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Re: [News] Microvell Employee Throws Slime at Ubuntu, Gets Slammed in Return

Verily I say unto thee, that ml2mst spake thusly:

> Even if they haven't contributed much to the kernel, they have 
> contributed quite a lot to overall usability and acceptance of 
> GNU/Linux.

AFAICT Canonical's biggest contribution to GNU/Linux has been to
indoctrinate millions of noobs into believing that Free Software
advocates are "fundamentalists" (Shuttleworth's own word, ref: the
podcast interview about the end of Gobuntu); that "trivial" concepts
like Freedom are less important than convenience (ref: Gobuntu mailing
list posts about Mozilla® trademarks); and that it's OK to stab Free
Software developers in the back by marginalising their work in favour of
pandering to the demands of Intellectual Monopolists (ref: Ubuntu Remix
codecs).

The result is an army of clueless Ubuntu fanboys who genuinely consider
Ubuntu as being somehow distinct from GNU/Linux ("it's the 'Ubuntu'
operating system"); have nothing but contempt for the FSF, the GPL,
Stallman and the principles of Freedom; think like Windows users; talk
like Windows users; act like Windows users; and aspire to the same
twisted goals and follow the same worthless paradigms as Windows users.
In short, they *are* Windows users ... who got lost, and tried to turn
GNU/Linux into Microsoft Slopware, all with Shuttleworth's hot and eager
help, of course. Not that many of them have the skills or enthusiasm to
"turn" anything into anything else, since they are first; last and
always "users" (roughly translated as "leechers, whiners and fanboys"),
which may account for why comparatively little is contributed to Free
Software from the Ubuntu sheep-pen.

Now it seems that Shuttleworth has a hardon for Macs, so I suppose the
*next* generation of Ubuntu converts will be Mac switchers, all
demanding "killer apps" with "i" appended to their names (why does this
make me think of "There's no 'I' in 'Team'"?). I fully expect some
distant version of Ubuntu to be called "iBuntu"; they'll drop support
for mice with more than one button; and they'll obfuscate so much of the
OS for the sake of "simplicity" that your only interface for pretty much
*everything* will be a single button that reads "OK" ... and even that
single "choice" will eventually be depreciated in favour of a completely
non-interactive screen that just runs "Get a Buntu" adverts ("Hi, I'm a
Buntu. Hi, I'm a Buntu too").

Canonical has *not* helped spread the adoption of GNU/Linux, they've
helped spread the adoption of the *bastard son of Linux*; a cancer
-ridden mutation spawned by inbreeding between Windows developers;
Microsoft fanboys and a bunch of naive children.

Shuttleworth is no more a "Linux guy" than Novell is a "Linux company",
they're both just opportunists riding the wave. Novell may be 25 years
old, but they've only spent the last 5 of those years as a Linux company
(after acquiring Ximian from Microsoft fanboys de Icaza and Friedman,
who's biggest contributions to GNU/Linux are patent-encumbered clones of
Microsoft technology). And the last 2 of those 5 years have been spent
as Microsoft bum-boys, in a protection racket designed to give Novell
"exclusive privileges" at the expense of the Free Software community.

Also note that SUSE != Novell. I have nothing against the SUSE distro, I
just happen to have nothing but contempt for Free Software sellouts.
Buried beneath all that management-driven Microsoft fanboyism, is a
truly excellent German Linux distro desperate to break Free. Again.
Unlike Novell, SuSE was distributing Linux *14* years ago (a few months
before Red Hat).

When I think "Novell", I don't think "Linux", I think "Netware", and
being shafted by Microsoft ... twice. I also think about their efforts
to undermine Free Software with Poisonware like Mono and Moonlight, and
about their attempts to co-opt OpenOffice.org with yet more Novell and
Microsoft "exclusivity", to conveniently shut-down the threat to their
pal Microsoft's ailing cash cow.

The considerable contributions SUSE developers make to Free Software is
completely undermined by this intolerable situation, and also brings
into question the integrity of those contributions, rightly or wrongly.
I'm not claiming that *every* SUSE user and developer is a bad guy (much
like my observations of Ubuntu are just generalisations), but they *are*
currently standing in the heart of enemy territory, and that simply
doesn't look good for any of them.

Mainly I can't help but think that people who would climb into bed with
the self-declared enemy of Free Software are the worst traitors in our
community. How any of them can even dare to show face anywhere beats me,
as their new "partner" denounces Linux as a "cancer"; perverts the ISO
Standards process with bribery and smear campaigns; sabotages charities
like the OLPC; corrupts Nigerian education suppliers with bribes to oust
Mandriva from signed contracts; and holds the whole world to ransom with
a monopoly supported by a racketeering operation with OEMs, that seeks
to exclude all competition using clandestine MoUs that are protected
from public scrutiny by equally corrupt laws.

As for Ubuntu, AFAIAC that's only ever been one thing ... "Proprietary
Debian", a.k.a. "Windows Remix". But then a "fundamentalist" like me is
bound to say something like that, eh?

Being a Free Software advocate no more makes me a "fundamentalist" than
dissent against Microsoft's racketeering operation makes me a "hater".
It's not wrong to denounce crime and bad ethics, and it's not wrong to
support Freedom. What *is* wrong is to marginalise those who *do* take
that position as "fundamentalist"; "loons"; "zealots" and "haters",
especially when those who are doing that marginalising are traitors to
the cause they pretend to support (a.k.a. "pragmatists"). Such people
are actually more dangerous than outright Microsoft Evangelists, because
they are close to the source, and have a background that ostensibly
makes them seem "reasonable" and "balanced", but in reality they are
poisoning the Well that the rest of us must drink from to survive. Not
that these "pragmatists" need to worry about poisoned Wells, since they
have endless supplies of Microsoft-branded Kool-Aid® to keep them going.

Supporting Free Software is about more than just supporting the
principles of Freedom, it is a common courtesy and a mark of respect to
the countless numbers of developers who gave their time and effort
Freely and willingly ... for *our* benefit. What Shuttleworth fails to
understand is that every time he opens his gob and denounces Free
Software advocacy as "fundamentalism", he is spitting in the face of
every Free Software *contributor* and the *vast bulk* of the codebase
that forms "his" distribution ... that he then promotes as the One True
Linux® and proceeds to poison with proprietary Slopware, whilst
brainwashing his flock into mocking Stallman and believing that
"becoming OSX/Windows/Anything-but-Linux" should be their wet-dream.

Thanks, but I'll pass.

-- 
K.
http://slated.org

.----
| By bucking Microsoft for open source, says Gunderloy, "I'm no
| longer contributing to the eventual death of programming."
| ~ http://www.linux.com/feature/142083
`----

Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.25.11-60.fc8
 03:56:54 up 35 days,  1:09,  5 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.00

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