My day job revolves around early-modern European history, which I study in graduate school.  While most of my fellow graduate students know very much about obscure dead people, computers are generally not their forte: many of them remain unsure of the difference between Microsoft Word and Microsoft Windows, for example.

Even before Linux was created, Microsoft has been scorned by members of the free-software community.  Its products are decried as defective by design, and its sometimes questionable business practices as an obstacle to technological innovation.  That’s old news. What amazes me is Apple’s track record for openness is even worse than Microsoft’s.

There’s been a lot of ink spilled—er, pixels fired—about Canonical’s decision not to offer a graphical interface in the server edition. The debate is understandable. After all, given Canonical’s professed commitment to ease of use, it might seem a bit strange that Ubuntu Server Edition should not come with some kind of desktop environment by default.

One of the three fundamental principles of the Ubuntu philosophy is the availability of software in a user’s native language, whatever that happens to be. While those of us who grew up speaking one of the world’s top 10 languages might never give linguistic freedom a second thought, this is an area where Ubuntu clearly outperforms its proprietary competitors.

As anyone familiar with the Linux wireless scene before 2006 knows, Broadcom, which manufacturers the wireless chipsets found in many laptops, was for a long time synonymous with everything evil about closed-source software.  That’s changing. Here’s how.

Ubuntu’s objective of becoming the distribution that finally brings Linux to “human beings,” i.e. non-geeks, is certainly ambitious.  Its simultaneous (and thus far successful) pursuit of the server market, however, is perhaps yet more impressive.