What would it take to get the major distros to include Bitcoin in their pre-installed software? Bitcoin and the FOSS community share many values in common, so I suspect we could get some sympathy for including our open-source, decentralized currency in Linux distros.
Anyone else think this is a good idea?
There are extremely large amounts of politics that go into deciding not only what software should be included in the default installations, and I can tell you right now that Bitcoin will never be included in the default installation of CentOS/Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/etc, and it never should be.
bitcoind is included in the repositories of many distributions by virtue of being open source, but you are vastly overestimating the overlap between Bitcoin and FOSS 'values', and underestimating the amount of work and politics that goes into package set selections.
also basically this:
I don't think it's a good approach to try and force Bitcoin upon anybody. Such methods are bound to spur negative reactions and honestly I don't think Bitcoin needs such questionable forms of advertising.
Make nice packages for all the flavors of Linux out there and improve the user experience of the client(s). While you're at it, see that the smartphone wallets get polished and are present in all the (alternative) appstores.
With something like Bitcoin where even tech-people are very quick to dismiss it as a scam, we really should not push it too much - especially given its beta status. Let's keep improving the infrastructure and the usability and Bitcoin's advantages will speak for itself.
I don't use Ubuntu any more because of some software they force into my system, even if I don't use it and/or disable it (Ubuntu One, Unity, Software Center). I would be livid if someone tried to hamfistedly wedge a bitcoin client into my Linux distribution, doubly so if they forced me to download the blockchain or something.
Distributions should include as few network service packages by default as possible. Anything more is a security risk/more trouble for admins to lock down or disable.