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Shuttleworth clarifies Ubuntu's stance on proprietary drivers

desktoplinux.com — Ubuntu's Technical Board has decided it won't activate proprietary video drivers by default in the upcoming 7.04 Ubuntu ("Etch") release. Some people interpreted this to mean that Ubuntu won't include these drivers in Etch, and even that Ubuntu was backing away from proprietary drivers. Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has clarified the situation.

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deviceguru 1 year 237 days ago, made popular 1 year 236 days ago

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kirker187, on 10/12/2007, -3/+57Did you say "Etch?" The next release of Ubuntu will be 7.04 Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. Etch is a Debian release.
- deviceguru, on 10/12/2007, -13/+4I just looked, and that error seems to have been fixed
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -13/+8It's still there in Digg's description. FWIW, "Feisty Fawn+1", as Shuttleworth calls it, does not have a name yet. The Wikis seem to confim this. It will probably be akin to SabayonLinux, with bling enabled out of the box.
tinker123, on 10/12/2007, -3/+37As an end user of Ubuntu and a fan, I don't care what Shuttleworth does as long as Ubuntu does not become less easy to deal with. I like the FSF philosophy, but first, I want my computer to work and without a hassle.
- gameforge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I agree. I don't understand why it can't just ask the user on installation which ones they prefer, offering more information about "software freedom", etc. if the user is interested.
  
  Manufacturer developed open-source drivers would be preferred above all; since the community has offered free labor to them, they should consider working with us and spending the money instead on getting trade secrets out of the software.
  
  I do realize this is much easier said than done.
  
  What I'd REALLY like is for a third company to show up and make consumer-level 3D cards that are comparable to nVidia and ATI cards. I think Intel has the skill and market power to do it, but it seems like a back-burner project at the moment. An IBM accelerator with open-source drivers would surely make some competition in the industry.
  
  For a while I hoped that 3DLabs or SGI would step up, but 3DLabs is now owned by Creative (who seems to have issues "following-through" with their open-source promises), and SGI... is now nVidia, with the old shell being an obscure player in networking markets and which is undergoing massive business reconstruction at the moment.
  
  As long as I have a way to install the proprietary drivers and they're tested and refined, I'll be happy.
- kerrle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@ gameforge
  Actually, it could be argued that old SGI is now ATI - many of their core engineers broke away to form ArtX, which designed the chip in the Gamecube. ArtX was then bought by ATI, who used their engineering to develop the Radeon 9700. Most of ATI's currently well respected cards draw their origin from that purchase, as far as I can tell.
- DamnMan, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6You're right tinker123, That's part of the problem with OSS adoption. No matter how warm and fuzzy it makes Developers feel most people just don't give a rats ass about the politics of copyrights (and why should they?) as long as it works. But they still love to obfuscate things for the average user in the name of "Freedom!". Sometimes OSS is its own worst enemy.
- dAbReAkA, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4so ubuntu is mature to support wifi but not your videocard right away.. seems like ubuntu is not yet mature for a desktop PC..
  yeah, i know what happened to my last comment about that..
- eelco, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1You could, of course, use Windows.
trixterii, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4What does this even mean?

This description utterly confused me.
cantormath, on 10/12/2007, -9/+5as long as Shuttleworth does not try to stop us from using them, there is nothing wrong with him keeping Ubuntu pure. It is better that way.
- wowbagger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Why is it better that way ?
- cantormath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Because ubuntu is better off not being dependent on proprietary drivers. As long as the drivers are available, one can easily add them when needed. It could be dangerous for ubuntu to rely on hardware companies to stay a float. These companies could easily support Linux and yet they do not. There is then no point to support them unless it is absolutely necessary for ubuntu to function properly.
- rexbron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@cantormath:
  
  I agree that Ubuntu should not be dependant on propritary software but, the issue with company stability and the ability to suppot their products long term is one of the past. I would think is extremely unlikely that either nVidia or AMD (thats what the company is now, ATI is just a brand) will go bankrupt in the forseeable future.
brindon, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2NO! i SAY NO TO FACIST COPYRITE PRODUCTS. in fact I'm in the process of ripping out the chips in my linux box that have the evil "C" copyright logo on them... ah here's another one354#$^ #$%%^
MrSarcasm, on 10/12/2007, -10/+19[ X ] I want my computer to work. Install Ubuntu.
[ ] I'm a zealot. I prefer reading the source code instead of actually using my programs.

^^ That should be the first question during Ubuntu's setup.
Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Why the heck can't canonical release a "drivers" CD with all this proprietary stuff on it? They could customise Ubuntu to work with it. The purists don't have to download it, the rest of us can. It gets round any GPL restrictions because it's an entirely diffrerent CD and not shipped with the GPL system. Seriously, what's so hard about this?
- wowbagger, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4It does not "get around" GPL. Even Linus thinks that these drivers should be shipped as source because they were specifically created for Linux.
  It's got nothing to do with the CD it's on, it has everything to do with what header files are included and what kernel interfaces are used.
  You will always have this because GPL is so restrictive, it forces companies to release their source, which companies will not do. BSD is a better option.
- Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@wowbagger
  
  I thought it was a problem with distribution of binary only code with GPL source. I'm pretty sure it is.
wowbagger, on 10/12/2007, -13/+5This is all because GPL sucks. Everyone is business is ***** scared of GPL because it's so restrictive.
This is why the majority of shipped products that use open software use BSD.

Want to ship the source to your stuff free ? That's cool, but don't force me to ship mine too.
- ISVDamocles, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6That's a functionally retarded interpretation.
  
  If you want to use open source software in your commerical offerings, the least you can do is return your bugfixes to the people who just saved you tens-to-hundreds of thousands of dollars in developer salaries.
  
  If you don't want to make such contributions, why are you mooching off other people's labor?
- ISVDamocles, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I forgot to mention. Unless your entire application is basically a closed-source, slightly spiffed-up version of the open source application, you could take the open source code, modify it slightly to allow IPC (Inter-Process Communications) between it and your main, closed-source application, and then *only release the slightly modified open source program* because there is no GPL restrictions on the data that is processed by a GPL program.
  
  Why is it all the developers I meet who are MS-centric think one application == one executable?
- jonnyq, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1The way I understand GPLv3, you couldn't even use an GPLv3'd DLL along with a non-GPLv3'd exe.
  
  Basically if, for example, OGG was GPLv3'd, you couldn't use WMP couldn't include the ability to decode it.
  
  I could be wrong, but if I'm right, that would explain why people are scared of it.
  
  I don't think there's such a thing in GPLv2
- ISVDamocles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@jonnyg: Actually, GPL2 (and most likely GPL3) have this issue. It's the difference between whether the code is "separate" or not.
  
  But that's why most GPL'd open source libraries use the LGPL (Lesser GPL or Library GPL, the first official, the second said to be what it originally stood for). It removes the restriction that proprietary programs can't use a shared object (.so, the Linux equivalent to .dll)
  
  There really is nothing for closed-source businesses to be afraid of, except that open source advancements aren't "lost" the way closed source ones can, so every year open source alternatives to closed-source applications become more and more capable, so they (the large closed-source companies, not the startups who by their nature are quick and darting into uncharted territory) can't rest on their laurels like they used to.
  
  In reality, open source helps experimental closed-source startups because they don't have to reinvent the wheel for the features everyone already has, its just that there probably won't ever be a startup like Microsoft, anymore.
Rammsteined, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I need those proprietary drivers for my video card, because none of the open source drivers support it yet. Sure it sucks to include non-GPLed packages, but it's absolutely necessary for anyone using a new ATI card. Thanks ATI...
mntpng, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Here is a talk Mark gave at Google late last year.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2728972720932273543
addicted68098, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The only reason to make a driver proprietary is if it is a POS
- rexbron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0or in the case of the FCC, they require it.
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Shuttleworth clarifies Ubuntu's stance on proprietary drivers

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