What Makes gNewSense Different from Gobuntu

[ Thanks to Loïc
Cerf for this article. ]

Both Gobuntu
and gNewSense fulfill the
desires of the most exigent users when it is about respecting their
freedoms. Almost identical at the software level, these two
distributions differ in the relation they maintain with Ubuntu at
the project level.

Gobuntu is a newcomer in the *buntu family. It aims at
satisfying Free Software lovers, who, like me, refuse any piece of
proprietary blob to run on their machine. This GNU/Linux
distribution looks very similar to gNewSense. At the software
level, minor differences are present like the substitution of
Firefox by Iceweasel in gNewSense (Gobuntu developers plan to do
the same in their next release). The real differences lie at the
project level, in the relation these two projects maintain with
Ubuntu. In particular, Gobuntu differs from gNewSense in:

• Its release politics
• Its infrastructure.

Placing software freedoms above both features and stability does
not alter the common preference for the former over the latter
especially when this means having your wireless card functioning
out of the box and your wide screen properly configured without
manually editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf. That is why, in my opinion,
the release politics is the most interesting feature of Gobuntu
with respect to gNewSense: instead of installing a 15-month old
system (gNewSense is based on Dapper Drake), you can upgrade your
system following the 6 month release cadence of the Linux kernel,
the X.Org window system and the Gnome desktop.

Profiting from Ubuntu’s infrastructure has its advantage and its
drawback. On the positive side, the visibility of Gobuntu is
probably greater. A link to the Gobuntu page is accessible to
anybody who heard about Ubuntu and wanted to know more about
it. gNewSense has another famous supporter: the prestigious
Free Software Foundation. Unfortunately a new GNU/Linux user will
probably read Mark Shuttleworth release notes before she hears a
talk from RMS. On the negative side, Gobuntu uses, like every other
official derivative of Ubuntu, the Launchpad platform. This web
application is released under a proprietary license. Promoting Free
Software in such circumstances looks hypocritical. In his defense,
Mark
Shuttleworth is aware of this paradox.

Don
Parris over at Blue-GNU decided to stick with gNewSense. I
chose to adopt Gobuntu. In the end, their strict respect of
the
fundamental freedoms of the users matters far more than their
differences. The wider the choice among distributions like that (I
think of BLAG Linux And
GNU or UTUTO), the best it
is. Anyway, making these distributions more visible means more
people discovering how their softwares currently deprive them from
essential freedoms. Making these distributions more appealing means
an easier switch to them.