I agree with a lot that you say (especially the thing about password entry in the Terminal window – no aknowledgement when you type in a correct one, but acknowledgement when you type in a bad one).

Unfortunately, people don’t seem to listen to reason (which is what I find that you have in spades).

Thanks again.

I used Yahoo! Search myself, which is a very similar service to Google with a simplistic interface. The reason I changed to Google was because Yahoo! was routinely handing out information to the American government. Now the same thing is happening with Google. The CEO of Google was even quoted saying “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Privacy International has a lot of concerns regarding Google. My own biggest concern is that almost every single website has embedded tracking JavaScripts from Google. Google knows everything you do online. I use NoScript and denies scripts from Google. You get better privacy if you use Yahoo! Search, how’s that for an argument in favour of Ubuntu’s decision to boot Google?

Google needs a greater check whenever possible. Unfortunately, Canonical should not have again jumped to help Microsoft (with Bang! this time). Will they at least spell out the details of the money that is changing hands and other details from the deal?

I.) All the Ubuntu user still have the possibility to choose very easy their preferred search engine.

II.) In my opinion Canonical really has all the right to make such decisions without asking the users before.
They spend a lot of money and work to provide us with such a nice distibution. We even do not have to spend a Penny for a CD shipped by Canonical.

III.) I am a user of Firefox since the birth of this browser. First on Windoz, since three years on Ubuntu.
I never used this “build in” functionality of a search engine. My firefox has a second button panel with a button for Google, for Google maps, Jajah, Ubuntu (Forum), etc.

So where is the problem with the search engine ?

In these times, it isn’t just about technical merit but also political and business issues (privacy, DRM, freedoms, etc..).

From a distance… I’ve always respected the ideals the community has fostered.

Recently I read another article that somewhere along the lines of 70% of the kernel was developed by Corporate Interests. Interestingly… this concerned me as well for the same reasons. Issues regarding the speed of the kernel; support for consumer tech vs high-end servers; discontinued support for older technology (and possibly forcing users to adopt new standards), etc… also plays a role about what’s best for whom.

From corporate involvement to decisions made for profit — the dream of Linux can be slowly eroding away. As an outsider this just makes me feel that the differences between commercial OSes (Apple’s dystopian future, Microsoft’s dull bloat) and Linux are slowly dwindling.

Linux has many Distros that mostly derive their products from single sources – Kernel Developers (70% corporate work), the major Windows Managers (gnome/Microsoft), and other key components. It’s these key players that are driving the decisions of Linux today not the community. The distributors are already handcuffed by the decisions these key players are making. To add some salt to the wound… the distributors are now making siilar decisions (profits before ideals).

Canonical needs to make money, but they also need to maintain good relations with the contributing community. IMHO, what they need to do is work out a set of areas that they can use for money making and business deals, such as default search, default home page, default desktop icons, etc. that would be acceptable to the contributor community. In other words, they need to explicitly say “Here’s what we get to monetize so that this project can continue, but here are the lines we won’t cross out of respect for your contributions and efforts.”

If they start taking the approach that they can screw with Ubuntu in any way they want to make money, community be hanged, they’ll end up like Xandros or Linspire: 95% commercial and 100% irrelevant.

How can anyone claim that Google is good for open source? They leech while rarely contributing code back. Apple is a much better partner to open source than Google is.

Google uses open source because it is free, as in beer, not to ensure freedom in computing. Kudo’s to one’s who chose Yahoo! for Ubuntu.