Despite the FSF's caution (arguing that giving people proprietary software would discourage freedom in the long term too) Canonical opens the door to non-Free software

The big news in the Ubuntu world this week is Mark Shuttleworth's announcement that he'll be stepping down as CEO of Canonical and transitioning the CEO crown to Canonical insider Jane Silber.  Here's the news, with some thoughts on what this means for Ubuntu and Canonical.

Launchpad, a Web application developed by Canonical for managing software development, was finally open-sourced last week.  But with a number of its other products remaining proprietary, what are Canonical's real intentions towards living by the free-software ideology that drives projects like Ubuntu?

The free software community understands that free software gives the user more freedom than proprietary software. Proprietary software confines its users, prohibits them from making changes that would allow everyone to benefit, etc. Free software advocates (myself included) have a habit of claiming that using free (libre) software means the same thing as having freedom.

Canonical is looking into selling proprietary software like Adobe's Photoshop and Apple's iTunes within its distribution, Ubuntu. This would undoubtedly be helpful for certain end users wanting to switch to Linux, but is it good for free software in the long run?

Ever since Canonical started with Ubuntu One (or “U1″), people have been crying and whining about it being a proprietary pile of goo. For someone who has been active in the free software world for a long time, and still has his brains about him, this makes no sense whatsoever.

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, arguably the most popular of all Linux distributions, is asking its users what new, proprietary programs they'd like to see as optional software in Ubuntu.

Whether you believe the iPad hype or not, it's clear that touchscreen devices represent an important emerging hardware niche. Canonical responded to that reality recently with the release of uTouch 1.0, a software stack designed to ensure solid multi-touch and gesture support on Ubuntu.  Here are the details, along with some thoughts.

Mark Shuttleworth: "...A lot of my personal interest in free software is motivated by the idea that we can be more efficient if we collaborate better. If we want free software to be the norm for personal computing software, then we have to show, among other things, that the open, free software approach taps into the global talent pool in a healthier, more dynamic way than the old proprietary approach to building software does..."