Slashdot Mirror


Shuttleworth on Ubuntu's Direction and Intent

cj2003 writes "Mark Shuttleworth has released a FAQ about Ubuntu's Direction and Intent. It comments on the discussions of funding, of being a Debian-fork or not, of the strange names, and many other 'hot topics' relating to Ubuntu. In his own words: 'This document exists to give the community some insight into my thinking, and to a certain extent that of the Community Council, Technical Board and other governance structures - on some of the issues and decisions that have been controversial.'"

12 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Professional Addition by agraupe · · Score: 5, Funny

    Professional addition? I mean, humans can be fast, but I thought calculators kinda put an end to all those professional adders.

  2. Insightful indeed... by menorikey · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Personally I think Ubuntu is great, probably one of the better distros of Linux that I've seen to date. The only problem I've run across is that it doesn't want to play nice with my Inspiron 9300, but that's not specific to Ubuntu; I have the same issue with SUSE as well, so mod me down if you think it's a dig (which it's not).

    (As an aside, Ubuntu "Live" was great for testing out that OS X x86 release that was going around, so in that regards, kudos to Ubuntu for being straight-forward to provide the means to get OSx86 up and running.)

    --
    This sig is six words long.
  3. Jambo Ubuntu by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ubuntu 5.04 was like Windows 2000, and before that Windows95, and MacOS7.0 before that (and Win3.1 before than, and DOS, and VMS, and CP/M...): each of those was a desktop OS that "finally arrived". Easy enough to install, reliable enough to use all day, integrated enough not to miss the predecessor it supplanted. So when each of those rolled around, I switched. This time, I quarantined my old Windows machine in a closet, just opening an Ubuntu VNC window on it when absolutely necessary. If Ubuntu could just include a Multisync that syncs my Treo 600 (including Calendar and noncorrupted Contacts) to Evolution properly, I wouldn't even have to look in the VNC rearview mirror.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  4. Money Talks by mpapet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And it sure does make it easy to build a better distro.

    He's certainly made me believe he's sticking to Debian for the heavy lifting then Q/A and patching to make the packages perform the way he wants them.

    I do wonder though if the Debian volunteers will really stick around and still take pride in working on the distro that makes Ubuntu so good.

    --
    http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
  5. Grumpy Groundhog info by jtatum · · Score: 5, Informative
    Mr. Shuttleworth mentions the as yet unannounced Grumpy Groundhog project in TFA. He says it's ToBeAnnounced which I took as a hint that info is in the wiki:

    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GrumpyGroundhog

    It's an ubuntu distribution for developers that has the daily builds of everything:
    Upstream development in the open source world moves at a tremendous pace. Many developers like to keep up to date with specific upstream products, but the work involved in building from CVS every day is substantial. With The Grumpy Groundhog Project, Ubuntu provides those developers with a ready source of packages containing the latest upstream code.

    These same packages will allow cutting-edge developers to keep track of changes in the upstream codebase that might affect the distribution later down the line. For example, these packages can be auto-built with the latest compiler and toolchain packages to test compatibility with the versions that may be used for the next release of Ubuntu.
  6. What a nice guy by barkholt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How wonderfull the world would be if his behaviour and attitude was the default among rich people - using his money with a vision to improve the world, instead of getting 8 sportcars and a larger penis.

    --
    - barkholt
  7. The crux of the article... by sweetnjguy29 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The most important part of the wiki is towards the end, when Shuttleworth states that the real reason for funding Ubuntu is to solve the "distro collaboration problem" by collaboring with other distros on bugs, translations, technical support, revision control systems. These tools will allow Ubuntu to make its work available easily to Debian, Gentoo, and the rest of the upstream community.

  8. Re:Professional Addition by JPriest · · Score: 5, Funny

    How about "Ubuntu Reduced Media Edition"?!

    --
    Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
  9. Re:Professional Addition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You lose a little money with each one ... but you make it up in VOLUME!

  10. They're CODENAMES! by a.different.perspect · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know like Windows Whistler, or Longhorn? I mean, Longhorn could be the name of a porn movie. I certainly wouldn't want my child using it, especially if Bill were in it. But it doesn't matter, because the actual release is called Vista. Similarly, Ubuntu codename "Breezy Badger" is, officially, Ubuntu 5.10; "Hoary Hedgehog" was Ubuntu 5.04; "Warty Warthog" was Ubuntu 4.10. As you so astutely notice, naming as a matter of "marketing"; how much marketing do you want them to put into the names of unreleased software? When the final releases are professionally, numerically named, what, exactly, are you complaining about?

  11. Re:I disagree. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pro sees no benefits whatsoever in this environment; it's no more stable, functional or secure.

    When XP came out, the logic was that anyone on 98/ME could move to XP Home, while XP Pro was for those who needed 'that weird esoteric enterprise stuff' that was only in windows 2000 professional.

    So when all these users got their new laptops and desktops with xp home preinstalled it was a pretty rude awakening that MS had actually removed the webserver and disabled the ability to connect to a domain entirely.

    It wasn't simply that Home was a watered down version of XP Pro (people were pretty much expecting that)...in some significant respects it was a waterned down version of 98!!! "Upgrading" from 98 to Home actually removed 2 pretty major features.

    A lot of hobbyists, tele-communters, home-based web developers, power users, savvy gamers, and so forth got burnt by Home Edition. It was aggravated by the price difference, and the fact that many system builders didn't offer XP as an option in their more home-consumer targeted products... yet many "home consumers" needed XP Pro, but had no reason to pay 60% more for an 'enterprise workstation model of pc/laptop' ... forcing them to accept the bundled home edition and then buy XP Pro separately... (and at a rather ridiculous price considering how similiar the products are.)

    Additionally the watered down security model, the lack of support for encryption (what?! Home users don't need privacy??) and limiting users to the "Microsoft Way" of setting up shared folders etc (hiding all the details where users literally could not meaningfully get to them -- yet all the details were there for misbehaving software to bungle up) was a real disservice to consumers.

    Finally the loss of remote desktop, has saved the day for countless thousands as more clued friends family are able to solve their problems. (Sure home comes with remote assistance which is much much much clumsier and more of a pain to setup, especially when all parties are behind NAT boxes. Getting RD up and running is a few checkboxes and an easy nat/firewall tweak...)

    Home solidly deserves its reputation for being crippled.

  12. ObIndy by sharkey · · Score: 5, Funny
    all those professional adders

    Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

    --

    --
    "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.