Was it the Dell laptops deal? The costless CD shipping from Shipit? The launch of the fully-free Gobuntu? Or will it be the liberation of the proprietary Launchpad platform?
No, good people. Ubuntu’s best move ever has happened quietly, and it’s on its homepage.
Two months ago things looked like this:
And I went on preaching for the Linux community to let go of the source code when communicating, since it is a concept that is neither interesting nor relevant to the vast majority of computer users and citizens. Without even entering the animated debate around the term “Open-Source”, my experience that this huge weight we put on “source code” everywhere simply turns most people off - or merely appeals to them as some kind of “organic software”.
And so yesterday I jumped from my chair when I saw this…
There you have it. The power of free software!
I already particularly liked Ubuntu for its overt and constant insistence on the freedom to copy and study that comes with the software (I suppose others could take a hint [edit: they did]). Now seeing that they are not afraid to put that much less self-explanatory, ambiguous but oh how much more powerful term, free software, right on top of their page, cheered me up.
I believe the Ubuntu people deserve a great round of applause for this move. For me, starting to use the slightly heavy term “free software” term instead of the convenient “open-source” one, was a big step forward, and it’s great seeing the homepage of such a powerful player do the same ;-)
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[EDIT] To avoid starting a distro war, let me insist on the fact that I am rejoicing at Ubuntu’s progress, nothing else. It’s undeniable that other distributions do better in terms of freedom. Ubuntu still has some way to go, and this is nothing but a (good) step.