I’m in an organization that helps people install Linux on their devices, and we collectively decided to install Linux Mint. I never used it myself, and to me, the distribution doesn’t matter too much.
They also advertise them in top positions on their package installers, which also doesn’t show the packages licenses anywhere. To me advertising them and mixing them like they are the same is bad… They also don’t offer ways to filter them out… So… while I still install LM for others, I’m not a fan…
I don’t care if a Linux distribution offers proprietary applications or not. I just want to be able to filter it out, and that they offer open alternatives first.
I’m not a purist, I want people to be informed users, not just sheep that get fed whatever corporations want them to eat. If they still choose to use closed source software, then that is fine.
I don’t care if a Linux distribution offers proprietary applications or not. I just want to be able to filter it out, and that they offer open alternatives first.
More often, it’s not applications, per se – it’s things like video codecs and drivers.
And there is no open-source alternative, because the only way to decode that proprietary video format or run that proprietary wifi module is to use their proprietary software to do it. So you either have user-friendly distros that include the availability of those things for the ‘it just works’ experience, or you have open-source purist distros where you can be proud of being purely open source, but some of your video files won’t play, and your wifi doesn’t work.
Yeah… But LM has spotify, Google Earth, Dropbox and Sublime Texteditor mixed in open source software (like d-feet, a dbus inspection tool) in their repos… Those aren’t propritary Codecs, WiFi driver or firmware…
Debian and Ubuntu have different APT repo sections for closed source stuff. That is what I would have expected…
I’m in an organization that helps people install Linux on their devices, and we collectively decided to install Linux Mint. I never used it myself, and to me, the distribution doesn’t matter too much.
However, I was negatively surprised that Linux Mint decided to mix closed-source proprietary software together with open-source software: http://packages.linuxmint.com/search.php?release=alfa§ion=import&keyword=
They also advertise them in top positions on their package installers, which also doesn’t show the packages licenses anywhere. To me advertising them and mixing them like they are the same is bad… They also don’t offer ways to filter them out… So… while I still install LM for others, I’m not a fan…
Being too purist about the openness of a distribution is a big reason Linux has taken so long to gain foothold on PCs.
On the other hand, being purist about openness is why GNU exists in the first place.
So there are different Distros with different philosophies, that people with different preferences can find what tgey are looking for.
Wow, a typo.
I don’t care if a Linux distribution offers proprietary applications or not. I just want to be able to filter it out, and that they offer open alternatives first.
I’m not a purist, I want people to be informed users, not just sheep that get fed whatever corporations want them to eat. If they still choose to use closed source software, then that is fine.
More often, it’s not applications, per se – it’s things like video codecs and drivers.
And there is no open-source alternative, because the only way to decode that proprietary video format or run that proprietary wifi module is to use their proprietary software to do it. So you either have user-friendly distros that include the availability of those things for the ‘it just works’ experience, or you have open-source purist distros where you can be proud of being purely open source, but some of your video files won’t play, and your wifi doesn’t work.
Yeah… But LM has spotify, Google Earth, Dropbox and Sublime Texteditor mixed in open source software (like d-feet, a dbus inspection tool) in their repos… Those aren’t propritary Codecs, WiFi driver or firmware…
Debian and Ubuntu have different APT repo sections for closed source stuff. That is what I would have expected…