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Alternatively: Why not let the people actually making the distros decide what and what not to throw in them? Users can decide what to use, and users have decided to let Canonical win.

I don't use Ubuntu, and you don't have to either! It's almost like there are millions of Linux distributions!




> Alternatively: Why not let the people actually making the distros decide what and what not to throw in them?

I'll argue that utilization of Linux comes with certain "expectations" which is why so many of us decide to use it in the first place. Some of those expectations include (but are not limited to) rock-solid stability, "be good at one thing", lack of bloatware, sane update/upgrade cycles/policy, privacy, and security.

I've been using Linux professionally for just over 15 years now, sometimes in highly compliant/systems-critical infrastructure. The privacy and security bullet points above are the most important factors to me when designing and/or hardening systems.

> I don't use Ubuntu, and you don't have to either! It's almost like there are millions of Linux distributions!

Actually - I had to at my last position. When people make technology decisions they often go with the most popular/"safe" options and then dictate the decision to those implementing it. Welcome to corporate America (which is where the jobs are). Everything new was spun-up with Ubuntu as a base distro and you better believe I manually opted-out of this "feature".

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There's a big problem when the most popular distro starts making moves like this as it sets precedent that it's OK. Canonical has made the decision against privacy/security in regards to their motd and that's a huge issue, and I argue it goes against the ethos of Linux and OSS.


Actually - I had to at my last position.

It's a seller's market for labor.

There's a big problem when the most popular distro starts making moves like this as it sets precedent that it's OK. Canonical has made the decision against privacy/security in regards to their motd and that's a huge issue, and I argue it goes against the ethos of Linux and OSS.

You're using "OSS." "OSS" is the word that caused this situation! "OSS" was intentionally a term to make free software corporate. Canonical's just doing what people who use and coined "OSS" started: making free software corporate.

In the Free Software world, this is bad, but in the corporate world that "open source" advocates have brought among us, this is normal. It's perfectly fine: open-source software is for-profit, not for the common good.




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