what I was working with, I ditched my Windows machine in favor of one that "just works" when I need it to, and does serious work when that is required.

Comment Re:He will shortly find himself in court... (Score 2) 236

Which brings up an interesting question: does patent imply copyright? Does having a patent on a compound confer copyright on source code used to simulate that compound? And if it doesn't, how long until the lawyers claim it does, and you all start calling me a bastard for bringing it up?

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