Changes to Gobuntu

The Gobuntu development team would like to announce that after 8.04 release of Gobuntu, the project will aim to merge many of the Gobuntu changes into mainline Ubuntu, such as our “Free Software Only” installer option which only installs software considered free by the Free Software Foundation’s definition of software freedom. This installer option now obviates the need for a separate derivative project, and in the interest of reducing the workload of Ubuntu core developers, the Gobuntu project will instead focus on merging as many changes as possible into mainline Ubuntu.

The Ubuntu community and Canonical remain deeply committed to driving the development and adoption of free software. Thus, we will work with interested downstream projects (e.g. gNewsense) to ensure that we make their development efforts as easy and streamlined as practically possible. The Ubuntu project has encouraged a culture of working with and producing derivative distributions, and we will be discussing how we may best serve the needs of these projects with the project leaders in the coming weeks.

As always, the primary focus of the Ubuntu community, Canonical, and our derivative and downstream projects remains the success of free, Open Source software. We hope that by providing every Ubuntu user with the ability to install a completely free system using the standard Ubuntu installer we will move closer to a world of freedom, choice, and personal liberty with the hardware you own.

Jono Bacon – Community Manager