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Mark Shuttleworth Tries To Lure OpenSUSE Devs

polar_bear` writes "A lot of developers are angry at Novell for its deal with Microsoft, but is it fair game for other vendors to try to capitalize on dissatisfaction with Novell? Apparently, Mark Shuttleworth thinks so. Shuttleworth sent an invitation to the openSUSE developers list inviting developers 'concerned about the long term consequences' of Novell's deal to participate in Ubuntu Open Week and consider jumping ship to Ubuntu. OpenSUSE and Ubuntu developers are not amused."

207 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Bad Call by person132 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The idea of inviting developers to jump ship is too... un-Linuxy. OSS in general is not about getting the most developers, nor is it about sucking projects dry when they make an alliance with the heart of all computing evil. OSS is about choice. If developers are really unhappy with the alliance, they will jump ship themselves.

    1. Re:Bad Call by bogaboga · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Maybe he was insinuating the fact that he (Mark), does not have developers as good as those at Novell. Frankly, I find Canonical's latest Kubuntu release rather wanting and disappointing.

      Folks at Ubuntu should borrow a leaf from Xandros and Freespire. These distributions actually work as advertised.

    2. Re:Bad Call by FateStayNight · · Score: 5, Insightful

      inviting people over is an act of courtesy though. It not like he threatened them or made false statements about Novell's future.

    3. Re:Bad Call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The idea of inviting developers to jump ship is too... un-Linuxy. OSS in general is not about getting the most developers, nor is it about sucking projects dry when they make an alliance with the heart of all computing evil. OSS is about choice.And a choice is exactly what he offered.

    4. Re:Bad Call by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Um, what? Who made you the authority on what OSS is "about"?

      Also you contradict yourself. You say "OSS is about choice". News flash: Jumping ship is about choice. Mark Shuttleworth is reminding the openSUSE devs of one of the choices available to them.

      Also, OSS is very much about attracting developers. Projects without developers don't go anywhere. Projects that have developers do, almost without regard to technical merit (cf. PHP)

    5. Re:Bad Call by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I would mod you up if I wasn't such an anonymous coward.

      I'm getting tired of people saying that OSS is about freedom of choice, and then blasting other developers in the next sentence over choices they've made.

    6. Re:Bad Call by jlarocco · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Also you contradict yourself. You say "OSS is about choice". News flash: Jumping ship is about choice. Mark Shuttleworth is reminding the openSUSE devs of one of the choices available to them.

      So, let me get this straight. The openSUSE developers are smart enough to work on openSUSE, smart enough to be welcome to other distros, but too stupid to realize they can work on another distro if they want to?

      Whatever OSS is about, Shuttleworth comes off as condescending. The openSUSE developers aren't idiots. If they're unhappy with Novell, they don't need to be reminded of their options.

      Also, OSS is very much about attracting developers. Projects without developers don't go anywhere. Projects that have developers do, almost without regard to technical merit (cf. PHP)

      Newsflash: Ubuntu is currently one of the most popular Linux distros around. They're not exactly hurting for developers. Certainly not enough to necessitate stealing developers from other distros.

      With Ubuntu's questionable inclusion of non-GPL, "binary blob" and closed source drivers, maybe Shuttleworth should worry more about his own distro, and let the openSUSE developers worry about theirs.

    7. Re:Bad Call by elysiuan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It was a timing and tone issue. And the post to the opensuse dev list was just uncalled for, his widely syndicated blog would've been sufficient. He could have done all the same things, the same Open Ubuntu summit, and explain Canonical/Ubuntu's position on patents as the catalyst without taking this to such a personal level. Shuttleworth has done a lot of good, and he's an intelligent guy. I don't think he should be burned in effigy for this, but it was a bad call.

    8. Re:Bad Call by bcat24 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Umm, that may be, but the OpenSUSE mailing list is not the place to make that offer. Posting it on his blog is cool. Posting it on another project's developer mailing list is trolling.

    9. Re:Bad Call by kz45 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "So, let me get this straight. The openSUSE developers are smart enough to work on openSUSE, smart enough to be welcome to other distros, but too stupid to realize they can work on another distro if they want to?"

      Not stupid, just ignorant of other options. As long as he wasn't an asshole about it, I see it as fair.

      It seems to me that many of the complaints here are due to fear. You are afraid people will actually take him up on the offer.

      "With Ubuntu's questionable inclusion of non-GPL, "binary blob" and closed source drivers, maybe Shuttleworth should worry more about his own distro, and let the openSUSE developers worry about theirs."

      What you don't realize is that this is the only way a linux distribution has a chance at competing with Windows. Shuttleworth is a (smart) businessman and knows this as well.

    10. Re:Bad Call by slack_prad · · Score: 1
      Mark Shuttleworth is reminding the openSUSE devs of one of the choices available to them.

      If they are in a distro developer community they would know about ubuntu and how it works. Novell works on many upstreams(Evolution for one). If people wanted to quit and join ubuntu they would have done that anyway. There was no need to post such an invite. It was cheap.

      The article missed this: a reply from one of the open suse devs to the ubuntu=devel list.
      --
      Sent from my desktop computer
    11. Re:Bad Call by pyite · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And the post to the opensuse dev list was just uncalled for

      Don't have an open mailing list for OpenSUSE if you don't want to deal with sometimes unwanted comments.

      --

      "Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman

    12. Re:Bad Call by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Posting it on another project's developer mailing list is trolling.

      Oh, like when Linus posted about Linux on the Minix list?

      --
      Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
    13. Re:Bad Call by pavkam · · Score: 1

      -1 flamebait? Strange sense of perception for someone.

    14. Re:Bad Call by ZenShadow · · Score: 1

      The article missed this: a reply from one of the open suse devs to the ubuntu=devel list.Wow... When did open source regress back to a high school mentality?

      --S

      --
      -- sigs cause cancer.
    15. Re:Bad Call by Grey+Ninja · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I am a Linux person. Not a developer, but a Linux user for years, and I am fairly technically competent. (I am a video game programmer, and have a BSc if that means anything). I had no idea that Ubuntu was offering new developer sessions in the near future. Which was basically what Mark said. It didn't come off as condescending at all.

      I read it as "Hi. If you are unhappy with Novell right now, I would like to extend an offer to join the Ubuntu project, as we are having developer sessions soon, which might be up your alley."

    16. Re:Bad Call by jlarocco · · Score: 2, Insightful
      What you don't realize is that this is the only way a linux distribution has a chance at competing with Windows. Shuttleworth is a (smart) businessman and knows this as well.

      No, I realize that completely. Regardless, distributing binary drivers is in a grey area concerning GPL compliance. Which was my point originally. Shuttleworth/Ubuntu doesn't necessarily have the moral high ground when it comes to GPL adherence.

    17. Re:Bad Call by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 1

      Not referring to anyone in particular, please bear in mind that some open source devs are high school students.

    18. Re:Bad Call by fimbulvetr · · Score: 1

      Please, elaborate on why this is such a bad thing.

    19. Re:Bad Call by EsbenMoseHansen · · Score: 1
      So, let me get this straight. The openSUSE developers are smart enough to work on openSUSE, smart enough to be welcome to other distros, but too stupid to realize they can work on another distro if they want to?

      The suse devs might not have realized that there was an upcoming event targeted at new developers to Ubuntu, though.

      --
      Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
    20. Re:Bad Call by that+this+is+not+und · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And I bet said open source devs who are high school students would bristle at a comment that they behave in a fashion similar to their fellow high school students who adopt 'a high school attitude.' Face it, they probably can't STAND that crap, and it's all around them at the moment.

    21. Re:Bad Call by BobPaul · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, because Minix was the next closest thing to Linux, and I believe what he used as his development platform before he was done enough to actually run the Linux kernel.

      Posting about Linux on the Minix list is more akin to posting about Kubuntu or Xubuntu on the Ubuntu lists, or about Ubuntu on the Debian lists , or about Mandrake on the Red Hat lists (when the projects were first started, that is). When derivatives start there's always going to be an announcement on the origional list or no one will know about the derivative.

      Ubuntu, however, is not even remotely an offshoot of OpenSuse. Ubuntu also already has a thriving community and the OpenSuse developers already know about it. They know their options, there's no real need to advertise.

    22. Re:Bad Call by BobPaul · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Please, elaborate on why this is such a bad thing.
      Because it has nothing to do with the development of OpenSuse. The developers list is like OpenSuse's office. You don't go into GM headquarters and hang flyers asking engineers to work for Toyota, that's just not cool.

      If someone made project related to OpenSuse, or maybe a fork and said, "Hey, look what I'm starting, help me out if you want" cool. If someone says "Hey, look at these project that's existed for 3 years and has a thriving community, why don't you help us instead" that leaves a bitter taste. It's all about context.

    23. Re:Bad Call by BigBuckHunter · · Score: 1

      The idea of inviting developers to jump ship is too... un-Linuxy

      In order to be "Linuxy", you have to develop something, do a half-assed job, and then disappear completely (devfs, arts, xmms) leaving other devs to make sense of the mess you left behind. The Suse devs did nothing wrong, their management did. Suse is actually a pretty nice distro, but will likely disappear now due to Novel's carelessness. It's pretty depressing actually. It's kinda like how Novel made WP disappear.

      BBH

    24. Re:Bad Call by metamatic · · Score: 1
      With Ubuntu's questionable inclusion of non-GPL, "binary blob" and closed source drivers, maybe Shuttleworth should worry more about his own distro, and let the openSUSE developers worry about theirs.

      That's nothing, ubuntu-desktop also requires Mono. Shuttleworth really ought to get his own glass house in order before throwing stones.

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
    25. Re:Bad Call by HermMunster · · Score: 1

      I have tried Xandros and Freespire. With Xandros I did get a working system to start. When I installed Ubuntu I did not. Fortunately for Ubuntu that isn't a big problem.

      With Ubuntu when I first tried it I booted with the CD. When the LiveCD got to the desktop load portion it wigged out my display. Actually, it wasn't the the display it was the video card. I have a gforce 6600gt that I was using and it failed to work properly with it when I used the LiveCD. I solved this easily by moving a gforce 6600le from another computer and booted with it. Everything worked, I did the install and then switched back. A glitch in their LiveCD but not in the actual installed desktop.

      I then found that I didn't have the 3d accelerated video drivers, nor the ability to play mp3s or DVDs. These were easily remedied by following guides widely published that gave simple steps to resolving the issues. In less than 10 minutes I was able to play DVDs and listen to MP3s.

      After this I found the guide to installing the nVidia drivers. It isn't that I didn't know how. I just had a problem getting the thing to allow me to terminate the XWindows desktop so I could run the nVidia installer. A guide showed me how and I had the updated drivers going in no time. I then went and installed compiz and beryl and had a pretty nice desktop running in no time. I don't even like gnome yet I was pleased with this Ubuntu distro.

      On the Xandros side, I bought it, paid almost $100 for it. It installed without a single snafu and came up looking pretty nice. Of course, all default distro interfaces look ugly and so I went about looking at what was necessary to get this thing customized. I began looking at the Xandros Network and found very little available. Most of the packages they had were out of date: Mozilla, amaroK, and several other packages I wanted to use. The selection was miserably limited and attempts to use other repositories with it failed. Few choices were available because the installed base was too small. I was able to get the updated Firefox (from the www.getfirefox.com website) running but it was a bit flaky. I was able to get amaroK playing but the choices were limited for playback engines. Most of the threads in the Xandros forums blasted the Xandros developers for such limited selection and rare updates. Also many didn't like the fact that Xandros has an activation feature akin to Windows XP.

      Ubuntu won out because the features it lacked at first I could add quickly. Also there were plenty of guides. Xandros was extremely limited. The Xandros disclaimer was that it was stable and that's why you couldn't add stuff that you wanted for fear of breaking that stability. Ubuntu had the choices and the easy set up even though I had difficulty to start. On a second machine I did not have the same issues with the LiveCD even tho the video card was nVidia also. Apparently the drivers used in the LiveCD have a problem with the 6600gt cards.

      Anyway, in the long run Ubuntu solved my problems and gave me the choices. In the short run Xandros solved my initial problems but in the long run it failed me. I'm looking for choice and reconfigurability even at the expense of some stability--at least it would be my choice.

      --
      You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
    26. Re:Bad Call by bogaboga · · Score: 1

      You did not say much about Freespire! What about it? I am eager to know. Your experiences with Xandros are unfortunate. I had a better ride. Now tell us about Freespire. Thanks.

    27. Re:Bad Call by Eric+Pierce · · Score: 1

      Yeah, like that.

      Eric Pierce

    28. Re:Bad Call by WNight · · Score: 1

      Wah. Novell sold out to Microsoft for $400M and someone said something that could perhaps be taken as a little presumptuous.

      You're ignoring that many people honestly believe this to be like SCO, an attempt for Microsoft to kill the whole industry. At that, even if you don't see that outcome as likely, many people do and you should be able to see how in the light of this a simple position statement and invitation to the developers involved is reasonable. If you don't like it, comment to Novell about their deal

      You people who blow up about having to read someone else's unsolicited opinion are babies. If you do something, expect others to comment, especially if you sell them out.

    29. Re:Bad Call by BobPaul · · Score: 1

      OpenSuse developers already know about alternatives. If they want to leave, they will. If they don't they will stay. Spamming their list won't do anything but make it more likely that those who do leave choose a different alternative. This isn't about people whining, this is about Mark no understanding the basic psychology behind advertising tactics.

      I'm an Ubuntu user.

    30. Re:Bad Call by VanessaE · · Score: 1
      Last I knew, the GPL was not about whether you could toss in a binary blob with your distribution or make it available for download. Last I knew, that was entirely up to the person or company who wrote that blob, and what their license says, because it's their code. I always understood the GPL to be about, in simple terms, what you do with your source code when you develop a program that relies on someone else's GPL'd program or closed-source blob.


      The most prevalent such blobs I can think of are the ATI and nvidia drivers as supplied by their respective companies, so I'll use those as examples. Xorg doesn't depend on the nvidia blob, nor does it depend on the ATI blob, but it can make use of both drivers. Neither company is likely to open their source code for fear of giving away trade secrets or some such thing, no matter how much we bitch about them. I figure the same will hold true for those binary-only wireless drivers I keep seeing mention of. I doubt the company responsible for those is going to open-source them anytime soon.

      So, our only option left is to use those binary drivers, whatever they are, so that we don't get left behind the other "supported" OS's, at least until someone manages to duplicate their functionality in an open-source form. In other words, who really gives a shit if Shuttleworth includes binary/non-GPL code in [x|k|ed]ubuntu if the end result is more people being able to use it and being happy with it? Yes there's some risk of one or more of those binary-only drivers being abandoned due to violating the distribution rights granted by those who maintain them, but do you just quit distributing them, and expect the unwashed masses to which Ubuntu is aimed, to know how to go get them direct from the maintainers? How does that make Linux look to one of those users when they see that they can't get the same things they can in Windows or OS X?

      Besides, it's not like the inclusion of those blobs is forcing people to stop developing open source alternatives, and it wouldn't be the first time someone's reverse-engineered a driver to produce an open-source alternative, without violating any laws or licenses.

    31. Re:Bad Call by jlarocco · · Score: 1
      Last I knew, the GPL was not about whether you could toss in a binary blob with your distribution or make it available for download.

      Section 3 of the GPL makes it pretty clear that to distrubute a piece of software under the GPL, the entire source code must be available: "For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable."

      In other words, who really gives a shit if Shuttleworth includes binary/non-GPL code in [x|k|ed]ubuntu if the end result is more people being able to use it and being happy with it?

      If nobody gave a shit about GPL compliance, this whole story wouldn't exist. Mark Shuttleworth in openSUSE forum:

      "Novell's decision to go to great lengths to circumvent the patent framework clearly articulated in the GPL has sent shockwaves through the community. If you are an OpenSUSE developer who is concerned about the long term consequences of this pact, you may be interested in some of the events happening next week as part of the Ubuntu Open Week:"

      So, Novell possibly skirting the GPL is bad, but Ubuntu possibly skirting the GPL is good?

    32. Re:Bad Call by slocan · · Score: 1

      The OpenSUSE list indeed is open and probably does get what some might perceive as unwanted messages, as well as messages which would be better received and heard if placed somewhere else.

      And that is the point, as I understood, elysiuan was making. A point from the view of Ubuntu, or more precisely from the view of Mark's intentions. Not from the view of the OpenSuse list, which is open.

      I.e. Mark's objectives would have been better served by a post to his blog.

      I do agree.

      A message to their list, despite it being open, may seem to many as a "developer hunt" or "raid". To likened to some corporations practice: "stealing" their competition's employees. It may just seem unfair. Therefore not really serving Ubuntu's interests, or even the FLOSS comunity's interests.

      A post to Mark's blog would have made a good enough point, IMO, letting choice play it's role, well in the spirit of FLOSS.

    33. Re:Bad Call by Phisbut · · Score: 1
      Maybe he was insinuating the fact that he (Mark), does not have developers as good as those at Novell.

      Why does a distro even need developers? Gnome is Gnome, Firefox is Firefox, OOo is OOo. A distro is just a gathering of software. Ubuntu developers are not writing a whole new Gnome just for Ubuntu, they are simply using a pre-determined version of Gnome, developed by Gnome developers. Same goes for Firefox or just about any other software (except for SuSE, which has "OpenOffice.org Novell Edition").

      Other than "which version of each software is included" and "different default configurations", what does the "Ubuntu development team" and "SuSE development team" (or Xandros, or Freespire, or Debian, etc.) do that don't go into each other's distro? Ain't the whole point of GPL and OSS the sharing of any new development?

      --
      After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
      - The Tao of Programming
  2. Microsoft developer community? by feranick · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why not targeting many Microsoft developers instead? That would help everybody in the FOSS community.

    1. Re:Microsoft developer community? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Good point.

      Most Microsoft developers don't realize that it's only a matter of time before Mr. Ballmer and friends show up to claim their work as Microsoft IP. That's no joke. Microsoft does not play nice with anyone. [PERIOD]

      They *will* subtly change the MSDN licenses (they have already) such that *anything* you produce *will* be theirs ... because they *patented* everything in anything that's supplied to a MSDN developer.

      Time will tell all. Anyone who has not judged them or is not aware of their (Microsoft's) previous actions is doomed and/or a fool.

    2. Re:Microsoft developer community? by fimbulvetr · · Score: 1

      Have you ever considered the advice "Never fight a landwar in asia"?

    3. Re:Microsoft developer community? by benplaut · · Score: 1

      Because they probably aren't very familiar with the code they'd be working with.
      Insert some joke about "they're good at temp-patching issues"

    4. Re:Microsoft developer community? by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      Why not targeting many Microsoft developers instead? That would help everybody in the FOSS community.

      Most OSS projects and Distros are not written in VB.NET so the Microsoft devs will be of limited use.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. New distro by thedarknite · · Score: 5, Funny

    If any number of them were going to jump ship, wouldn't they just create a new distribution. They could recruit people from the Fedora team, Trustix Secure Linux, and Ubuntu.
    I'd call it STFU linux.


    --
    Sometimes people are as stupid as they look.

    --
    A game has objectives and is competitive, anything else is just play
    1. Re:New distro by jpardey · · Score: 1

      I'd get Arch Linux and Debian in there too...

      --
      I have freaks! I did something right...
    2. Re:New distro by mackyrae · · Score: 2, Funny

      One of my friends wants to make STFURMS Linux and make it a Linux/BSD hybrid thing.

      --
      look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux
    3. Re:New distro by lixee · · Score: 5, Funny

      The new FOSS motto: "Everytime you buy a SuSE product, a baby gecko dies!"

      --
      Res publica non dominetur
    4. Re:New distro by cralewyth · · Score: 2, Funny

      Mod parent up!

      +1 ~ missed joke completely.

      --
      "Women are just like ninjas; They lie even when it is more convenient to tell the truth." ~ Unknown
  4. one word for Novell: "consequences" by toby · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Did you really think there wouldn't be any?

    --
    you had me at #!
  5. What's the problem? by stox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't see an issue with this. Mark's note was well written, and simply mentions that there are alternatives. It was not malicious or derogatory. As for trying to poach developers, you don't think the like of Novell and RedHat aren't doing that all the time? At least Mark is doing it out in the open, instead of using agents, ie. recruiters, to do it.

    --
    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
    1. Re:What's the problem? by iamnafets · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know if that necessarily is true. I'd much rather leave the back alley poaching "behind the scenes" so to speak. It's kind of like prostitution. You know it's happening, but a lot of times, you just don't want to have to look at it.

    2. Re:What's the problem? by stox · · Score: 1

      Well, we're going to have to agree to disagree. One of the primary attributes of Open Source is the fact that everything is above board and on the table. All of it is open for inspection and critique. This is what makes Open Source better. Mark has fulfilled these criteria, and I commend him for it.

      --
      "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
    3. Re:What's the problem? by xenocide2 · · Score: 2, Informative

      It was kinda tacky to insinuate that they weren't dedicated to Free software any more, and such. If Mark felt there were individual developers dissatisfied with Novell's recent activities, it would have been smarter to target them personally rather than post on the openSUSE mailing list to promote Ubuntu.

      --
      I Browse at +4 Flamebait

      Open Source Sysadmin

    4. Re:What's the problem? by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 1
      Well, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

      Trying to get in the last word, are you? If you weren't, why didn't you stop there?

    5. Re:What's the problem? by pudro · · Score: 1

      Good point. I get really sick of people explaining themselves after making a statement or a point. Why don't we put a 120 character limit on all posts? Will that keep you from bitching at people who replied to someone else?

      --
      Freedom is assumed. Then they try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.
    6. Re:What's the problem? by PMoonlite · · Score: 1

      As for trying to poach developers, you don't think the like of Novell and RedHat aren't doing that all the time?

      What makes you think Novell and Red Hat are "doing that all the time"? Have you gotten unsolicited offers from them or known someone who did?

      I have news for you, recruiters work for themselves. You don't point them at specific people; you wouldn't need them if you could do that. The point of paying headhunters is that they go out and find people you wouldn't.

      --
      -- Moderation in all things, exceptions to all rules --
    7. Re:What's the problem? by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 1

      Explaining themselves? Please. The post was more along the lines of, "Let's put an end this thread. Obviously you are wrong!"

    8. Re:What's the problem? by pudro · · Score: 2, Funny

      I guess we just see things differently. I say tomato, you say, "OMGWTFBBQ! That guy disagreed with someone, he sux!!!11!11!!one"

      --
      Freedom is assumed. Then they try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.
  6. No big deal by NineNine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No big deal. I mean really, they're not trying to hire them. They're trying to convince these guys to work for them for free instead of the other guys. The "invitation" is an invitation to go to some classes so people can learn how to get accepted to work for free. I can't believe people do this.

    1. Re:No big deal by digidave · · Score: 4, Informative

      A lot of people get paid for it. Many paid Linux developers start by contributing some of their free time, then they are hired by a commercial Linux company. Both Novell and Ubuntu pay many developers. I'm sure Mark is interested in volunteer programmers, but it's also quite possible that he'd hire programmers away from Novell. Don't you think if Miguel de Icaza decided he wanted out of Novell because of this that either Red Hat or Canonical would hire him in an instant?

      --
      The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
    2. Re:No big deal by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 4, Informative
      I can't believe people do this.

      And yet it happens enough to cause projects like Linux, KDE, GNOME, OpenBSD, Apache, and so on, to get off the ground. Get used to it.

    3. Re:No big deal by goddidit · · Score: 1

      No big deal. I mean really, they're not trying to hire them. They're trying to convince these guys to work for them for free instead of the other guys. The "invitation" is an invitation to go to some classes so people can learn how to get accepted to work for free. I can't believe people do this.If you don't understand why someone would "work for free" it's your problem. If the exchange of money is answer to life, universe and everything, then yes, they are working for free.
      He is asking them to join the community, not to join a sweatshop.

      --
      This .sig is exactly 120 characters long.
    4. Re:No big deal by NineNine · · Score: 1

      He is asking them to join the community, not to join a sweatshop.

      Yeah, he is. A "community" in which the workers get nothing, and the top executives get paid well. Yeah, real nice "community". I own a retail store. Should I recruit people to volunteer in my "community", too? Is it just a matter of using the correct doublespeak?

    5. Re:No big deal by Orochimaru · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up.

  7. Nu-uh by msaver · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Certainly, some developers are not at all pleased with the Microsoft-Novell agreement. Mark is just letting them know they're welcome :P

    Anyway, I don't see why this is 'un-Linuxy'. Competition helps OSS thrive, and if you can convince developers to work on your project, why wouldn't you?

    1. Re:Nu-uh by krmt · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because we're all on the same team. Poaching people from other projects simply isn't done not only because their work will benefit you even if they're working elsewhere, but also because it shows a lack of faith and friendship with other projects who depend on those people. What Mark did was very tacky, and anyone who doesn't recognize why probably isn't involved in any substantial way on a large free software project.

      --

      "I may not have morals, but I have standards."

    2. Re:Nu-uh by houstonbofh · · Score: 1, Troll

      Posted on the Ubuntu servers it would be fine. But going into someone elses business and poaching employees is just not right. And in OSS the mailing lists are the "offices" of the distribution.

    3. Re:Nu-uh by jack_csk · · Score: 1

      True. When you sleep with a pig, you would smell like the pig.

      Anyway, Novell should accept the consequence of having a pact with the devil.

    4. Re:Nu-uh by jd · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Open Source, by its very nature, has no "employee/employer" structure. Anyone can contribute, employees of Novell are merely contributing during office hours, and those who are developers for OpenSuSE but not on Novell's payroll are merely developers of choice.


      The Free Software Foundation has a whole bunch about the whole rewards mentality, but it really boils down to this: If a developer for OpenSuSE is obligated, then they cannot do their best work and will likely be far more counterproductive. This is because obligation to a "leader" (whatever the form of business, whether OSS or not) is feudal in nature and feudal systems emphasize pleasing the leader of the moment, rather than doing what needs to get done. The only way to do what needs to get done is to eliminate all feudal and monarchistic elements from the project.


      (The Linux kernel is not an exception, because most of the modules that Linus ends up approving or disapproving have existed for some time and have an established track record. They were not developed to be pleasing to him, they were developed because it needed to get done. Those projects Linus turns down from the vanilla kernel often lead perfectly happy lives and are routinely patched in by assorted distros anyway.)


      So the head of Ubuntu is trying to "poach" developers whose code SuSE will likely end up using anyway, as opposed to them being at SuSE and Ubuntu using the code if released. Big wah. It really doesn't impact SuSE, since they can still use the code developed. If it's not the code SuSE wanted done but nobody else thinks that SuSE's idea was worth coding for, then perhaps it was no big loss. If the idea was good, then the developers will develop it anyway. The only loser in this is whoever picks a scoring system that makes them lose.


      Would I like it if people poached coders from my Open Source projects? Actually, yes. The SOBs rarely contribute anything as it is. I'd far prefer it if those who aren't interested left and those who were interested joined. It would make life much easier and progress much swifter.


      Would I have always felt like that? Well, no, but the meds help a lot. :)

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    5. Re:Nu-uh by person132 · · Score: 1

      Ubuntu implicitly asks for developers, just as most other Linux distros do. When Mark explicitly asks for developers on the OpenSUSE mailing list, he is making a statement against the Microsoft-Novell alliance. There's nothing wrong with that, but it should be stated openly, not insinuated in a mailing list post.

    6. Re:Nu-uh by ioslipstream · · Score: 1
      Posted on the Ubuntu servers it would be fine. But going into someone elses business and poaching employees is just not right. And in OSS the mailing lists are the "offices" of the distribution.


      It's called headhunting, and it happens all the time. How many times have there been stories right here on Slashdot about how ABC, Corp. just hired so-and-so from XYZ, Inc.?
    7. Re:Nu-uh by houstonbofh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's called headhunting, and it happens all the time. How many times have there been stories right here on Slashdot about how ABC, Corp. just hired so-and-so from XYZ, Inc.?But how many of those stories have the head hunter walking into a cube farm and saying, "Hey guys, We are having a job fair across the street." The mailing lists are were the work gets done in a project. He went into the "office" (where the work gets done) and made a statement. If it would have been on the Ubuntu server, or linux.org, or slashdot, there would be no debate. Then again, debate may be exactly what he was going for.

    8. Re:Nu-uh by RobertLTux · · Score: 1

      Those projects Linus turns down from the vanilla kernel often lead perfectly happy lives and are routinely patched in by assorted distros anyway
      ------
      and besides don't some of the patches that Linus turns down later (after a few good training sessions and a few scratch bouts) get put in the kernel?

      --
      Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
    9. Re:Nu-uh by nuzak · · Score: 1

      > It's called headhunting, and it happens all the time. How many times have there been stories right here on Slashdot about how ABC, Corp. just hired so-and-so from XYZ, Inc.?

      Generally headhunters don't work by posting to the company's #EMPL-ALL Exchange distribution list.

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
    10. Re:Nu-uh by ioslipstream · · Score: 1
      Generally headhunters don't work by posting to the company's #EMPL-ALL Exchange distribution list.


      Generally, the company's #EMP-ALL Exchange distribution list isn't open to the general public.
    11. Re:Nu-uh by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      You're confused, what Novell did was very tacky, putting the rest of the team in jeopardy to advance itself. Novell has left the team and joined the other side. Mark's involved in a large free software project called Unbuntu in a substantial way, and there's plenty of other free software leaders of major projects who are very unhappy with the Microsoft-Novell deal.

    12. Re:Nu-uh by jd · · Score: 1
      Oh, quite often, yes. Once upon a time, Linus was the arch-enemy of anything graphical going into the kernel, was firmly set against kernel crypto (and not just for export reasons), the intermediate queueing was evil and version control systems were the spawn of Satan.


      Sometimes, code doesn't get rolled in for reasons that are less clear. There are industrial-strength drivers out there that are (a) already provided under the GPL, (b) have most/all of the hooks needed in the kernel already, and (c) are officially recommended over the vanilla code in the kernel by the device manufacturers, but never goes upstream. There's a mega-package of drivers for robotic systems that's wonderfully segmented to have negligible impact on the rest of the kernel, provides masses of otherwise-unavailable functionality, and the developers of it are totally set against it getting merged - apparently, as best as I can tell, because those interested can psychically discover the existence of their project and telepathically acquire the necessary kernel skills to find the vendor-specific source, merge in the drivers using the vendor-specific methods, hack the vendor-specific configuration files to include the right options, hack the patches so that they'll all go in cleanly, then use the vendor-specific method to build and install the kernel. (Just because a programmer can do all that in their sleep does NOT mean the floor manager of a place using computer-aided manufacturing can even get past step 1 before throwing in the towel.)


      There are also plenty of projects that probably would have been included - eventually - but the developer(s) lost interest before it reached a critical black mass. SGI's Scheduled Transfer Protocol, the MPLS patches, HP's pluggable scheduler system, IBCS support for foreign binaries, numerous Distributed Shared Memory schemes - the need for these hasn't faded, only the interest in keeping the code going.


      Finally, there are plenty of projects out there that apparently only exist because the developer(s) mixed illegal substances and late-night coding marathons. I've yet to decide if running Linux on a VAX falls into this category. The ill-fated attempt to get it into a 286 is another candidate. Support for Solaris' "doors" API and the Sauron-inspired Streams mechanism almost have to belong to this group. Some of these projects have withered, presumably as soon as the supply ran out and the effects wore off. Others are still going strong. Now, just because something is totally insane does not mean it shouldn't be included, provided it poses no significant hazards to the rest of the code that aren't already there and isn't causing a license issue. (Full NTFS support by getting the actual Windows NTFS driver to run under Linux is provably insane and is no doubt the target of numerous Voodoo ceremonies as I type. Hundreds of graphics cards being smeared with chicken blood. It's useful, no question about it, but also very very dangerous to be too close to when the army of undead is unleashed by Redmond.)

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  8. Michael clearly understands that $20m $368m by ezh · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Mr. Cosmonaut clearly understands that Novell will get a tremendous money advantage over the next few years. It would be enough to lure all bright developers that remain in Debian/Ubuntu world to SUSE. Even RedHat should be aware... Ubuntu needs a big push to get its place under the sun. Currently RedHat and SUSE control the enterprise Linux market. That's why Ubuntu guys want to make it pretty, and even agreed to include binary modules - the goal is to win at all costs. After than they can get more generous and fair, and finally close their bug #1.

  9. No - it would do the opposite.. by cheros · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Would you really like to invite MS to sue the crap out of every ex MS developer claiming code taint?

    No? Didn't think so either. :-)

    --
    Insert .sig here. Send no money now. Owner may sue, contents will settle. Batteries not included.
    1. Re:No - it would do the opposite.. by feranick · · Score: 1

      If you develop for MS Windows, using your own code, I really don't see what Microsoft has to do with it... Are you saying that every piece of code developed for windows is "property" of Microsoft?

    2. Re:No - it would do the opposite.. by Ambush+Commander · · Score: 1

      Yes. Ever heard of "work-for-hire"?

    3. Re:No - it would do the opposite.. by Ambush+Commander · · Score: 1

      Gah, nevermind. You know the saying: if you think someone said something unbelievably stupid, you're probably misunderstanding.

    4. Re:No - it would do the opposite.. by Marlow+the+Irelander · · Score: 1

      I always thought the saying went "...you're probably right".

  10. I don't see the problem by div_2n · · Score: 1

    In previous posts, I've made it very clear how I firmly disapprove of Novell's selling of their soul.

    That being said, I see no problem with this. With the likelihood of developers on the project scratching their heads and wondering what they should do, he extended an invitation. It's up to them whether to accept. It isn't surprised that some on both sides would disapprove and feel threatened.

    I can see where some would think this is in bad taste, but letting them know they have a place to go if they want one is a good thing IMO.

  11. More developers is good... by Bob54321 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think that Mark was saying "Hey, come to Ubuntu, we need more developers" or "You should leave Novell now!". It appears to be more of "Hey, if you're leaving, our distribution has got big fast and there is always an opening for someone we know is good at what they do". Well at least it appears that way to me - just a statement made with good intentions that may have been interpreted by others in a different way. Happens all the time...

    --
    :(){ :|:& };:
  12. damn you slashdot... by ezh · · Score: 1

    damn /. for not being able to edit comments!
    Michael == Mark
    $20m $368 == $20m lot less than $348

    1. Re:damn you slashdot... by chromatic · · Score: 1

      RedHat == Red Hat

  13. Who modded this up? by msaver · · Score: 1

    Maybe he was insinuating the fact that he (Mark), does not have developers as good as those at Novell.

    No.

    Frankly, I find Canonical's latest Kubuntu release rather wanting and disappointing.

    Ubuntu is the most successful distro. Not by accident either.

    Folks at Ubuntu should borrow a leaf from Xandros and Freespire. These distributions actually work as advertised.

    You're kidding, right?

    1. Re:Who modded this up? by nuzak · · Score: 1

      Nuh uh!

      Yuh huh!

      Seriously, what made you go to the bother of typing out the quote tags needed to compose that reply?

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
  14. I wonder... by AVonGauss · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I know this is an open invitation for flame bait, but what the hell... I wonder if opinions would change if Novell took a substantial portion of the money Microsoft is giving for pre-purchased SUSE support licenses (say $250 - $350M) and divided it amongst the open source community. Would that make Novell not-so evil and just a little dirty instead?

    1. Re:I wonder... by bl8n8r · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's more at stake with the Patent Agreement than just some money changing hands. From what I understand, under the MS/Novell agreement, there would be a potential opportunity for maliciously inserting copyrighted material into the codebase of whatever OSS projects Novell is working on. The codebase could find it's way into other projects too, creating an unintentional derived work off proprietary code. This is why everyone is getting so pissy about the whole thing. There's an Open Letter to Novell on Bruce Peren's website filled with a bunch of sigs of people telling Novell they want nothing to do with them because of this. I posted this link in another comment yesterday. I'm not affiliated, I just think it's worth knowing about, and signing if it suits you. http://techp.org/petition/show/1

      --
      boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
    2. Re:I wonder... by lmb · · Score: 1

      "From what I understand, under the MS/Novell agreement, there would be a potential opportunity for maliciously inserting copyrighted material into the codebase of whatever OSS projects Novell is working on."

      This is so wrong it isn't even funny. This covenant thing might have bad aspects, but Novell/SUSE's Open Source developers are firmly committed to Open Source and not suddenly "infected" by this deal. We've not received secret communiques from MSFT briefing us about patent infringements we're to introduce.

      In fact, our tinfoil hats are reinforced, we're kept in distinct cages from potential infringing information, and any and all valid patent infringements we _would_ learn about would be rewritten in non-infringing ways ASAP. This has even repeatedly been said by Novell's management.

  15. Misunderstanding? by apharmdq · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing that Shuttleworth was merely making an offer to any disillusioned developers for openSUSE who may have been considering leaving anyway, in essence offering them a place to go if they do leave. As far as I know, a developer jumping ship from one distro can't just sign on to another distro all that quickly (at least, not for the larger ones), and this offer would just be to inform the developers that they're welcome to work on Ubuntu. After all, the Shuttleworth was polite in the offer, only questioning Novell's business decision rather than the quality of openSUSE. Granted he goes into detail on the structure of Ubuntu's community, but better to give some information than none at all.

    But then, I'm rather ignorant of the politics between distros, so perhaps I missed something . . .

  16. Well... by Godji · · Score: 4, Insightful

    On one hand this post is blown out of proportion, probably just because it was written by Mark Shuttleworth. Whether he actually intended in his post to lure devs from openSuse to Ubuntu is hard to tell... If he had only posted "Hello", the fact that it's the openSuse list and the poster is the Big Man of Ubuntu would still make people believe he had an evil agenda, or whatnot.

    On the other hand, as you will find out if you follow all those links in TFA+TFS, it appears *someone* at Ubuntu decided to ship binary drivers by default (!) in the next version of the OS. Now that is just wrong, for so many reasons. In any case, it doesn't show Ubuntu a pure-FOSS supporting distro. Some claim the decision was made with little or no community input.

    And while the Novell/Microsoft deal is little more than corporate FUD, the binary driver issue and the world's most popular desktop disto's handling of the matter, is crucial. We need to pressure the hardware companies to release drivers, and Ubuntu may soon brutally undermine those efforts.

    Mark, leave openSuse alone and do something about the binary driver issue. Please.

    1. Re:Well... by Handover+Phist · · Score: 3, Interesting
      the binary driver issue and the world's most popular desktop disto's handling of the matter, is crucial. We need to pressure the hardware companies to release drivers, and Ubuntu may soon brutally undermine those efforts.
      NVidia, the folks with the currently best closed binary driver, is considering releasing the source after seeing what market there is. Getting others to release a binary driver may open their eyes too by just introducing them to the market. Inclusion is good thing. Besides, releasing binary only is their choice.
    2. Re:Well... by EsbenMoseHansen · · Score: 2, Interesting
      On the other hand, as you will find out if you follow all those links in TFA+TFS, it appears *someone* at Ubuntu decided to ship binary drivers by default (!) in the next version of the OS. Now that is just wrong, for so many reasons. In any case, it doesn't show Ubuntu a pure-FOSS supporting distro. Some claim the decision was made with little or no community input.

      Now, I am not a Ubuntu dev, so I may be wrong ,but from my short research:

      1. This change was discussed publicly (the opposite rumour stemmed from a opensuse dev as far as I can tell)
      2. The change stems from the demand for AIGLX (if you assume that eye-candy is anything less than enormously important for many, many users, you are wrong.)
      3. The drivers will be offered among other choices, and only recommend in the cases where there is no way to do AIGLX without these drivers.

      I, for one, think they did the right thing. And the moment anyone produce a decent gfx card (say, can play A Tale in the desert and Savage 2), I will be moving to those gfx cards. Until then, I'm stuck with Nvidia or ATI.

      --
      Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
    3. Re:Well... by alonso · · Score: 1

      Where have you read this?

    4. Re:Well... by arevos · · Score: 1
      Some claim the decision was made with little or no community input.

      Regardless, the community seems to be in favour, or at least in favour of giving users the choice at bootup.

      And while the Novell/Microsoft deal is little more than corporate FUD, the binary driver issue and the world's most popular desktop disto's handling of the matter, is crucial. We need to pressure the hardware companies to release drivers, and Ubuntu may soon brutally undermine those efforts.

      The problem is twofold. Firstly, the Linux desktop is rather a niche product, and lacks the pressure that a more popular product would have. Secondly, it's probable that the NVidia drivers contain information which NVidia considers give it a competitive edge, and open source drivers may not be beneficial enough for NVidia to give up that edge.

      Frankly, I see nothing wrong with Ubuntu giving users a choice at bootup (which is my guess is what will happen), and Ubuntu has never been a 100% FOSS distro anyway.

  17. Mark Shuttleworth is filtering messages by Espectr0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am amazed that comments on his blog post are being deleted. I posted one around noon remembering him that ubuntu 6.10 uses novell software (gnome 2.16, which includes mono) and that he should be pushing novell to back out of the patent deal with microsoft instead of luring opensuse developers.

    1. Re:Mark Shuttleworth is filtering messages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, I'm not suprised. He's clearly trying to keep a calm reasonable situation at the same time as the OpenSUSE people start madly over reacting and trying to cause trouble. The difference between a private blog and a public forum like slashdot is that he is responsible for the posts that he leaves up there. If he thinks that further debate of the patents will cause further problems then he probably should delete the comment.

      If you're trying to communicate with him directly, then the right method is email. If you're trying to make a personal public message then the right forum is your own blog (or something like slashdot.)

    2. Re:Mark Shuttleworth is filtering messages by Ben+Hutchings · · Score: 1

      I think you're being confused by the moderation system, as I was when I first posted to his blog. When you post, your comment is shown to you as confirmation, but it won't be shown again until it has passed moderation. Look back in a day and it will probably be visible.

    3. Re:Mark Shuttleworth is filtering messages by Espectr0 · · Score: 1

      There were messages with newer date than mine already approved. Mine is still "pending"

    4. Re:Mark Shuttleworth is filtering messages by fwr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      As Anonymous said, it's his blog. If you want to make a statement or post a leading question then post it on a public forum like Slashdot, or on your own blog. He has no obligation to post any comments from anyone on his own blog. I don't know if this is the acceptable etiquette for blogs or not, but it makes sense to me. I don't have a blog, but if I did I wouldn't want it to be completely "open" where anyone can post anything they wanted. I'd want to maintain editorial control of the content.

  18. Response by fabioaquotte · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Someone sent an amusing response to the ubuntu mailing list:
    https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/200 6-November/022578.html

    --
    Fabio Aquotte
    1. Re:Response by AVonGauss · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the link, that was actually interesting and funny. Personally, I would like to think Mark meant well, but in my opinion it was a little bit tacky for the founder of a competing distribution to post an open invitation to join on their mailing list.

    2. Re:Response by towsonu2003 · · Score: 1
      Someone sent an amusing response to the ubuntu mailing list:
      https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/200 6-November/022578.html
      It's not amusing, it's trolling, which is something fairly common in opensuse lists as I know from experience.
    3. Re:Response by nutshell42 · · Score: 1
      And here's a less amusing but no less true response:

      http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2006-11/msg0378 8.html

      The size of Mark's reality distortion field gets scary if you just look at the /. thread.

      --
      Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
    4. Re:Response by nutshell42 · · Score: 1
      It's not amusing, it's trolling,

      That's because it's almost a word for word copy of MS's original mail.

      --
      Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
  19. Jury still out on this for me... by bealzabobs_youruncle · · Score: 1, Interesting
    I've been an avid Ubuntu user since Breezy and really like the distro and was enamored with Mark's persona early on. Most of his public statements seemed to really back up the Philosophy section of the Ubuntu web site as well, so like many Ubuntu users I felt pretty secure I had made a good choice. But lately I have grown a little concerned with some behavior...

    -Recent announcements that closed source drivers would be default installed in Feisty Fawn is a concern for me, this is truly the edge of the slippery slope in some respects.

    -The debacle with the art team and Edgy Eft (somewhat explained but I felt maybe a little too much of the SABDFL side was employed, similar to the proprietary drivers in Feisty)

    -Now the open letter to OpenSUSE devs, that depending on how you read it might come across as a little disengenuous?

    I can't say I'm totally turned off on Ubuntu, and the beauty of Linux is that there is always a distro to scratch your itch, but I am now waiting to see how Mark and Co handle the next few weeks/months to follow up with some of this behavior. I'm not jumping off any cliffs and I am definitely not assuming the worst about all of these things, but they do give me reason to pause.

    For the first time in a while I'm distro shopping again, have to see how my laptop likes Fedora Core 6 one of these days. Or maybe things will play out and I"ll be handing out Feisty Fawn CDs to friends, time will tell...

    1. Re:Jury still out on this for me... by ClamIAm · · Score: 1

      I have to say I agree. While I really think it's cool that Ubuntu is basically Shuttleworth paying people to hack together a good distro, the binary drivers issue is a real sticking point for me.

      As with most any problem, there are multiple solutions. For this particular problem, one solution would be to support or fund development of reverse-engineered drivers for 3D cards that are currently unsupported in x.org, DRI, etc. Of course, this solution would take time and money, and has elements of uncertainty. I guess Mr. Shuttleworth decided that instead of doing things the hard (read: right) way, it's more important to get uber-leet 3D desktops, while at the same time selling out the community that has insisted on Free drivers.

    2. Re:Jury still out on this for me... by bealzabobs_youruncle · · Score: 1

      I guess the reason it is a big sticking point for me is because Fedora has managed to get it right (with Beryl as a default for supported cards) and not include the proprietary stuff. Like you said, there is more than one way to do this, why not do it in a technically and philosophically correct manner? Help improve the current state of binary driver installs, but don't load them by default.

    3. Re:Jury still out on this for me... by arashi+no+garou · · Score: 1

      Well the last straw with Ubuntu, for me, had nothing to do with FOSS or Novell or any of that. The fact that Breezy ran perfectly fine on a one-year-old Sempron 64 system (my main box) but Edgy won't even boot, not even from the install CD, makes me wonder about their quality control and this push to release every six months. Ubuntu has always rubbed me the wrong way when it came to presentation and the pseudo-commercial feel of the project, but I switched to it from years of Slackware because I am lazy at heart. I like not having to compile obscure libraries for obscure programs that I only really needed to use once or twice.

      Now that Edgy is out and barfs all over my box, I'm done. I've happily switched over to Debian Etch; it installs and upgrades without a hitch, there's no brown theme in sight, and personally I don't care if my web browser does or doesn't have a foxy logo in the future. At some point I may slide back into Slackware, perhaps when Pat makes the 2.6 kernel the default, but for now pure Debian strikes that wonderful balance between Ubuntu's ease of use and Slack's stability and compatibility.

    4. Re:Jury still out on this for me... by fimbulvetr · · Score: 1

      The only entity at fault for edgy not being what you wanted is yourself. For months, ubuntu said edgy would be mostly in the unfamiliar territory, with new init scripts and gui changes and several dozen other things that were new and unproven. There was no question that edgy was going to be quite innovative and very featureful, at the cost of reduced stability, interoperability, upgradeability, etc.

      If you wanted stable, you should have stuck with dapper. debian sarge, even eft, will treat you well though.

    5. Re:Jury still out on this for me... by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1

      My guess would be they are doing as this a response to massive forum activity regarding trying to get closed source video and wireless drivers to work. The rationale is likely to be "how do we make these problems go away"?

      So this is the most straightforward solution they came up with. The thing is, this isnt as much of a problem as everyone is making it out to be. If this gets more users on Linux, then it is a good thing. I'm sure if this practice violates the GPL, it will have to be jettisoned as soon as that becomes undeniable. And if it doesn't, then what's the problem?

      To put this in perspective, its only people who have the relevant hardware that are going to have these drivers installed on their machines, and even they can remove them. All ubuntu are doing is making it so that stuff works from the word go. If you dont like binary blobs, remove them. Or don't use Ubuntu.

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
    6. Re:Jury still out on this for me... by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1

      That isn't entirely fair, as Ubuntu admit that the upgrade process was broken in ways that should have been rectified during testing.

      While Edgy is experimental in that it includes lots of new and unfamiliar functionality, it is NOT supposed to be an "unstable" release. Numbered Ubuntu releases are all "Stable". Admonishing people for expecting 6.10 to work is not valid. 6.10 is the version displayed on the homepage as the current release of Ubuntu. Nowhere there does it say "beware: ubuntu 6.10 is unstable and should not be used on production machines; it is also likely to fail during installation".

      Dont get me wrong, i'm an ubuntu user, and I dont hold this against them. They've held their hands up and taken steps to avoid this cock-up happening again, but lets not rationalise it away as Edgy being an unstable release, because it is absolutely not. They just made some mistakes, and hopefully they have learnt from them.

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
  20. Hold off? by invisik · · Score: 1

    Is there no wait and see how this turns out, or at first sign of a problem are people really bailing? Sure there's commercial interests vs non-commercial which make the initiatives and reactions different, but come on.

    Maybe join one of the independent projects that support all distros if you really disagree....?

    -m

    --
    http://www.invisik.com
  21. Relax, people by straponego · · Score: 1

    Mr. Shuttleworth was not being in the slighest bit inflammatory. I think we're all rational people here, and it's perfectly reasonable to point out that, while this in no way reflects on the many excellent and ethical OpenSuSE developers, Novell has, in fact, been corrupted by NAZI MORMON MICROSOFT POD PEOPLE FROM THE BEYOND! DISCONNECT NOW OR BE ASSIMILATED!

    1. Re:Relax, people by quonsar · · Score: 1

      clearly, you do not live in utah.

  22. Semantic difference :-) by cheros · · Score: 1

    I read "MS dev" as "dev working for MS", you took the (more sensible) option of "dev working ON MS".

    In that case it gets more complicated, because the whole library porting problem shows up. But no, obviously your code is your code..

    --
    Insert .sig here. Send no money now. Owner may sue, contents will settle. Batteries not included.
  23. They forgot to link to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The best part; OpenSuse's satirical response _____________ Kubuntu Edgy User

  24. FOSS is not to be fragile by cyberjessy · · Score: 1

    To be successful, one thing you need is the 'Freedom to make mistakes'.

    Perhaps Novell made one, perhaps it did not; it depends on your perspective. But should that one action cause such wide-spread criticism, and calls to abandon the distro and the developers who worked behind it? Even while I have no comment on whether the Novell-MS deal was appropriate, I feel such a reaction is very sad. Is Open Source so fragile?? A fully commercial vendor meanwhile can make its mistakes, learn from it, correct it, move on.

    For all the work the guys at Novell have put in (Gnome, Mono, ....) this certainly is silly.

    I have been a SUSE user for many years now, and _personally_ I find it the best. I have never really contributed to openSUSE, now I am thinking about how I can help the team in any small way I can.

    --
    Life is just a conviction.
    1. Re:FOSS is not to be fragile by frogstar_robot · · Score: 1

      To be successful, one thing you need is the 'Freedom to make mistakes'.

      Sure! But that only applies when there is action to correct those mistakes. Novell has yet to address the damage their mistake has done. They tried to put a positive spin on it. It isn't the same thing.
    2. Re:FOSS is not to be fragile by frogstar_robot · · Score: 1

      Novell has aided Microsoft in making it seem as though the hard work of others belongs to Microsoft. Novell is attempting to profit by disparaging the legal integrity of their suppliers. Novell has deliberately worked to undermine and circumvent the GPL.

      Novell f*cked up. Period.

  25. Why by mikesd81 · · Score: 1

    Is he calling the developers to come because of the ethics of the deal OR selfishness reasons that they need developers?

    --
    That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
    1. Re:Why by Zellis · · Score: 1

      Both of course.

  26. The GPL is a Virus by CDMA_Demo · · Score: 1, Troll

    And like most other self replicating life forms infected with "other" viruses, anything infected with the GPL becomes its carrier. The survival of the carrier, and hence the future of its DNA, can easily be attributed to the evolutionary decisions it makes. Think of the GPL as an umbrella under which competing Linux companies are occupied in an evolutionary race, where the viral GPL itself plays the role of a gene, a symbiotic relationship if you prefer. What happens to Linux companies who shoot themselves in the foot? Well, the genes responsible for this behavior cause the demise of said companies, and in the process get wiped out themselves (Lawyers?). These genes are most likely exceptions to the rule because such behavior is not widely observed. The GPL though, has enough hosts already. Move it!

    1. Re:The GPL is a Virus by harveyswik · · Score: 1

      People have been saying the GPL is a virus for a real long time now. I tend to agree.

    2. Re:The GPL is a Virus by mark-t · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The GPL doesn't self-replicate. To be passed on, it requires that a programmer invest time and energy to invent a derivative work of a GPL project.

      Derivative works of copyrighted works are not allowed at all without permission of the copyright holder anyways... the fact that the copyright holder says that derivative works can be freely created without royalty as long as they are put under the same license is not denying anybody any rights they would have otherwise had. People who bitch about how viral the GPL is should take a long hard look at this fact.

      Besides, since the GPL's strength comes from Copyright, and Copyright can't protect ideas, so there's nothing to stop you from learning something from a GPL'd work and then reimplementing the ideas yourself, free of any constraints of the GPL, as long as you don't actually copy any previously copyrighted content that was covered by the GPL (but that has more to do with copyright than the GPL).

    3. Re:The GPL is a Virus by fimbulvetr · · Score: 1

      It's about time people starting defending the crap going around about the "viral gpl". It's not viral. Do you "agree" when you receive HIV? How about SARs? Or H1N1? No?

      Well it's not quite a virus then, is it?

    4. Re:The GPL is a Virus by Vihai · · Score: 1
      The GPL doesn't self-replicate

      Neither a virus.

    5. Re:The GPL is a Virus by MrHanky · · Score: 1

      A virus doesn't self-replicate either. It's replicated by a host, perhaps making the host sick in some way, or even killing it, and it doesn't turn the host into the virus itself. Programs that make use of GPL code don't replicate the it, nor the license agreement. They incorporate it. That's no more viral than a heart transplant. Of course the GPL has terms that would be unreasonable for a heart transplant, and it can have them because it's for computer code.

      A better analogy would be that with GPL code, I let you fuck my wife, but if you have any offspring, you must let everyone who wants fuck them under the same condition. This analogy seems incredibly unreasonable, until you someone reminds you that you're not married to your code.

    6. Re:The GPL is a Virus by It'sYerMam · · Score: 1

      It's hardly a stringent analogy, but the idea is correct. If you use GPL code in your work, you have to GPL it - that is the idea that the term 'viral' embodies, here, and by denying that the GPL is viral you implicitly deny what the analogy is actually trying to convey.

      --
      im in ur .sig, writin ur memes.
    7. Re:The GPL is a Virus by mark-t · · Score: 1
      The biggest problem with the notion of the GPL being viral is that "viral" also implies that contagion is in some way possible regardless of the intent of the recipient.

      Since ANY copyrighted works cannot be copied without permission of the copyright holder, in the case of GPL'd work, the recipient must _choose_ to accept the terms before it is "passed on".

    8. Re:The GPL is a Virus by slocan · · Score: 1

      I sure do agree.

      The whole viral labling is just an intentional logical fallacy:

      FLOSS is spreading fast.

      Viruses spread fast (do they? common sense may think they do).

      Viruses are bad.

      Therefore FLOSS is bad.

      It's just propaganda. Plain old FUD.

  27. Interesting rebuttal you have there by CDMA_Demo · · Score: 1



    "No"

    ....

    "You're kidding, right?"

    "Ubuntu is the most successful distro. Not by accident either."

    Care to elaborate?

    1. Re:Interesting rebuttal you have there by msaver · · Score: 1

      Care to elaborate?

      No.

  28. Corel/Microsoft & Novell/Microsoft - look deep by lotusleaf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Did Microsoft hold secret talks with Novell prior to any public announcement to any agreement?

    If so, I would hope openSUSE developers would be more concerned about this, rather than a clearly *open* offer from Shuttleworth. I used SUSE for several years prior to Novell coming into the SUSE picture, before I switched to Ubuntu Linux.

    I said it before and I'll say it again, I think Mr. Shuttleworth is brilliant.

    Look, if Microsoft wanted to bring Windows and Linux together, why didn't they do it when they partnered with Corel around six years ago? (if, indeed, it was a partnership, correct me if I'm wrong please) Does anyone remember Corel Linux? It, like Ubuntu, was a Debian based Linux distribution, with an easy to use graphical installer! And this was around six years ago! (There was even a Corel Linux for Dummies book, check Amazon dot com and see for yourself) Anyone who wants to gain an enlightened perspective can google about Corel Linux and Microsoft and inform themselves. Here are a few important articles:

    "Corel Sells Out To Microsoft"

    "Interview: Corel's Linux VP on the Microsoft deal" @ CNN 10/16/2000

    "Microsoft Faces New Antitrust Probe Over Corel Deal"

    "Government lawyers want to know more about a deal in which Microsoft gave Corel, perhaps best known for its WordPerfect program, $135 million in exchange for 24 million shares of Corel stock last October." "After the investment, Corel announced it would retreat from developing software designed to run on the Linux operating system, which competes with Microsoft's Windows operating system." - quotes source

    "Microsoft Litigation" List - Educate yourself

    I ask you: Who do YOU trust?

    Do you want open meetings and discussions? Isn't that what an open source community thrives on? Or do you want secret meetings?

    For those of you who would rather crack chair throwing or developer jokes and ignore the issue, read for yourself in an interview with Bill Gates dated 11/17/2006 where he mentions Novell, indemnification, and the word pioneering all in the same reponse to a question:

    "Gates on Vista, Linux and more"

    History repeats itself, and I believe, in my opinion, we're seeing it happen right now. IMO the Corel/Microsoft events in history should not be ignored. In fact, I suggest they be looked at again closely and compared to the present Novell/Microsoft events for educational purposes. :) Google for yourself and see, there are a lot of juicy articles out there on this. And yes, I know about Xandros, my point is about where Corel Linux was headed.

  29. How this looks to me by towsonu2003 · · Score: 1

    Here's how it looks to me: Related Stories [+] Novell Gets $348 Million From Microsoft 308 comments

  30. blog quote made me lol by bunions · · Score: 4, Funny
    Stuff like what Mark did is simply not done.

    his emphasis

    Ok, there's two, warring stereotypes here. First:

    Did anyone else picture that being posted by Sir Fauntleroy Etherbottom III directly after his monocle flew right off into the crumpets?

    "I dare say, this Shuttleworth fellow is the worst kind of bounder. This sort of thing is just not done!"

    Second:
    "Stuff like what Mark did"

    Ok, Cletus, simmer down! Y'know cousin Mark ain't been right lately, not since his ol' smell hound done up and runned off.

    --
    there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
  31. Wonder what Miguel thinks about that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Why does that whole thing remind me of the Gnome announcement posted on the KDE mailing list on Aug 15 1997... Now that Miguel works at Novell would be interesting to hear what he thinks about that post :-)

    Peter.

  32. Your Bad Call was... by towsonu2003 · · Score: 1
    Folks at Ubuntu should borrow a leaf from Xandros and Freespire. These distributions actually work as advertised.
    You should have known that mentioning Freespire or Linspire or (god forbid) Lindows as model distros in Slashdot is karma suicide... And not unfairly so...
    1. Re:Your Bad Call was... by frup · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Yeah and just look on their forums how bad their support is. Only in August of this year were they getting XGL and Compiz working, and when one of the people had left his xorg.conf with 32 bit depth, the maintainer of the package didn't say hey you're meant to change that to 24 (like the error message he posted indicated) but hey ho rum tum tum to effect of something useless. That distribution doesn't work... their "famous CNR" is piece of crap with out dated software and breaks very easy. Linspire was the first distro I tried, mainly because I got a free coupon from some random site and had just got broadband... I stayed with it for less than a month because it was so useless. Ubuntu was like a breath of fresh air. Apt-get worked properly on it and CNR is no better than synaptic, just with far less software. Linspire is only better because it comes with codecs... which I only use now to play stuff from my ipod. I don't know why anyone would seriously think that Linspire works better than Ubuntu. Sure I recommend it as an option to idiots but they usually prefer Ubuntu anyway.

    2. Re:Your Bad Call was... by mushadv · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ubuntu is sort of close... but by refusing to have anything proprietary it will never "just work" because graphics drivers and such aren't free as in beer yet.

      Ubuntu 7.04 will have proprietary drivers installed by default to make way for AIGLX and Compiz or Beryl. And they are free as in beer, but they're not free as in speech.

      There's a pretty big controversy a-brewin' at the wiki about the decision, but I think it's justified. Some compromises have to be made in order to survive a proprietary world, and it's still primarily free software. I don't want Ubuntu to be left behind as the last major OS without a compositing window manager after Vista launches. What really concerns me is how this'll go over after the Kororaa controversy.

    3. Re:Your Bad Call was... by DandyRandy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It looks like that in one year your advice to some novice at slashdot.com will read: ''You should have known that mentioning Ubuntu, Novell, Xandross, Freespire, Linspire or Lindows as model distros in Slashdot is karma suicide!''
      O, Tempora! O, Mores!

    4. Re:Your Bad Call was... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Some compromises have to be made in order to survive a proprietary world


      And if that means that you have to compromise the licensing on someone else's code then that's a sacrifice that you are willing to make, right? Why not go the whole hog and just pirate Windows?

      For reference: http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.ht ml

      "Closed source Linux kernel modules are illegal."
      "Closed source Linux kernel modules are unworkable."
      "Closed source Linux kernel modules are unethical."

    5. Re:Your Bad Call was... by Chris_Jefferson · · Score: 1

      Just out of interest, why do none of the major kernel contributors (and in particular Linus) not seem to agree with this?

      --
      Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
    6. Re:Your Bad Call was... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
      Just out of interest, why do none of the major kernel contributors (and in particular Linus) not seem to agree with this?

      WTF? Did you even follow the link, or do you have some criteria by which Greg Kroah-Hartman isn't a major kernel contributor?

      It IS true that Linux has stated that in his PERSONAL opinion it is POSSIBLE for a non-derived module to exist as long as it wasn't "written with Linux in mind" (Reference: http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/12/3/228) but he certainly doesn't claim to speak for all major Linux contributors even to that extent.

      Now if you actually have ANY source to support Linus or all major kernel contributors supporting all the proprietary crap in Ubuntu (principally wireless card drivers and increasingly graphic card drivers too) then how about you cite them? How about you apologise for the slur against Greg too?
    7. Re:Your Bad Call was... by CarnivorousCoder · · Score: 1
      Just out of interest, why do none of the major kernel contributors (and in particular Linus) not seem to agree with this?

      What makes you think that all of the major kernel contributors do agree with this? Oh, I see... you didn't intend to write that double negative.

      --
      What are you doing now, you lazy drunken obscene unsayable son of an unnameable gipsy obscenity?
    8. Re:Your Bad Call was... by piranha(jpl) · · Score: 1

      Link, paraphrased: "Closed source Linux kernel modules are illegal. Don't ask me how. Oh, but I know. Just talk to a lawyer. Don't ask anyone this question in public."

  33. Why (Re:Microsoft developer community?) by kaiwai · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've spent a good weekend of my life trying to get the wireless working with Fedora Core 6, along with Ubuntu; you're really going to attract developers with the half assed, half baked crap that seems to being pushed out by the opensource developers? get the damn product working properly, then maybe those "Microsoft developers" will view Linux as a viable platform to develop on, rather than some operating system for those who wish to waste a whole weekend on trying to get the damn parts working properly.

    As for Shuttleworth, its about bloody time he piped down from his grand standing and actually got his damn distribution working correctly out of the box rather than jumping on every Microsoft and competitior bashing bandwagon that goes past his doorway, and instead, actually correct the deficiencies in his distribution; like the lack of WPA configuration and setup - no wpa-gui sucks, its broken and doesn't work.

    The day I can dump a ditribution on his oh-so-generic laptop (Toshiba A100) and everything works out of the box, without distorted sound, constant wireless network dropping - then Linux will have made a success on the desktop, until then, it'll be relegated to the server and the desktops of those with way too much time on their hands.

    Yeah, I'll get marked down, and a jihad declared on my ass because I *dare* question the almighty penguin agenda, but for christ sake, part of being an adult is accepting praise as well as acknowledging deficiencies and correcting them as they arrise - something which the Linux/OpenSource community is no very good at.

    1. Re:Why (Re:Microsoft developer community?) by kaiwai · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just a couple of points (no necessarily directed at you):

      1) Who ever the coward who marked me down, show your face, or are you yet another Linux fanboy unwilling to accept a little criticism of your beloved OS; I have no love for Windows, Linux or what have you; I use what gets the job done, out of the box, with minimum work required; and if Windows does that, then so be it; stop the religious jihad, and start focusing on the problems.

      2) Why isn't that WPA information on the ubuntu website? the ubuntu documentation is absolutely crap - would I help out to fix it up? yeap, but not if it requires me to jump through hundreds of hoops just to get something in there.

      3) The ipw3945 driver has been available for quite some time; sure, you can distribute the firmware, but there is nothing stopping a distribution like Fedora from including it with their kernel binary; also, why don't they set things up so that when the firmware is installed, you don't need to edit 1/2 dozen files just to make sure that the regulatory daemon loads before the wpa_supplicant, but at the same time, ensuring that the wpa_supplicant is excuted before the eth1-up script is executed.

      Its about making sure that your configuration is wise enough to take into account when new drivers are added, and how to handle those new drivers that have been added, so that the different parts are loaded in the correct order - if MacOS X, Windows and others can do the job, why can't Linux?

      4) The problem with Linux, more correctly UNIX is that documentation maintainers make grand assumptions, assuming that everyone has atleast 2 years of UNIX under their belt and a keen interest in tinkering around with their system to get things working - the fact is, those who are like me, sure, we have the technical know how, but at the same time, we don't want to sit there for ages trying to get something working, we just want to follow some instructions, and voila, it works.

    2. Re:Why (Re:Microsoft developer community?) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
      Why isn't that WPA information on the ubuntu website?
      You mean like this?
      https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WPAHowT o

      Heavens, no. No documentation anywhere.
  34. Infighting within the linux communities... by dr_strang · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... is EXACTLY what would benefit Microsoft the most. Sowing the seeds of paranoia and distrust WITHIN your enemy's community is a classic tactic.

    --
    This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
    1. Re:Infighting within the linux communities... by Hohlraum · · Score: 3, Insightful

      yeah like infighting hasn't been happening in the linux community /slap

    2. Re:Infighting within the linux communities... by noamsml · · Score: 1

      Exactly. You can say that Microsoft wanted to introduce inner hostility in the OSS community, but don't pretend some of it wasn't there to start with. Does anyone remember XFree86? When Xorg forked from them, they didn't do it politely. In fact, there was literally no one left on the XF86 mailing lists only a bit after the fork. There are more examples, but I can't think of them right now.

  35. I mostly agree. by khasim · · Score: 1
    As for trying to poach developers, you don't think the like of Novell and RedHat aren't doing that all the time?

    To me, it does not matter what someone else did/does. It doesn't make it right if it was wrong to begin with.

    But I don't see any problem in letting people who MAY be unhappy with the current situation know what your views on the subject are and that they may find employment with you if they believe that your views more closely match their's.

    Hell, we've had this discussion before. What if Microsoft managed a hostile take-over of Red Hat? Would you expect the coders to just accept that or would you expect them to take their knowledge and skills and move to a different distribution?

    And would anyone be upset then that Mark was offering employment to them? I would not.

    When the company you work with signs deals that you are opposed to (for whatever reason), then there is nothing wrong with someone else offering you a job.
  36. Developers! by 0xC2 · · Score: 1

    Yes, but does MS have a video remix?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_AP3SGMxxM

    --
    Be heard || Be herd
  37. Re:GNOME is essentially funded by Microsoft. by Mike+Savior · · Score: 1

    I believe you're misunderstanding of the situation. Novell and Microsoft buddying up isn't necessarily the best plan, but that is just an extremist RMS-level move you're suggesting. I'm so very glad you posted what you did as AC.

    --
    space is pretty cool.
  38. This is about Freedom, not money. by khasim · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Microsoft cannot defeat FOSS through their traditional means.

    Microsoft has to, somehow, put a cage around it. It can be a big cage. It can be a HUGE cage. But Microsoft needs to put a cage around it.

    Microsoft is trying that with this "patent agreement". It (with Novell's support) splits FOSS into two groups: "Microsoft supported" and "lawyers may sue you".

    That gives Microsoft another chance to move the people from the "lawyers may sue you" group into the "Microsoft supported" group. And once they're there, they're in the cage and Microsoft can alter the rules how ever they want, whenever they want.

    Which is why I have a problem with Novell's "patent agreement" with Microsoft. Particularly with how Novell is marketing it in Europe where they are pushing the "patent protection" as an important "feature" of SuSE.

  39. Relax by BroadbandBradley · · Score: 1

    how's he hurting anything? not like he's poking fun at them for being in bed with the enemy.

    really, I mean people love to get worked up over the littlest things, how dare he suggest that I co-operate with someone else!!!!!

  40. Seems to me... by Eric+Damron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mark said something a little brassy that needed to be said.

    Each of us must decide if the Novell/Microsoft deal changed the way we fundamentally view Novell and Suse. That is even more true of anyone developing a platform that is a part of this deal.

    --
    The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
    1. Re:Seems to me... by houghi · · Score: 1
      Mark said something a little brassy that needed to be said.


      What? That other projects welcome developers? Do you realy think that there were openSUSE developers that said to themselves: "Gee, I would like to leave as an openSUSE developer, but where should I go?" Do you realy think that there are deveopers who think that openSUSE is the only project in history that wold want their skills?
      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    2. Re:Seems to me... by Eric+Damron · · Score: 1

      I think his message went beyond that...

      --
      The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
  41. GNOME is funded by *everybody* by eklitzke · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Much of the GNOME development is heavily funded by Novell. As we now see, Novell is heavily funded by Microsoft. Unfortunately, GNOME is also the default Ubuntu desktop environment. So in a way, Ubuntu is directly using software developed by Microsoft.

    For better or for worse, GTK is a very attractive GUI toolkit for commercial developers to code with. Hence, Sun, Redhat, and (recently) Novell all write their apps in GTK and use Gnome for the desktop environment. In fact, until very recently Suse was a holdout to this rule, and was very KDE and Qt centric. I would wager that Gnome has seen much more code from Redhat (and Sun) than it has from Novell. And Gnome is still very much a free desktop environment.

    As an aside, I would like to point out that despite great protest from KDE fans, it looks like Gnome is winning the desktop wars. Trolltech aside, Gnome and GTK have the most commercial support behind them, and that support is really translating into a huge amount of momentum for Gnome. I have long been a Gnome user, and I remember just a few years ago when the number of KDE users vastly outweighed the number of Gnome users, and now it seems just the opposite. Given this trend, and they heavy investment that Canonical has made in Gnome, it really doesn't make sense for them to switch desktop environments.
    --
    #include ".signature"
    1. Re:GNOME is funded by *everybody* by r3b00tm0nk3y · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ugh where are my mod points?

      Gnome will be winning the desktop wars when Linux starts winning the desktop wars, and there are no signs that we're even making any progress in this area. As much as Linux is growing, the fact that companies are writing more apps in GTK isn't a sign of Gnome's superiority or even progress in this area as it's still mostly servers and specialty machines.

      KDE or Gnome it doesn't matter. They maybe the leper with the most fingers, but they still can't wipe their ass. Whether companies choose to ship Gnome as the default desktop or not it makes no difference, because none of them are succeeding on the merits of being a general purpose desktop OS.

      --
      This sig is alpha and shouldn't be viewed on production machines
    2. Re:GNOME is funded by *everybody* by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 1, Informative

      Yes, it's unfortunate that many of the more common distros are shipping Gnome as the default DE now. I think this is due to the perception that Gnome is "simpler" and thus more suitable for the "average" user. Even Kubuntu completely lobotomizes the default KDE install by removing the majority of entries from the K menu, replacing the control center with a dumbed down version, etc.

      Despite the number of distros shipping with Gnome as the default DE, polls suggest that KDE is still the most used DE, for now anyways. I suspect we'll see Gnome absorb many users migrating from Windows, but I don't see many KDE users changing over to Gnome.

    3. Re:GNOME is funded by *everybody* by Alioth · · Score: 1

      It depends how you define 'success'. I'd say Gnome is a very successful desktop for me - it does what it says on the tin, makes my workstation work and be easy to interact with, and is stable. It's successful at doing what a desktop is supposed to achieve. It enables me to have a desktop workstation at home for which I don't have to pay Microsoft any money to use.

      I think it succeeds admirably at the task of being a general purpose desktop OS. Until I bought my Dad a Mac, he used to use it on one of my old PCs - and if my Dad can use it, well, I think it can't be all that hard to use!

    4. Re:GNOME is funded by *everybody* by r3b00tm0nk3y · · Score: 1

      Well, if it's on a case by case basis, then Gnome did indeed win the desktop war... For you, but it lost with me. I'm not saying that Gnome doesn't have it's pluses or have it's fans, but in terms of saying anything in Linux has won the desktop war, there's no denying that Linux isn't making much progress in this area.

      The root of what this story is about is SLED 10, which obviously didn't go anywhere in terms of desktop market share despite a massive investment from one of the premier Linux vendors, thus necessitating monies from Bill.

      The fact that Havoc Pennington, Nat Friedman, Jeff Waugh and various other muck-a-mucks at commercial vendors choose Gnome over KDE doesn't amount to a hill of beans as long as there's no real progress on the desktop front, and KDE development continues. Declaring Gnome the winner because people still shovel money into it, is simply not accurate at this point.

      --
      This sig is alpha and shouldn't be viewed on production machines
    5. Re:GNOME is funded by *everybody* by hummassa · · Score: 1

      Yes, it's unfortunate that many of the more common distros are shipping Gnome as the default DE now. I think this is due to the perception that Gnome is "simpler" and thus more suitable for the "average" user. Even Kubuntu completely lobotomizes the default KDE install by removing the majority of entries from the K menu, replacing the control center with a dumbed down version, etc.

      I think I have not installed my kubuntu properly, because I have the whole shebang here, not a dumbed-down version.

      --
      It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
    6. Re:GNOME is funded by *everybody* by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 1
      I think I have not installed my kubuntu properly, because I have the whole shebang here, not a dumbed-down version.

      Here's a shot of a relatively vanilla KDE K menu vs a freshly installed Kubuntu K menu. In the graphics menu, only GIMP and Openoffice Draw wouldn't be there in a completely vanilla menu, that leaves 13 items vs Kubuntu's 5. Also note the complete omission of "Development", "Edutainment", and "Games".

      Now, for a shot of the KDE "Control Center" vs the Kubuntu "System Settings". If you count them, there are 62 items in the left tree for the Control Center, not including the Konqueror branch. There would be even more if I had built in Bluetooth support (like Kubuntu does), but I don't have any bluetooth hardware. For Kubuntu's System Settings, I count 27 items.

      See the pattern yet?

  42. KDE: now with more FUD by oohshiny · · Score: 1

    So in a way, Ubuntu is directly using software developed by Microsoft.

    That's total bullshit and pure FUD. I guess now that they've run out of technical arguments, the KDE zealots are changing their strategy and spreading FUD about licenses.

    KDE is the obvious environment to use instead of GNOME.

    KDE is a non-starter for commercial desktop environments because of the cost of Qt for commercial users: that's why Sun, IBM, Ubuntu, RedHat, Eclipse, and SuSE are all basing their major products on Gtk+, not Qt.

    1. Re:KDE: now with more FUD by oohshiny · · Score: 1

      4/6 brands (Ubuntu, Red Hat, Eclipse, Suse) you mention would not be burdened with the financial cost of Qt if they chose to develop with it

      Indeed, they wouldn't. But they would ensure that every single one of their commercial customers would be forced to buy a Troll Tech software license if the customers wants to do native desktop development. So, their proposition to commercial customers would be "hey, move to Linux and pay $3000/developer just for the toolkit". Of course, they couldn't even say that because the price of Qt is totally out of their control: Troll Tech could jack up the prices again, whenever they feel like it.

      In contrast, for Windows and Macintosh, writing commercial software using their toolkits is free: you don't have to pay a dime to develop commercial for MFC, .NET, or Cocoa. You even get reasonable development environments for free with them, and you get >90% market share to deliver your desktop applications to.

      With $3000/developer on Linux and $0/developer on Windows and Macintosh, Linux would be at a grave disadvantage among commercial developers. Furthermore, any OS vendor would be a complete fool to give control over something as important as the desktop toolkit away to some company that can arbitrarily change prices or licensing terms.

      You may also find that many people use Qt for closed source development anyways, despite the financial cost associated with it.

      Many people also drive Porsches; that doesn't make requiring a Porsche in order to get on the road a good idea, much as the manufacturer of Porsches might like such a requirement.

  43. Mark the astronaut is simply jealous by postmortem · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ..of SuSE. SuSE looks good, mature, polished, professional, industrial, etc. It is not secret that SuSE always looked darn good. Unlike some other distros. Strongly IMO the GNOME themes that come with SuSE are very polished and not lacking in any department, an evidence of professional work.

    Remember when Mr. Shuttleworth was calling for developers to improve the looks of Ubuntu? Well this is the same call. Let's get them when they are pissed. They got evident skills.

  44. Desktop Wars. by camperdave · · Score: 2, Funny

    it looks like Gnome is winning the desktop wars.

    Oh great! I just switched to KDE. That just figures.

    P.S. I'm glad you said the number of KDE users outweighed the number of Gnome users, and not KDE users outweigh Gnome users. I'm a little sensitive about my excess poundage.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  45. Open is not an invitation to be a jerk by Per+Abrahamsen · · Score: 1, Troll

    > Don't have an open mailing list for OpenSUSE if you don't want to deal with sometimes unwanted comments.

    That attitude sickens me. Just because a forum is not censored, does mean everybody has a moral right to post off-topic messages. You can do it, but it doesn't make you any less of an asshole if you do it. Quite the opposite, you were shown trust, and abused it.

    1. Re:Open is not an invitation to be a jerk by strider44 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How was it off topic? It looked very on-topic to me.

      Either way, Mark Shuttleworth wasn't being malicious. He wasn't trying to offend anyone. Moral rights are subjective things, and clearly this didn't offend his own morals, so he wasn't abusing anyone's trust.

    2. Re:Open is not an invitation to be a jerk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      "Moral rights are subjective things"

      I'm sure Novell would agree with that.

  46. Re:Michael clearly understands that $20m $368m by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 1
    It would be enough to lure all bright developers that remain in Debian/Ubuntu world to SUSE.

    I don't know about Ubuntu, but I think you don't understand the motivations of Debian developers very well.

  47. No need to lure them... by seguso · · Score: 1

    I'm sure Mark would have no trouble finding more developers if he paid them...

  48. Re:Do it Mark by petermgreen · · Score: 1

    You have a solid release schedule
    we shall see

    the 6 month release schedule is going to be a pita for those who run a lot of systems.

    the 3/5 year lts schedule looks nice but its unproven as yet.

    --
    note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  49. Perspective, by rastilin · · Score: 1

    It helps to put it in perspective. The nv drivers usually loaded at default don't work with The Geforce 6xxx or 7xxx series and can nuke bash by removing the cursor, even when later unloaded. To top it off, they did something to vesa that causes it to redraw windows VERY slowly on a Dual core with 2GB of RAM. So. Until they have a product worth mentioning, the fanatics should shut up and let me use something that works.

    --
    How do you kill that which has no life?
  50. commercial unix - yuck! by krischik · · Score: 1

    KDE is a non-starter for commercial desktop environments because of the cost of Qt for commercial users: that's why Sun, IBM, Ubuntu, RedHat, Eclipse, and SuSE are all basing their major products on Gtk+, not Qt.Have you evern seen a "commercial GNOME". I have, on Sun Solaris. And it sucks! Ok, I am a KDE man and don't like GNOME that much anyway but GNOME as it comes from Sun beat's it all in beeing ugly and primitive.

    I think that commercial Unix vedors are just a lazy bunch bundeling the easiers option and even then only bundle the bare minimum.

    Which reminds me: On Solaris I had to use Gedit (until I had a Gvim up and running - the only Gtk+ application I truely like) and Gedit was just Notepad kind of editor. I could swear that a few years ago, before I finally move to KDE for good, Gedit a looked more promising text editor. Has functionality been striped of Gedit? The same way functionality has striped of Evolution and Nautilus?

    For the later two I know for shure - The GNOME comunity has bitten of more functionality then they could swallow bug free. And the the GNOME comunity has declared simlicity the new aim. It's not a bug we can't fix, It's a feature we don't offer any more.

    Which brings me back to the pont simlicity is what commercial users want, not great tools. And they give a f**k that I, in a corse of a week lost at least one working day by having to use Gedit and basic Vi. And another day for me to compile GVim, GNU Grep, GNU Coreutil and GNU Findutil. Now Solaris is almost usable.

    Martin

    1. Re:commercial unix - yuck! by oohshiny · · Score: 1

      You keep making arguments based on technical quality; it doesn't matter how good KDE is, at $3000/commercial developer and under the control of Troll Tech, it simply isn't a viable choice for any OS vendor to ship as the default desktop environment. Companies would be shipping Tcl/Tk instead of Qt if that were the only choice.

      So, if you think that Gnome has problems, go contribute and help fix them, because Gnome is likely going to be the only game in town in the long term, unless someone re-implements Qt under a more liberal license and fights the resulting copyright infringement lawsuit from Troll Tech.

      (As for Solaris sucking, yes it does. Replacing Sun's user software with GNU and X11 has a tradition as long as Sun itself, and doubtlessly Sun manages to break Gnome as well. Heck, people even had to replace AWT and Swing with SWT. However, what matters here is not Sun's lack of engineering skill, but their choices as a commercial vendor, which are rational and in-line with other commercial vendors.)

  51. Of course it's fair game by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why would it not be? For that matter, why would it not be okay to post a single, polite message along the lines of "Hey, we're doing great things over here and have openings if anyone's interested" even if the deal hadn't been made?

    Spamming the list with repeated messages would be wrong, as would making threats, lying, etc. I don't see how a single, polite invitation to switch groups would be wrong at almost any time, though.

  52. Has anyone seen the deal from the GPL v3 point ? by Hymer · · Score: 1
    MS lawyers may just have discovered how they can use the soon to be here GPL v3 to kill the FOSS community:
    1. Make a deal with Novell (the 2nd largest commercial distro)
    2. Wait for GPL v3
    3. Pissed off FOSS developers changes to GPL v3
    4. Commercial customers and software companies drop Linux because of GPLv3
    5. Novell dies (or is bought by MS)
    6. Red Hat is reduced to nothing
    7. FOSS is again a non-issue on the commercial market
    8. MS profit
    ...that's the plan, directly from Redmond,WA.

    I just can't understand why Novell didn't see this...

    --

    Someone may just want to kill you even if you are paranoid ;-)
  53. Not a good / safe idea by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Who knows waht the ex-novell people might bring with them that will serve to taint ubuntu. ( be it accidentally or intentionally )

    Id say the entire crew is now taboo for life. Sux to be them.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  54. Re: You don't understand the motivation by ezh · · Score: 1

    Ah, maybe that's why Debian founder made his own distro? And Mark, too? And that's why lots of good and properly motivated Debian were quick to jump on Ubuntu bandwagon when offered a salary for their hard work? Let's be pragmatic. We can all have philantropic ideas, but at the end of the day, everyone has to eat. Look who is making most of contributions to the kernel nowadays - Red Hat, Novell, and folks at OSDL. Even Debian with its philantropic motivation is torn apart nowadays with its new leader and DUNC-Tank. Call it troll, but that's how life is...

  55. Re:GNOME is essentially funded by Microsoft. by Mike+Savior · · Score: 1

    There's nothing ridiculous about what he's saying? Novell isn't adding any MS code to the codebases Novell has affiliation with. There's no reason to go OMG NOVELL WENT TO A PARTY WITH MICROSOFT, AND NOVELL WEARS ABERCROMBIE, YOU'RE NOT COOL IF YOU WEAR ABERCROMBIE ANYMORE.

    --
    space is pretty cool.
  56. What about Ubuntu default blobs? by jc87 · · Score: 1

    Ive been using Ubuntu since hoary, and personally im very disappointed with the decision of shipping binary drivers for default at feisty (and yes there are feasible alternatives to that).

    Fortunately to us this is not the end, and as soon as launchpad specs for feisty +1 start i will make one against the default inclusion of binary drivers based on Ubuntu freedom ideology and technical problems (blobs suck at several support/use areas), and of course gather as much community support in the subject as possible.

    --
    def greetings(x): return {'friend': 'Howdy', 'enemy': 'Dye [sic]'}.get(x, 'g0 4w4y, l4m0r')
  57. Re:GNOME is essentially funded by Microsoft. by nutshell42 · · Score: 1
    Quote from some guy at osnews:

    You know, I once heard a wise man tell a parable:

    I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off.
    I immediately ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it!"
    "Why shouldn't I?" he said.
    I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!"
    "Like what?"
    "Well ... are you religious or atheist?"
    "Religious."
    "Me too! Are you Christian or Jewish?"
    "Christian."
    "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?"
    "Protestant."
    "Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"
    "Baptist."
    "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"
    "Baptist Church of God."
    "Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"
    "Reformed Baptist Church of God."
    "Wow! Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed
    Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?"
    "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!"
    To which I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.

    This whole KDE-GNOME pissing contest is a joke especially when it's not about the merits and features of the DE in question but about FUD and lies.

    Oh, and I use KDE btw. =)

    --
    Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
  58. Deviant Cell/Macrophages a better analogy by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 1

    I don't agree with your "team" analogy. In this case it is more like the body has a deviant cell and the body now has to send its macrophages to kill and eat that cell to make sure it doesn't reproduce and cause a malignant growth.

    And to your "team" analogy... if you did want to pursue it... it is flawed since we are not really all on the same team. Otherwise there would only be one distribution. If you are going to use the team analogy, it is more like we are in a league (the software sports league), and we have different divisions in the league (OSX, Windows, Linux, BSD, proprietary Unix, etc.) and different teams in the divisions (Linux: Redhat, Suse, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian, Mandriva, etc.; Windows: 2000, XP, Vista, etc.; prop. Unix: Solaris, HP-UX, AIX; etc.).

    Humans always excel when in competition. Each division prefers their O/S type and generally would like to be able to work on that type of system all the time, which means convincing others that it is best. This goes down even to the sub-types. And in this case we have the intra-divisional rivalries (Suse versus Ubuntu versus Redhat etc). If people didn't think this way, you wouldn't have people trying to convince you that their distro is better. In fact, you wouldn't have other distros... if we were one team why would we? One distro tries to gain the upper hand, and if they do, others learn from it (the loser of a war or battle usually does better/wins the next time as they know they did something wrong).

    --
    -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
  59. Re:Has anyone seen the deal from the GPL v3 point by greylion3 · · Score: 1

    4. Commercial customers and software companies drop Linux because of GPLv3
    Why, pray tell, would they do that? Please consider, that GPL v3 is nowhere near ready. What do you know about GPL v3, that no one else knows?
    Furthermore 5.-9. seem to be predicated upon 4. happening, so if it doesn't the rest won't either.

    --
    Privacy begins with ..
  60. Politics by ZetSabre · · Score: 1

    I can't imagine that the openSUSE developers are sticking around because the pay is good. Politics generally play a huge role in Linux. Chances are that those that disagree have already left. (Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6lzEhoXads)

    To me, it just seems like a cocky PR move by Shuttleworth.

  61. The right thing to do by HermMunster · · Score: 1

    This was the right thing for Mark to do. He is giving them another avenue that will benefit the whole linux community instead of benefiting Microsoft and Novell. It is obvious that Novell will loose in several different ways and this is just one of them. Developers should look to more pure linux development paths instead of sticking to Novell, which could, in the end, taint their accomplishments.

    --
    You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
  62. Yes, but are developers ever amused? by quixote9 · · Score: 1

    Go, Mark! All Microsoft is trying to do is split the community in ways that give it control. If they were actually trying to make it easier to use Linux, why not enter into a partnership with, say, Redhat? Making sure Microsoft doesn't succeed is going to require some unified vision, and if Mark can help point toward it, I say good for him!

  63. Yup... by everphilski · · Score: 1

    Same here. So much for "Open" in open source ... :(

  64. Re:Has anyone seen the deal from the GPL v3 point by everphilski · · Score: 1

    What about the GPLv3 is good for business? Please do tell ... all these changes with respect to patents and needing to share code for web services and the so-called "Tivo" clauses ... do you really think businesses want these liabilities?

  65. STUFAD by Kristoffer+Lunden · · Score: 3, Funny

    He was referring to Shut The Fuck Up And Dance, the new Monkey Boy distribution that is better equipped than any other to take over the DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS and ultimately win the war against Microsoft on MS' own terms by embracing and extending the Redmond tactics as their own.

  66. I sure hope not by QuantumG · · Score: 1

    I'd really like to add a new clause to the GPL (the LGPL already has a clause similar to this)..

    If you refuse to abide by any of the Sections above, you are implicitly permitting modification of the work for any use and reverse engineering for the creation and debugging of such modifications.

    If that was added to the linux kernel's license, I think that would sort out NVIDIA and ATI. They would no longer be able to distribute their stuff (which is legally dubious already) without providing us with the right to reverse engineer their work and redistribute it (which in some locales is a right we already have). We need to crush these people.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  67. Why not? by ztwilight · · Score: 1

    This is a regular occurrence in the software world. Offended developers should perhaps try growing up a little.

    --
    Who moved my sig?
  68. A matter of style: Shuttleworth vs Torvalds by doom · · Score: 1
    Daniel Phillips wrote:
    Posting it on another project's developer mailing list is trolling.
    Oh, like when Linus posted about Linux on the Minix list?

    That'a an excellent example. When Linux first went trolling for Minix people, he carefully posted a very humble-sounding, polite message (the sort of thing you don't hear from him too often these days).

    The Mark Shuttleworth message leads off with a heavy political jab at Novell that I would guess is of somewhat dubious factual accuracy -- at least I don't know quite what he's talking about:

    Novell's decision to go to great lengths to circumvent the patent framework clearly articulated in the GPL has sent shockwaves through the community.

    That sounds to me like the Bruce Perens take on Novell's announcements, it may even be the groklaw take, it's not clear to me that it's what Novell was really saying (at a guess, they didn't realize what they were getting into, as weird as that sounds -- maybe they've been reading slashdot, and they figured that TLAs like GPL/FSF/GNU were all just symptoms of silly "zealotry").

    Anyway, all the posturing that everyone is doing about how Shuttleworth has violated some great unspoken covenant or some such, it all comes down to the tone of what he said. Imagine if he had made it short, made it seem folksy, and casual: then this great issue would just evaporate.

    (My favorite quote from the Groklaw article: "As for Novell, if history means anything, it will end up Microsoft roadkill. It's so funny to me that nobody ever remembers what comes *after* the Embrace.".)

  69. Re:Has anyone seen the deal from the GPL v3 point by Hymer · · Score: 1

    "What do you know about GPL v3, that no one else knows?" I do not know anything else about GPL v.3 than everyone else: There are issues in it (in the draft) wich would be very hard to accept for commercial users and commercial software companies.
    ...and just for the record : I myself do not disagree with these issues.

  70. Bringing Windows and Linux together by PCM2 · · Score: 1
    Look, if Microsoft wanted to bring Windows and Linux together, why didn't they do it when they partnered with Corel around six years ago?

    I can't take full credit for this comment -- the point was made by someone else on /. in another thread -- but, look. To say this agreement with Novell is really anything about interoperability smacks me as being pretty disingenuous.

    What company has full and complete access to all Windows source code and complete and thorough documentation for all Microsoft protocols? Microsoft does. In addition, like every other person in the world, Microsoft also has full and complete access to Linux kernel source code and all the protocols and methods used on Linux systems. And this has been true since, what? 1991? And Microsoft also has massive resources in terms of developer bodies to throw at software projects. So if there's any company on earth that could "bring Windows and Linux closer together," it's Microsoft. Why the hell would it need Novell to work on interoperability?

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
  71. Further advice for my new Ubunsuse Overlords: by crhylove · · Score: 1

    Can you make it work and look pretty much exactly like Windows? It would be nice if the small army of windows trained teens I have running my business could install your distro instantly and easily like they seem to be able to do with Windows and whatever stupid game it is they are playing these days. GOD DAMNED KIDS! GET BACK TO WORK OR I'LL FIRE BOTH OF YOU AND HIRE ONE MILLION CHINESE SLAVES!

    -EA Games CEO

    --
    I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
  72. Re:Has anyone seen the deal from the GPL v3 point by greylion3 · · Score: 1

    The GPL3 wants you to give the source code of your webservices, things like that.
    Please elaborate - what's the scenario?

    The GPL3 wants you to not lock down your hardware platform if you need it, like TiVo.
    I'm don't know why the company behind the TiVo needs to lock down the hardware, but then again, I've never had a TiVo, or Cable, or even a TV for the last 7 years.
    Anyway, when GPLv3 arrives, the company might decide it's cheaper to stay with Gnu/Linux and remove the lock, or go with BSD instead. I couldn't care less.

    --
    Privacy begins with ..
  73. Re:Has anyone seen the deal from the GPL v3 point by greylion3 · · Score: 1

    What about the GPLv3 is good for business?The GPL was never about business. GPLv3 is no different, it is neither good nor bad for businesses.
    Then again, if a business has based their current businees model on using GPLv2 software to screw users, this will probably be over with GPLv3.

      Please do tell ... all these changes with respect to patentsPatents on software were a (ridiculously) bad idea from the start, and will eventually be ruled illegal anyway, but currently software patents are in effect in the US, so they need to be held at a distance with means such as this.

      and needing to share code for web servicesI think I need an example here. Does this relate to the "Corresponding Source"-part?

      and the so-called "Tivo" clauses ... do you really think businesses want these liabilities?I fail to see how the "TiVo" clause can be a liability. The company is denying users the right to run a modified version of the software, by technical means, because the GPLv2 doesn't specifically disallow this. If the company didn't want users (ever) to have that right, they probably should have chosen a BSD-variant for the base system instead. Now, have we beaten that dead horse(TiVo) enough, or does it need more?

    --
    Privacy begins with ..
  74. Hah...it's happened at least once by WebCowboy · · Score: 1

    But how many of those stories have the head hunter walking into a cube farm and saying, "Hey guys, We are having a job fair across the street."

    I can say it happened at least once because it happened to me. It wasn't a professional headhunter and I wasn't in a cubicle, but I WAS asked, while I was on the job, by a customer if I was open to changing employers. We've had former employees poached away by customers/other contractors on a project before. The labour market is extremely tight here, especially for skilled labour, tradespeople and professionals.

  75. And yet... by hummassa · · Score: 1

    Mine are more like the full-fledged than like the one you call "freshly installed" etc.
    Maybe your "fresh" installs are from the CD and mine was from the DVD? You know, from the DVD we run tasksel during the install, and when you taskselect "development", "graphics", etc, the whole thing comes?

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
    1. Re:And yet... by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 1

      I didn't even know there was a DVD version, as I don't see it for 6.06 or for 6.10. Nevertheless, the CD install doesn't give you any of those options. Note that my complaint wasn't that things weren't installed (kcontrol is still there for example, but you have to run it directly), but that they weren't discoverable (ie, in the K menu) unless you already knew about them, the fact that the DVD version is so well hidden merely highlights my point. Perhaps the DVD version is only available through the mail?

  76. a link 4 u :-) by hummassa · · Score: 1

    It says DVD -- use the torrent link!!!!:

    http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php#latest

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
  77. Bye Bye Suse Bye Bye by oldstrat · · Score: 1

    OpenSuse ok, but the commercial product is dead to me.