Revisiting Linux Part 1: A Look at Ubuntu 8.04
by Ryan Smith on August 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
It's Free – Libre
While the value of “free as in beer” is easy to describe, the value of “free as in speech – otherwise known as libre – is harder to relate. Nonetheless, rather large books have been written on the subject, so we'll try to stick with something condensed.
Virtually everything distributed with Ubuntu is an open source program in some manner. Many of the components of Ubuntu, such as the Linux kernel and the GNU toolset, are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which in a nutshell requires that any software distributed under the GPL license either include the source code with the software or a way to get the source code. Other bits of Ubuntu are under slightly different licenses with slightly different legal requirements, but the outcome is effectively the same. Ubuntu is free - you can get the source code to it and modify/distribute it as you see fit.
But when we're talking about Ubuntu, there's more than just being able to access the source, as most of the development teams that are responsible for the programs included in Ubuntu have their projects open for public participation. So not only can you take the code and modify it, but if your modifications are good enough they can be submitted back to the main project and possibly be included in a future version of the software. The fundamental idea of open source software is that users are empowered to see how software works and to modify it as they see fit. Other lesser benefits also exist, such as protecting authors' rights by preventing people from taking the code and improving it without sharing it (the GPL), and making sure all the authors are properly credited.
This does not always make open source relevant for the user however. The fundamental benefits of open source software are for people that are programmers, but most users are not programmers. Being able to see and edit the code is not necessarily useful if you don't know how to use it. Even with a background in programming, I would be hard pressed to be able to quickly contribute significant code changes to most projects; very few programs are small and simple enough to be able to easily jump into these days.
Still, there are some definite benefits for those of us that can't throw out code like Linux's chief architect Linus Torvalds. The most direct benefit of course is that this software exists at all. Since all of the software in Ubuntu is free as in beer, paid developers do not develop many of the programs. Open source as a default state makes it easier for people to contribute to the development of software, and that means it's easier for such gratis software to be continually developed in the first place.
Open source software is also a benefit for the longevity of software. Since no one person has absolute control over a project, no one can terminate it. This means that someone else can pick up a project and continue should the original developer(s) quit, as is sometimes the case with old software. It also allows for software to be forked, which is to take the code from a project and create a derivative separate from the original project – the benefit being that a forked project can be taken in a different direction than the original developer may want. As proof of the importance of forking, there are a number of programs in Ubuntu that are forks of older projects, such as X11 (otherwise known as just X), Ubuntu's base windowing system.
Finally, open source software is beneficial to overall software security. If you can see the source, you can analyze it for possible bugs. If you can edit the source, you can fix those bugs rather than wait for someone else to do so - and we can't even begin to overstate the importance of this. The direct relevance to the average user is once again limited here since most people cannot read or write code, but it does filter down through benefits such as rapid patching of security vulnerabilities in some cases. The security benefits of Ubuntu being open source are some of the most important reasons we consider Ubuntu to be secure.
In short: even if you can't code you benefit from Ubuntu being a free (libre) operating system.
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fepple - Friday, August 28, 2009 - link
That is exactly how the usability tests are performed. Developer asks Mom "can you change the background" then records what they dofepple - Friday, August 28, 2009 - link
So i tried to find some links about this relating to gnome, but only got some pretty old ones. There are other methods they are using as well, like the 100 paper cuts idea. honestly have a look around and you'll see how much of a focus it is, particularly with ubuntuap90033 - Friday, August 28, 2009 - link
Face it, Linux is still back in Windows 2000 days. Try getting SLI working, 1080P working right, games working. IT IS Way to much trouble and damn near impossible for regular users. In Windows or Mac its next to no work and very little issue. Wake up guys, Linux has Potential but thats it. BECAUSE those who advocate it spend so much energy defending what is "easy" to them when they ought to use that energy making it ACTUALLY easy and USER USER USER USER (DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS WORD?) FRIENDLY... NOT PROGRAMMER FRIENDLY...newend - Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - link
All of the things you mention are probably not that easy for grandma to do either. People thrive on saying it's so hard to do things in Linux, but I think it's generally not intuitive to use most computer systems. Imagine if you had no exposure to computers how difficult any system would be. A few years ago a friend of mine wanted me to install some software on her Mac. I had no idea how to do it. I've been using computers since I was 5 years old, but had to google for information on installing software.I actually think that Yum/Apt repos actually make it significantly easier to install software. The other day I wanted an application to take a photo with my webcam. I simply did a search "yum search webcam" and looked at the descriptions of included software and found Cheese which did exactly what I wanted.
When you know exactly what you want, and it's not available in the repos you use, I agree it is more difficult to get it installed. Still with both Red Hat/Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu, you can do an install by downloading a package file. This doesn't get you the benefit of automatic updates, but it's just as easy to install as an MSI file.
fepple - Friday, August 28, 2009 - link
Well maybe they would want '1080p' but I'm not sure how that could be a problem unless you have some strange hardware that requires a specific driver... like another OS sometime needs you to go to a manufacturers website ;)Penti - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
Installing nVidia drivers and XBMC or mplayer isn't that hard.But keep in mind there is only homebrew codecs on Linux which OEMs like Dell can never ship with there computers and has limited support of proprietary formats such as BD. It's the same codecs as ffdshow, or as in XBMC or VLC on Windows. What's lacking is a PowerDVD with BD support. w32codecs is also available for gstreamer, giving alternative support for WMV and such. Installing ubuntu-restricted-extras is essentially the only thing you need for it to work in Totem if you don't need/have VDPAU support. XBMC is definitively a decent platform to playback warez. You need to rip blurays to be able to play them back at all though. But an Ion is definitively powerful enough for 1080p h264 under linux. But because all that software contains unlicensed patented codecs Canonical don't officially support any of it. So it won't work on ubuntu OOB. Codecs aren't free.
fepple - Friday, August 28, 2009 - link
Thing is, 'regular users' dont care about SLI, 1080P and Windows Games... "where is the browser/word processor/email?" :)CastleFox - Friday, April 9, 2010 - link
Great review. Thank you for reviewing 8.04 LTS Please review 10.04 when it comes out. I am interested to see if they software center has changed the authors opinions.tiffanyrose - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
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