The controversial Affero general public license could get an unexpected boost from Ubuntu developer Canonical. Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical's chief executive, has said AGPL is "a strong candidate" for the eventual open source release of Launchpad, Canonical's developer collaboration tool.
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Balzac
16 years 23 weeks 13 hours 36 min ago
Mark Shuttleworth is making a lot of smart choices.
Mark Shuttleworth seems more inclined to respect the origins of the free software movements than certain other prominent leaders in the "open source" faction. This will give Shuttleworth's free software projects strong legs far into the future.
lindi
16 years 22 weeks 4 days 7 hours ago
Some "issues" with ubuntu
Couldn't resist, here's my list of top "issues" I have with ubuntu right now:
1) This launchpad issue. It makes forking ubuntu very difficult. It's sad gnewsense had to develop their infrastructure from scratch since they could not use launchpad.
2) The main web page is somewhat misleading when it says ubuntu CDs only contain free software: http://iki.fi/lindi/ubuntu-freedom.png -- some people have suggested me that kernel drivers are not "applications" so the promise is not broken.
3) I am bit worried about how careful they are with license issues. They ship icedtea that just recently got reject from debian NEW queue since there are still unresolved license issues: http://icedtea.classpath.org/bugzilla/showdependencytree.cgi?id=138 -- This issue is probably very minor since afaik also Fedora is distributing icedtea like that, it just made me worry they could have some other packages with license problems there too.
aboutblank
16 years 22 weeks 4 days 1 hour ago
Kernel Drivers are Still Programs
I also would not refer to a kernel driver as "application software". I do consider kernel drivers as computer programs. As a computer program, the kernel driver should be free just like any other application program. Since Ubuntu distributes proprietary kernel drivers, there is no way I (a free software activist) can ever recommend it.