On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 9:02 AM, Jeremiah Foster <[email protected]> wrote: > > MeeGo is an Open Source Linux distribution.
It might help us to advertise that fact a bit more -- I just glanced at the front page of www.meego.com, and I don't see the words "Open Source" or "Free Software" anywhere. The word "Linux" only shows up at the very bottom, in a couple of links and trademark notices. > This means that it > provides Open Source software packages conveniently installed for > those who download MeeGo or those who buy a computer with MeeGo on it. Right. But note that MeeGo doesn't prevent vendors who ship MeeGo from including proprietary software packages (modulo the terms of the FOSS licenses). > Some of those Open Source software packages have end user license > agreements, some don't. The Google Chrome browser is one of those that > do. I believe that the Google Chrome Browser is not "Open Source," at least not in whole. >From what Wikipedia says, "Chromium" is the FOSS browser, while Chrome (at least in terms of MeeGo) refers to a combination of Chromium + proprietary pieces. > But the Google Chrome browser is just one of literally thousands > of applications available on MeeGo and its end user license agreement > has no bearing on MeeGo as a whole. Yes, the browser is just one of thousands of packages, and yes (AFAIK), the EULA of the browser has no bearing on MeeGo as a whole. But let's take another quick look at the front page of www.meego.com. Here's the text for Meego for Netbooks: --- Download MeeGo v1.1 for Netbooks (Google Chrome Browser) This release requires accepting the Google Chrome end user license agreement (EULA). --- In this case, the words "Google Chrome" appear *twice*, while the name of the kernel, the UI, or any other subproject used in MeeGo is completely absent. > The important > point is that MeeGo is Open Source, so you're free to customize and > add and remove whatever you want. Sure. And if some vendor wants to pull the default browser from the MeeGo handset build and put in Google Chrome by default, then I guess they can do that. But when they build their images, I don't think they're going to call their product "Open Source." I'm just thinking that MeeGo is a big project with a lot of funding and a lot of smart developers and other staff contributing to it. I'm concerned that it might send the wrong message to other, smaller, less-well-funded FOSS projects if MeeGo calls its product "Open Source" or "Free Software," but then ships a proprietary application installed by default. > So don't let someone else's casual interpretation fool you - MeeGo is > pure Open Source and not part of Google. I think we're conflating two separate issues here: 1) The use of proprietary software in MeeGo. 2) The involvement of Google in MeeGo or in software used by MeeGo. To address point #1, if there's proprietary software in MeeGo, then describing MeeGo as "pure Open Source" seems inappropriate. If the MeeGo community wants to be "pure Open Source," then I'm sure that the Linux Foundation will back that move. As for point #2, I don't believe that there's any direct involvement by Google in MeeGo. MeeGo just uses software authored by Google (some FOSS, some proprietary). MeeGo may be using proprietary code written and/or packaged by Google, but the choice to use such code was wholly that of the MeeGo project. Cheers, --R _______________________________________________ MeeGo-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.meego.com/listinfo/meego-dev
