Gobuntu was a short-lived official derivative of the
Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
that was conceived to provide a distribution consisting entirely of
free software
Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...
. It was first released in October 2007.
Because Ubuntu now incorporates a "free software only" installer option, the Gobuntu project was rendered redundant in early 2008. As a result, Canonical made the decision officially to end the Gobuntu project with version 8.04.
In March 2009, it was announced that "Gobuntu 8.04.1 is the final release of Gobuntu. The project has merged back to mainline Ubuntu, so there is no need for a separate distribution".
History and development
Mark Shuttleworth
Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African and British entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux operating system. In 2002, Shuttleworth became the first African to travel to spa ...
first mentioned the idea of creating an Ubuntu derivative named ''Gnubuntu'' consisting entirely of
free software
Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...
, on 24 November 2005. Due to
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman ( ; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...
's disapproval of the name, the project was later renamed ''Ubuntu-libre''. Stallman had previously endorsed a distribution based on Ubuntu called
gNewSense
gNewSense was a Linux distribution, active from 2006 to 2016. It was based on Debian, and developed with sponsorship from the Free Software Foundation. Its goal was user-friendliness, but with all proprietary (e.g. binary blobs) and non-free ...
, and has criticized Ubuntu for using