Bradley Kuhn on switching back from Ubuntu to Debian

[Steve Langasek]

Hi Jonathan,

On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 01:18:54AM +0200, Jonathan Carter (highvoltage) wrote:
> At UDS Karmic some people found it strange that I was annoyed with
> Ubuntu One's default inclusion. Some people said things like "You
> visit google.com don't you? Do you use gmail? Those are non-free
> server stuff too!". The difference is that my web browser pretty much
> uses open standards throughout, and I can visit any web pages I like,
> whether they're non-free or free in terms of content and the software
> they run on. It's completely different to the case of Ubuntu One that
> relies on non-free software.

I respect the views of those who are concerned about Ubuntu being linked to
proprietary services, but I think your emphasis on open standards is
misplaced.  In any attempt to reimplement google.com, gmail, *or* UbuntuOne,
the network protocol would be the least concern.  It is precisely because
most of the software complexity sits *behind* the protocol on the server
side that "software as a service" is seen as a threat to Free Software.

And for my part, I think the dangers of lock-in with UbuntuOne are
significantly less than they are in the case of Google.  Cloud storage and
multi-computer syncing are nice value-adds, but I don't think they compare
with being the outsourced cognitive filter through which users view all the
content on the Internet...

Cheers,
-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org
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