This solidifies the idea for me that Canonical is completely clueless.
Asking for donations AND bundling Amazon shopping ads? That's over the line IMHO.
Yes, you can disable the Amazon stuff, but leaving it as a default is a poor choice. At best it's incredibly tacky and unhelpful, at worst it's a security risk.
To me the answer is glaringly clear.
Offer a donation based download with the Amazon stuff not bundled with it. This makes people feel like they're getting a clean product, and many people don't mind paying to support the OS.
Then offer a free download with the Amazon bundled, and let people know that's what they're getting. People can still disable it, but for those that don't Canonical profits.
This hybrid mess of "pay us some money" and "don't forget to turn off our advertising" is the worst of both worlds.
This is a good idea; anything that makes it easier for Ubuntu users to support the distro financially, and thus help keep it moving forward, is a Good Thing.
That being said, I'm extremely skeptical that donations will ever amount to a large enough amount to support Ubuntu all by themselves, or even to come close to doing so. They cite as inspiration the example of the Humble Bundles, but in those you get something in exchange for your money -- the bundle of software. There's nothing comparable here, it's just a straight donation, so use of it will probably be low at best.
Asking for donations AND bundling Amazon shopping ads? That's over the line IMHO.
Yes, you can disable the Amazon stuff, but leaving it as a default is a poor choice. At best it's incredibly tacky and unhelpful, at worst it's a security risk.
To me the answer is glaringly clear.
Offer a donation based download with the Amazon stuff not bundled with it. This makes people feel like they're getting a clean product, and many people don't mind paying to support the OS.
Then offer a free download with the Amazon bundled, and let people know that's what they're getting. People can still disable it, but for those that don't Canonical profits.
This hybrid mess of "pay us some money" and "don't forget to turn off our advertising" is the worst of both worlds.