No Blobs By Default Petition

Thu Jan 25 22:44:04 UTC 2007

Dear Mark, dear Ubuntu developers,

We the undersigned petition you to reconsider your decision of
including binary drivers by default in the next Ubuntu release. We
believe, as you do, that it should be as easy as possible for end
users to enable extra functionality via closed software when necessary
and if they so wish, but only after an explicit acknowledgment and
only after being informed about the issues at stake and possible
alternatives. Users can be given the option to install closed
drivers/software during installation or soon after installation or
when an application that may require such software is run for the
first time. It is a small change, but one that will avoid dividing the
community on an issue that many hold dear, without sacrificing ease of
use and product appeal. We therefore encourage you to opt for
easy-installation as opposed to pre-installation.

Many thanks for your attention,

  1. Agostino Russo
  2. Onkar Shinde
  3. BaishampayanGhose
  4. Steven Dilworth
  5. Florent Mertens
  6. Slava Chemodanov
  7. Dan Bishop
  8. João Crespo - Why not let the problem of blobs installation up
to the common customizations spec (a GUI somewhere at system »
administration or something similar)? is the solution found to all the
other non-free stuff instead of bundling with for default or asking
the user during the install if he wants flash, codecs, etc....
  9. TobySmithe
 10. Alon Zakai
 11. Volker Löchte
 12. Roy Schestowitz
 13. Shane Coyle
 14. Stian Rødven Eide
 15. Mark Grandi - just make it so during installation, tells you
about them, and asks you if you want them or not.
 16. Mackenzie Morgan
 17. Stuart McNeill
 18. Dustin Widmann
 19. Tareeq Ali
 20. Andrew Poelstra
 21. FirdausAziz
 22. Matthew Flaschen
 23. Terry Harrison
 24. Ali Davoodifar
 25. Albert van Aardt
 26. Jeffrey Parke
 27. Chris Warburton
 28. David Nielsen - First it was wifi, then it was graphics. What
freedom and supportability is going to fall at the hand of temporary
highly limited functionality next? Instead of doing this we should
fund and support work towards bridging the functionality gap with free
drivers.
 29. Lloyd Almeida
 30. Guy Johnston - I only use GNU/Linux and other free software for
the freedom it allows me. My next installation is likely to be
gNewSense. If this increase in installing proprietary software by
default continues, it definitely will be, and I won't use Ubuntu or
any of its official variants again.
 31. James Buchanan
 32. Paulo Gomes
 33. Matthias Lehr - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/
 34. Lutz Reinhardt
 35. Saul Goode - It is contrary to the philosophy espoused in
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/philosophy
 36. Holger Bauer
 37. Jan Rathmann
 38. Gregor Geiermann
 39. Tim Pretz
 40. Frederik Tuczek
 41. Norbert Fabritius
 42. Anke Kernbach
 43. Marc Hildebrandt
 44. Alexander Menk
 45. Marcus Fihlon
 46. Maxim Lapis
 47. Sebastian Kotowski
 48. Xinchi Yu - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/
 49. Michael Kehraus
 50. Rüdiger Dick -Duisburger Linux User Group ( www.dulug.de )
 51. Amir Hadi
 52. Chris Lees
 53. Thorsten Tasch
 54. Dimitri Vorona (aka Alendit)
 55. Christian Schoch
 56. Søren Schneider
 57. Simon Schlosser
 58. Matthias Mailänder - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/
 59. Clemens Blank - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/
 60. David Becher
 61. Sven Jaborek, people who want blobby linux should go to novell
 62. Andreas Gutowski - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/
 63. Roberto Amato - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/
 64. Simon Bürger
 65. Bernhard Hanakam - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/ -
Please give the user the opportunity to choose, because this is what linux
is. A GUI is IMHO a good solution, but the closed drivers should stay in
restricted, not in the default installation. Mark and all the others: don't
let ubuntu become some stuff like SuSE. Keep thinking of bug #1!
 66. Ueli Zahnd
 67. Andreas Schmauss
 68. Richard Hirner - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/
- I have installed and recommended Ubuntu Linux to many people, but I
won't support another "Lindows"
 69. Oliver Gellner
 70. Martin Gräßlin - Why don't you try to persuade the companies to
change their closed source drivers to open source? That would be the
best for the users.
 71. David Fu - maybe gNewSense does make sense after all.
 72. Carsten Schmidt
 73. AndreasGnau - The user has to be informed about both the
advantages and disadvantages.
 74. Marco Hunseler - Please, dont do that :-\
 75. Gaurav Mishra - this will forget the real ubuntu spirit and will
be followed by the commercial market requirements ,
 76. Hendrik Thaer
 77. Dieter Komendera - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/
 78. Mitja Kleider
 79. Matt Medland
 80. IanDarwin - Every single time you install a binary blob driver,
you convince some big company that "open source" just doesn't matter.
Is that what you want to do?
 81. Christian Wagner - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/
 82. David Tangye - In addition I also support
(see http://boycottnovell.com/category/ubuntu/ "12.23.06 Ubuntu No
Blobs By Default Petition"): "put a button that sends an email to the detected
hardware vendor complaining about this extra step. Then, vendors will
see just how many customers it does affect and act; by Ubuntu doing it
for the end user without interaction, there will be no market backlash
or incentive to open up."
 83. Frederik Elwert
 84. Marian Sigler
 85. Björn Kunze
 86. Gustav Andréasson
 87. Marcel Miebach
 88. Jussi Kukkonen
 89. Heinrich Franz
 90. Simon Streit
 91. Christian Niemeyer - via http://www.ubuntuusers.de/ikhaya/354/
 92. Ivan Jelic
 93. Ivan Petrović
 94. MilanPrvulovic
 95. Frederick "FN" Noronha, Goa, India
 96. Bartosz Bogacz - please don't forget that many of us are using
linux because its open-source and not because its better or free
 97. Tom H - I am in favour of a program installed by default which
presents the user with information on binary blobs and asks whether
he/she wishes to install them.
 98. Matias Särs
 99. Dustin Sandell - In favor of original install offering a choice
about installing binary blobs once. (Not repeatedly.)
 100. Sámal Rasmussen
 101. Marko Herman
 102. Nishant Sharma
 103. KartikMistry
 104. Aleksandar Negovanovic
 105. Zoran Olujic
 106. Nick Ferguson
 107. MarkusMajer (mpathy)
 108. David Brady - I use the binary drivers, but I do not think that
they should be installed by default.
 109. Christoph Domin - via http://forum.studium-bingen.de/viewtopic.php?t=64
 110. Manuel Schindler - via http://forum.studium-bingen.de/viewtopic.php?t=64
 111. TormodVolden - I have to use a binary GPU driver on my machine,
but at least I am aware of it and I hope to get rid of it one day.

http://wiki.ubuntu.com/NoBlobsByDefaultPetition