I don’t like Yahoo much myself, but the wild objections here, make no sense to me. I takes only a couple of _seconds_ to change to the search engine you prefer. It’s just a matter of clicking the dropdown menu next to the search field in Firefox, selecting Google or whatever, and you’re done.

People who are willing to change to another operating system because of this, should probably do some soul searching.

I know Canonical needs to earn a crust. But this just seems desperate. Why would you hook up with a search engine in decline even with the backing of a company as big as Microsoft? It just doesn’t make sense. Canonical have definitely made a wrong turn here.

Im sure there is not a clause in the GPL about not being allowed to do anything with Microsoft or any other company.

Just because you dont like a particular company, what right do you have or the FSF to make extra demands regarding who uses what, when, or how.

This is the kind of issue (non issue) that continuously hurt FOSS. It’s seems to be NOT about freedom anymore, it’s seems to be about control and restricting you’re freedoms.

FOSS, uses things like SAMBA to interact with Microsoft and their protocols but you dont complain about that.

It’s like all this Novell rubbish, where in the GPL does it state that you cannot do business with MS ?

And complaining about it, increases the FUD levels for FOSS, sure there is Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt if you happen to do business with any company that RMS or the FSF or anyone else “in the community” does not like, you can expect to be attacked, and mabey even the GPL itself will be modified to ensure the FSF’s power or control, and the continued restrictions of our freedoms.

Look it this way: Microsoft – through Bing – supports the development of Ubuntu which, in turn, reduces Windows market share.

What Microsoft gets is increased market share for its Bong search engine. That’s what it needs to both advertise its success and to increase advertising revenue on Bong.

Canonical gets some revenue.

Linux users get the joy of benefiting Microsoft.

Fedora, here I come.

How much longer until we are changing everything in linux to suit corporate interests. It starts here, next thing you know there will be more concern about corporate interests than user experience and user choice.

I think this is a start to bad.

In my opinion, I think linux distros should leave the applications options/features intact as the maker of the application intended. Who is Ubuntu to decide what default search engine firefox has. But please, rape away mozillas right of distributing their product the way they intended, so canonical can make a dime.