Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (103 mails)

[Jeff Mitchell <mitchell@xxxxxxx>]

On 2/23/2010 8:40 AM, Karsten König wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 23. Februar 2010 14:14:09 schrieb Henne Vogelsang:
> > > Like the Ubuntu Yahoo deal for browser startpage?

Actually, that's a different question, but an interesting point.

The Mozilla Foundation is non-profit and gets most of its revenue via
the Google start page and searches, which it puts towards itself and its
products. Canonical is for-profit and is under no obligation to put the
revenue it gains towards Ubuntu or any other free software.

Obviously, the money that Canonical makes by changing Firefox's home
page is money that is then not given to Mozilla.

Canonical has every right to make this decision, no question. But it is
interesting to think about. Unlike providing Adobe Reader to users for
those that need it, this isn't about enhancing the user experience or
enhancing FOSS; it's purely to make money.

And as an Amarok developer it's easy to see other ways that this can
become a trend. For instance, someone could remove the Magnatune music
store from Amarok (where a cut of proceeds goes back to our project to
help pay for e.g. hosting costs) and could instead plug in their own
store where Amarok gets nothing but they get a cut of profits.

Legal? Sure. FOSS-abiding? Sure. Nice? No.

> > We certainly do things like this already. As i said, we support for
> > instance the for-profit organization Adobe by providing a software they
> > produce to our userbase. They see this as an opportunity to upsell other
> > products they have and we as opportunity to provide our users with a
> > good PDF reader.
> Hm I though shipping these was mainly a service to the users as people might 
> want the Acrobat Reader (shocked mumble in the audience), I didn't knew 
> opensuse does profit more then a broader package database and one more pdf 
> reader.

I think the point was that by providing a broader package database and
one more PDF reader, which is nominally the canonical PDF reader and
sometimes renders PDF better than other alternatives or supports
features that they don't, openSUSE users benefit from having that choice.

> > > If yes, this really is propably not how Jeff expected the discussion to
> > > turn ;-)
> >
> > I hope thats the turn he expected because this is how i understand the
> > question Jeff asked :) Maybe he can clarify...

It's a fine turn, and an interesting one. I'm not solely focused on the
Ubuntu One Music Store...that's a tree, not the forest. I'm interested
in this interplay between for-profit and non-profit entities, and these
different situations that have already risen or may arise.

--Jeff