From FOSS Community India

“free” as in “freedom”, not as in “free cds”.

I used to like Ubuntu, recommend it to people, distribute cds ... NOT ANYMORE

... because I realised that

1. It does not give credit to the GNU project. See why it is important to call the system GNU/Linux
   • Update: Even Tivo calls it GNU/Linux :-)
2. It does not give importance to Freedom. "Ubuntu is and always will be free of charge." there is no guarantee that it will remain Free Software
   • On the contrary, they have clearly stated their willingness to include non-free softwares in their distribution.
   • Update: The completely Free version of Ubuntu called Gobuntu is available for download now.
3. They don't believe in Free Software. Free Software is only for software which other people develop (Launchpad is non-free software), we will have a commercial advantage in keeping launchpad proprietary, we might release it if we can't make much money out of it. If you want to contribute to Ubuntu you will have to use a non-free software which stores your data in a proprietary format.
   • Updates:
     • Bug #50699, Launchpad should be free software (free as in freedom)
     • They seems to be listening, they have released first component of launchpad, called storm as Free Software. Keep up the good work Canonical.
     • Ubuntu lives in a closed system - IT Wire article by Sam Varghese
     • Debian Project Leader Sam Hocevar announced launching of a "neutral" project for sharing patches across distributions.
4. Ubuntu translations does not respect upstream, they are forks. The Rosetta translations don't go upstream (It is good in one way since the quality of the translations are very poor). - Reference: Powers and repositories – Ubuntu and Debian

If Ubuntu corrects these points I will have no issues to support them again. I have no issues of thinking commercially or making money. I do support the way Red Hat do business, but not the way Novell does (they have cheated the community -- now they have got a second chance and see how they are going to take it up. They can ship GPLv3 code and help the entire Free Software community have the benefit of patent protection from Microsoft as they continue to distribute Novell coupons).

[edit] Distributions that I recommend

1. Debian - Social Contract and Debian Free Software Guidelines
2. Fedora - Overview, Objectives
3. Any Free GNU/Linux distributions recommended by FSF

If you have been using Ubuntu for sometime now and like it, I suggest you try gNewSense

Feel Free to contribute to this.