Shuttleworth To Step Down As Canonical CEO In 2010

LinuxScribe writes "In a blog announcement today, Canonical Founder and CEO Mark Shuttleworth revealed he will be stepping down from his CEO role to be replaced by current COO Jane Silber. Both execs do not see major strategic changes on the horizon. Silber's official blog and Linux.com each have more details on how the change will be implemented."

Comments

Thanks Mark

[Abreu]

Linux operating systems are better thanks to you and your contributions.

Re:Thanks Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet everything but Ubuntu sucks even worse. I mean, if you're looking for something that doesn't require manual configuration of everything. Gentoo and its ilk are the best thing around if you 1) know what you're doing, and 2) have time to read docs and fiddle with things. If you just want a fucking OS that gets out of the way and lets you do your work...well, my recent experience with OpenSUSE and Fedora has been that they're horrendously broken. Debian's package manager is incredibly annoying if you've used something nice like Portage or Paludis. Ubuntu typically works, does WiFi networking the way it fucking obviously should be done, and allows easy addition of third-party package repositories.

There are plenty of idiot devs and stupid decisions to go around in all major open source projects, but Ubuntu has managed to scrape together something that I can install on my laptop and quickly set up as a platform for Android development. Which, sadly, is a hell of a lot more than you can say about other distros.

Re:Thanks Mark

[jim_v2000]

> I mean, if you're looking for something that doesn't require manual configuration of everything.

OpenSUSE? Mandriva? PCLinuxOS?

Re:Thanks Mark

[ChrisMP1]

No, the secure repos are to make sure the packages are coming from where you think they are from. Ubuntu is still an operating system - it operates. If the user tells it to do something, such as download from an alternate repository, it can and should.

Re:Thanks Mark

[clang_jangle]

I wouldn't be so fast to cry "elitism". Those of us who already know our way around *nix and have tried Ubuntu (or openSuse, PCBSD, etc) have been struck by how crappy our fave OS is once it gets dumbed down with automatic everything. Perhaps it's unavoidable.
I'd rather see my non-geek associates using dumbed-down, buggy ubuntu than windows, but let's face it -- those of us who use and love Debian, FreeBSD, etc just can't help but feel disappointed by the fact that we can't share our experience of vastly superior performance via these distros aimed at non-geeks. And it's a shame that for a lot of users there is no compelling argument to switch from windows. From their perspective, "it ain't broke, why fix it?".

I know, I know... "-1, Uncomfortable Truth"

Re:Thanks Mark

[HarrySquatter]

He said it was the "best thing around" if

1) know what you're doing, and 2) have time to read docs and fiddle with things.

Nice quote mining attempt though.

Re:Thanks Mark

[HarrySquatter]

And it's a shame that for a lot of users there is no compelling argument to switch from windows. From their perspective, "it ain't broke, why fix it?".

Why is that a shame? Why can't they just use the OS they want rather than being told that they must use something else?

Re:Thanks Mark

[cptnapalm]

Ubuntu works really well for what it is designed to do: be an easy to setup and use Linux system.

I've got it on my desktop and laptop currently. On the laptop, I was going to go with FreeBSD, but it wouldn't install properly. I then tried to install Arch; it was a no go. Gentoo? Nope. Sabayon sounded interesting but unfortunately the installer crapped out. Ubuntu? After a simple, easy install, it works like a charm.

There are annoyances, like having no luck getting wireless networking going strictly from a command line which I had no problem with on my late, lamented UltraSparc laptop with OpenBSD.

But Ubuntu is the only one that would install without any problems.

Re:Thanks Mark

[armanox]

Guess you should thank Red Hat and Feodra for that WiFi manager, they wrote it afterall....

Re:Thanks Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

so again because you can compile all the shit you need to make Debian run like a champ means ubuntu sucks? not buying it. thats wonderful that you are that good with linux, but most people arent. Ubuntu works great for most people, i rarely hear anyone complaining about it except people like you who want credit for using debian and being smarter than all the morons using the only user friendly distro. call me a noob all you want, i like that i can pop a Linux Mint CD into a new piece of hardware and have it just work.

Re:Thanks Mark

[kuzb]

A lot of the problems would go away people just ditched KDE GNOME has matured quite a bit by now. After being a staunch KDE supporter for many years, I installed GNOME recently, and am very glad that I did! It's a much nicer environment than KDE currently is. The integration between the apps is really good. It's almost better than Windows and Mac OS X, and is a lot better than KDE. The GNOME apps all work seamlessly with one another. It feels really responsive, too. I think this has to do with GTK+. It's just a better toolkit than Qt is. After using GNOME for a couple of weeks, I don't think that I can go back to KDE again. KDE just has too many bugs, not enough integration between the apps, and just plain feels sloppy these days. --- DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

Re:Thanks Mark

[petermgreen]

No. That's the purpose of an SSL certificate. URLs serve as a means to request information from a known source. They do nothing to verify where it's from.
However in the case of repositries for a distribution SSL is a suboptimal soloution for two main reasons.

Firstly implementing SSL creates a LOT of extra work for the server. That means either more processing power on the servers or special SSL accelerators either of which means a substantial increase in cost for mirror operators.

Secondly most users (at least on debian which is where secure apt originated from, I don't use ubuntu but I expect things are the same on that side of the fence) get thier distribution package from third party mirrors. If the mirror you use becomes malicious (either through being hacked or through a malicious admin) then ssl doesn't really help you.

With secure apt compromising the mirror is not sufficient, they actually have to compromise the master keys used to sign the package lists.

Re:Thanks Mark

[JSG]

Nonsense. This is the state of IT. A machine needs configuring. Just works - pah, it does not happen because no application can "just work" for everyone.

I'm happy with my WiFi config - I just edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf and add another stanza (I use Gentoo) but I'm also happy with the Network Manager way of doing things - [K]Ubuntu, *SuSE et al. You have the choice but it still needs configuring. On Windows, you have a fight between the OS management or the rather large vendor provided widget - hillarious.

Package management - I can't describe any package manager as brain dead. They all work pretty well. I like Portage but I also have to wedge on eix to make it usable. I have used rug 'n' zypper and various other RPM based things and they work. *buntu seems to also just work as well. So what is the problem? If you don't like a package manager then don't use it. I don't like MSI or indeed any Windows package manager and hence I don't use them, except under duress 8)

I like choice.

"1) know what you are doing" - if you don't then you should stick to crayons.
"2) have time to read docs..." - go on a course or read up on it - you can't use the Force with any application, regardless of OS or complexity. You need to learn about it somehow.

Re:Thanks Mark

[JackieBrown]

Debian's package manager is incredibly annoying if you've used something nice like Portage or Paludis.

I don't believe Ubuntu has strayed to the point of having a different package manager

Re:Thanks Mark

[Just Justin]

I still don't understand this argument of "vastly superior performance" with the hard to set up vs the easy to set up distros. I've been using ubuntu for a whole 2 days now. Not very long I know, but what's so much better with those other distros? Firefox opens and is useable in seconds. Openoffice opens and is useable in seconds. My computer seems a little slow from power on till the point I get to select ubuntu from the bootlist, but after that the os is up and useable within 30-45 seconds.

Ubuntu's pretty nice so far. The install was the easiest I've ever experienced. I've played around with linux distros over the years but have never kept any on my system for more than a week. Usually something doesn't work, I spend a few days trying to fix it. Then I say screw it and go back to xp where everything was already working. I mean really, Ubuntu is kicking XP's ass right now. I tested my printer. Just plugged it in and it recognized not just a generic printer, but the specific printers manufacturer and model. With XP it just recognizes a USB connection, then after 5 minutes gives up and show the little "unknown hardware" icon in the device manager. I've got a little bluetooth usb stick. With XP, it doesn't recognize it properly and I have to install all this crap off of the cd that came with it. With Ubuntu, it just recognizes it and gives me bluetooth capabilities within seconds.

The only issue I'm having with it right now is that it doesn't seem to see my SATA HD at all. I also haven't tested out my webcams yet but I hardly use them anyway. Also there seems to be no trace of my wireless card, but I had that disabled in XP since I never used it anyway.

First distro I tried was Debian. This was back around 2003. I'm sure things have changed now, but back then with the installer, it asked too many questions. It would ask you where your mouse was and then it seemed to give you a list of 20 options. Same with the keyboard, sound card, video card, and network card. I could read the list and feel confident with my selections for some of the options but not for all of them. If I remember right, after it turned on and booted up it just left you at the command prompt. I had to ask in an irc room why all the screenshots show a desktop and why all I saw was just a black screen with "login:". Someone told me I had to type startx after logging in and that seemed to work. No network connection, no sound, and the highest resolution I could go to was 640x480.

Next one I tried was Mandrake. I think this was version 8 or 9. Still around 2003-2004. Anyways that one installed more like ubuntu did today. It did let you chose which packages / programs to install. After installing it, everything worked except for the sound. I couldn't get the sound issue figured out after about a week so that was it for Mandrake.

I'm not too sure why everyone says windows XP is a resource hog compared to linux. It looks like I'm using 325mb out of 2gigs of ram on ubuntu right now. On XP that might be 500-600mb of ram used, but performance wise you can't tell the difference. Plus the ram usage builds linearly. I mean, I'd imagine if I was using 700mb of ram on ubuntu that I'd be using 900-1000mb of ram on XP. CPU wise, both operating systems seem to leave 99% of the cpu at idle power. I understand that if you only have running what you want running, that the computer has less to process and can get its task done quicker and more efficiently. But there is a line where you just can't tell or measure the difference anymore.

Maybe you meant reliability and not having the OS crash on you? For the 6 hours a day I'm on my computer it usually never crashed with XP. Now of course most of those linux people talk about having their computers running for weeks to months at a time without a restart. That's great for a server type setup, but that's just an enormous waste of energy for the home desktop user.

Re:Thanks Mark

[hughperkins]

You can do that using wpa_supplicant. It's less scary than it sounds. Get rid of the existing wpa_supplicant process from /usr/share/dbus-1/services, then run:

wpa_supplicant -D wext -i ra0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf ... where ra0 is your wifi interface, and wext is invariant.

Add your networks to wpa_supplicant.conf ('man wpa_supplicant.conf').

You can control it and see what it's doing using:

wpa_cli -i ra0 status

I do agree with you though. Here are my thoughs on commandline vs gnome: Windows vs linux 'everything in linux can be scripted -> not really'

Huh, didn't know...

[RobertB-DC]

And all this time I thought that the "canonical" executive for any open-source project was "Ty Coon, President of Vice".

Not leaving the project

[Meshach]

From the article he is not leaving the project (as the Summary sort of implies). He is switching his focus to product design, partnerships and customers.

Re:Not using an Ubuntu logo?

[MonsterTrimble]

Because slashdot hasn't done a logo for them yet. It's only been 5 years after all...

Thank you

[Saija]

Mark for making possible a linux distro usable, friendly, and gather mainstream and users around the world, but i wonder if the poor quality of the late ubuntu incarnations(karmic, jaunty and that PulseAudio affair, i'm looking at you!) was something Mark was responsible(of some sorts), or at least, know of it, and i'm saying this as a former Ubuntu lover, i just loved and liked to polish, tune and debug to some extents some issues with this distro, but the adittion of that PulseAudio and the almost impossible task of remove it for the system make me switch, now i'm a OpenSuse user and i liked, now i can listen to amarok and youtube videos at the same time without the need to kill -9 some of them.
Again, thank you very much Mark for the past 3 years and i hope your new roles make this great distro return to his old quality.
</rant>

..do not see major strategic changes..

[nurb432]

Famous last words we have all heard before.

He is switching to customers and OEMs...

[Pecisk]

...which is all good and great, because he cares about end users - which matters most for Ubuntu Linux to succeed.

Soo.....

[crazyvas]

Will this event be labeled a "COO d'état" ?

Oww, ouch, OWW, stop the beating!

Re:Not using an Ubuntu logo?

[mister_playboy]

it's a lame attempt at being retro-cool, just like the retention of the Gates Borg icon for Microsoft.

They can screw with the slow-as-molasses Web 2.0 Javascript on a weekly basis, but downloading a icon from Wikipedia to use for Ubuntu would be too much work.

tag: giveubuntuanicon

Good

[Norsefire]

Shuttleworth is one of the biggest problems with Ubuntu. His focus on "usability" has left the OS in complete disarray; while the developers are busy fixing 100 little papercuts they're shipping a release with broken DNS resolving. What is less user-friendly: a poorly labeled checkbox in the installation screen or "breaking the internet"? Canonical and Ubuntu were good in the beginning, they righted the wrongs of Debian, brought Linux closer to the desktop and then threw all that away with some really bad decisions (update notifier popup, software update policy, shipping releases with very serious bugs). Hopefully with someone new in charge Ubuntu can try and become what it used to be, given that Shuttleworth's hubris seems to be the most major bug in Ubuntu at the moment.

Re:Good

[pinkushun]

Remember, Mark injected the 'usability' factor while the development community kept focus on technical issues. You can't scapegoat a prominent individual in a community project, because it's everyone involved that counts, even if they don't have a face on a blog somewhere.

Take for example the various Karmic regressions that left many users upset...
Me: "Sadly proprietary drivers make it hard for developers to create solid GNU/Linux drivers. Did you test your hardware on the beta? User feedback helps squashing bugs, before the final release."
User: "Um... No, why should I? It should just work."

That's not Mark's fault, or lack of decision on his part, but a real-world technical problem FOSS faces in the fight against, well, Free Open Source Software.

That will only happen when we shift from "Who's fault is it" to "What can I do to help?".

Maybe Jane will understand

[TheDarkener]

that shipping an LTS (Long Term Support) release doesn't mean "This release is just as buggy as all of the other releases were when they shipped, but we'll be updating security issues for longer". :) Don't get me wrong, I 3 Ubuntu more than most people, but this is just something that always irked me (especially since I run multiple production terminal server environments with Ubuntu LTS & LTSP)

Re:Maybe Jane will understand

[ZosX]

Why not just run debian? I don't think a production server needs to be on the bleeding edge.....

Re:Maybe Jane will understand

[selven]

I 3 Ubuntu more than most people

Definitely. Most people I know only less than 3 it.

Re:Jane Silber?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Jane is a guy's name in South Africa?

"Since Jane joined the company, she and I have shared the load of coordinating between the leaders of all the key teams that make up Canonical."

Ooh, to be sure to be sure, there's a clue in that statement like it or not.

Re:Not using an Ubuntu logo?

[Blakey Rat]

Slashdot hasn't made a new icon since like 2004. Even when they did the redesign a couple years ago, one of the requirements was to be compatible with all their existing (read: shitty) icons, because they were too fucking lazy to make new ones, and they don't care enough to hire someone to.

If you ever have a question about anything relating to Slashdot, just imagine what the laziest person on Earth would do and you'll have your answer.