Rethinking Gobuntu

Sun, 2008-04-20 20:22 — Magic Banana

In a few days, both the gNewSense and Gobuntu project will release a new version of their distributions. Based on Ubuntu Hardy Heron, they will aim at satisfying the most exigent users in terms of freedom. This apparent duplication of work may not perpetuate. Indeed, some developers behind Gobuntu (including Mark Shuttleworth himself) think of "channelling the energy from Gobuntu into gNewSense".

I was visiting the archives of the gobuntu-devel mailing list when I found this message from Mark Shuttleworth. Questioning the future of the Gobuntu project, he posted this message six days ago:

"Perhaps we really are on the wrong track, that the only way to meet the
needs of the gNewSense folks is to have completely different source
packages to Ubuntu. If that is the case, then I think it would be better
to channel the energy from Gobuntu into gNewSense.

I had hoped to see more participation and collaboration around Gobuntu
because of the benefits of keeping up with the standard Ubuntu (regular
releases, security updates etc). However, it seems that the audience for
a platform like this is willing to accept infrequent releases and less
maintenance in return for a platform which can be modified more
radically. That's OK, it's just a bit unexpected - I thought we could
get the best of both worlds, with six-monthly releases of something that
excluded *binary package* that were controversial in the eyes of the
FSF, but retained access to everything else in Ubuntu.

I don't mind having been wrong in that expectation, I can see the
arguments in favour of less collaboration in the case where it is more
important to be different than to have infrastructure in common, and
from what I've seen on this list, the desire to be different (have
different source packages as well as binary packages) is stronger than
the desire to collaborate (share infrastructure, release cycles etc).

I'm not sure that the current level of activity in Gobuntu warrants the
division of attention it creates, either for folks who are dedicated to
Ubuntu primarily, or to folks who are interested in gNewSense. I would
like us to have a good relationship with the gNewSense folks, because I
do think that their values and views are important and I would like
Ubuntu to be a useful starting point for them. But perhaps Gobuntu isn't
the best way to achieve that.

So, I would like to hear from the gNewSense guys how they would like to
be involved in Ubuntu, to help ensure that Ubuntu is a useful starting
point for their important work. If Gobuntu is not the best way to
achieve that, then I think we should stop working on it and encourage
folks who want that to focus their efforts on gNewSense, while at the
same time figuring out how Ubuntu can be more useful for gNewSense.

Mark"

First of all, let us notice how Mark Shuttleworth cares about the users' will of freedom. Although he can be considered as the spiritual father of Gobuntu, he somehow encourages the Gobuntu's developers to move to gNewSense if the purpose of the Gobuntu project would be better achieved through gNewSense. He even thinks of helping gNewSense by making Ubuntu "more useful" for it. Such a philanthropy is remarkable.

Thus, Ubuntu's leader suggests that the users would benefit from having one single Ubuntu derivative strictly following the Free Software Foundation views on a truly Free Operating System. This GNU/Linux distribution would be gNewSense because it maintains independent repositories, whereas Gobuntu shares them with Ubuntu. Let us recall the advantages of this independence:

* The ability to modify a package containing some proprietary blobs (e.g., the Linux kernel) or presenting other troubles (e.g., Firefox, which, somehow, encourages the installation of proprietary extensions) instead of removing it.
* No affiliation with any repository of proprietary softwares (enabling the Restricted or the Multiverse repository in Gobuntu is a matter of one click in Synaptic).
* Beyond the repository themselves, working on Ubuntu's package system means using Launchpad, a Web application distributed under a proprietary license.

In addition, gNewSense is endorsed by the Free Software Foundation. Kurt von Finck, one of the main developer behind Gobuntu, focuses on this while confirming the bridge-building with gNewSense. Here is what he wrote a few hours before Mark Shuttleworth's message:

"Gobuntu is 100% free software. The CD image provided to you
contains nothing but free code. But with Gobuntu you are free to add (or
subtract) what you see fit, and the Ubuntu repositories make it
trivially easy to do so. Thus, while Gobuntu is free software as defined
by the FSF, RMS will not recommend it personally.

Now, all that having been said, please be aware that Paul O'Malley from
the gNewsense project and myself have plans to discuss these very issues
at the Ubuntu Developer's Summit in May. Questions vis-a-vis Gobuntu and
gNewsense are arising frequently, and need to be answered definitively
so we can all get back to work and stop playing politics.

Before anyone takes my remarks here as some sort of "official" statement
(which they most assuredly are not) I would ask that you refrain, and
instead wait for the fruits of the UDS conversations between Mark, Paul,
FSF staff, and yours truly.

We'll get the discussion times on the UDS agenda, and everyone is
welcome to participate when the time comes.

Flame on.

--

./k

Kurt von Finck

Senior Ubuntu System Support Analyst
Canonical, Ltd."

All in all, the discussion on the gobuntu-devel mailing list is very similar to the one I had a few months ago. For the targeted public, it seems that the gNewSense advantages in terms of ideological pureness rise above the more pragmatical concerns Mark Shuttleworth and all Gobuntu's developers thought to be essential.

Furthermore, from the next release of Ubuntu, the need for the Gobuntu project becomes less pressing. Indeed, on the gobuntu-devel mailing list (definitely an interesting source of information!), I discovered this other message:

"Current Ubuntu CD images now have a "Free software only" checkbox on the
"Boot options" menu (select language and then press F6 twice). This
should make things easier for people who happen to have an Ubuntu CD to
hand and want to install a system without anything from the restricted
component.

As of last week, this actually works when installing from the desktop CD
too. While there are some packages from restricted in the live
filesystem, when you select this boot option they will be removed from
the target system after the bulk file copy has taken place. It turns out
that this wasn't as hard to do as I'd thought - a mere 13 lines of code!

Cheers,

--

Colin Watson"

Although no official position has been decided yet, Gobuntu Hardy Heron may be the ultimate version of this project. Some of its developers may move to gNewSense while some other may continue to help in tracking proprietary blobs in Ubuntu's repositories. GNewSense would eventually gain more developers and some help from the Ubuntu project. Gobuntu would, somehow, be integrated to Ubuntu through a boot option. In the end, the winner would neither be gNewSense, nor Gobuntu. It would be the user.