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Ubuntu Developer Summits Shifting Online, Increasing Frequency
hypnosec writes "Ubuntu Developer Summits Community Manager Jono Bacon has announced that the bi-annual Ubuntu Developer Summits, which were held at different locations like Brussels, Oakland, Copenhagen will be replaced by online events by moving to the cloud. Bacon revealed that the event has been successful, but in a bid to bring about improvements and refinement in the openness and accessibility of the event, it is going to transition into an online event."
They are also going to be held every three months instead of every six.
Makes sense to me.
AND BEYOND!!!!!!!!!!! I hate marketing jargon especially "cloud".
The bad side of technology (*), those that wanted face to face events are now denied it. The benefits of that are now gone.
Online in addition, ok, but canceling physical events, including one already scheduled and that people have already made arrangements for (travel, time off, etc) is bad.
People can socialize and network at a physical event, there are somethings online only lacks.
(*) Technology has also caused the loss of video stores, CD stores, so many things are hard to buy locally now. Technology should add options, not destroy them!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I hope this isn't a sign they're having financial issues or that Mark Shuttleworth is starting to back out of the project.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Yes, technology also denied me my opportunity for my horse-drawn carriage ride to work this morning. Brutes! Philistines! Savages!
Sorry, couldn't resist. Or didn't want to, I'm not sure. :)
The few times I did attend UDS I had a great time drinking great beer with great people and realizing how much I didn't know. I also tried not to think about what it was doing to my carbon footprint.
Ubuntu was a bad idea
well anythingpost 12.04
Technology and options are two completely different things. Do you really think that technology shouldn't have "destroyed" the horse carriage business, "obliterated" the hand weaving industry and (in the western world) "killed" manual wheat harvesting? Well... it didn't, it simply added options that were much more popular, just as it has with video and CD stores. And it's not technology, which can't really "cause" the loss of anything, but people who make the choice.
The jokes on you! I'm broke because I spent all my money on more guns, campaign contributions to Mitt Romney & GOP PACs and gold I bought from Glenn Beck.
Forcing anyone who might wish to participate to join Google+ Hangouts also forces them to allow Google access to their real names and personal data thus Canonical yet again sjows that it has no, real, understanding, nor interest, in openness or accessibility and still less personal freedom and privacy. As they have with their Amazon affiliate contract they care more about commercial interests than the rights of their users or developers. Like the EFF and the FSF I never include Ubuntu GNU/Linux in any recommendation list...actually I steer people away from it.
Even better, the online summits will feature a constant "Sponsor sidebar" containing products selected algorithmically based on keywords detected within the conversation! It's going to be the ultimate in integrated consumer infotainment...
Ubuntu was crap to begin with and still is today. It almost raised itself out of the muck with Jaunty Jackalope but then fell apart again.
I wouldn't start by assuming Canonical ever made money to begin with.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Modern people socialize and network just fine online.
The people actually hurt by this are the prostitutes who work conventions. Won't anyone think of the prostitutes?
(*) Technology has also caused the loss of video stores, CD stores, so many things are hard to buy locally now. Technology should add options, not destroy them!
Technology is invented not unvented, you can only abandon it. CD and video stores are dying because neither I nor anyone I know go there anymore. Should we keep pizza places open if everybody wants to eat sushi instead? Don't be silly, technology adds options and when people overwhelmingly choose them over the old ones, the old will go away just like people all sorts of fashions and trends and other fads.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Professionals already use their real names on forums where they discuss professional topics. Did you expect people to take someone called TrueSatan seriously in a professional environment? Anonymity is for people under tyrannical regimes, and for recreational forums where we don't want our unprofessional posts to merge with our professional life.
You own gold and you claim to be broke? Is that some liberal logic?
I don't have to concern myself with Ubuntu anymore. They've had their run, and have pretty clearly jumped the shark. And thankfully, because most of their work is on GPL'd code, we can abandon the organization entirely without losing any of the work that they did.
In other words, Mr Shuttleworth, so long and thanks for all the fish.
I am officially gone from
I wouldn't start by assuming Canonical ever made money to begin with.
at some point they were touting around numbers that they were "just about breaking even".
but seriously.. none of the shit they've done in past two years has been the stuff that profitable/healthy os tech company would do.
moving to the cloud? fuck - you can't just move a summit into the cloud. the summit is every fucking day then, hardly a summit. if it's a website, it's not a summit. if they're web streamed shit - then it makes no difference to watch them later so again not a summit. it just becomes a publishing day for a fucking developer BLOG.
how does he except nerds are going to gather together to talk shit and drink brews IN THE FUCKING CLOUD? I mean I'd be all for moving the summits to be done high in Amsterdam but you just don't move an event that's essentially for socializing into the cloud(that's what all summits are, of course regardless of that the interesting stuff should be put online so those who attended can also get the material).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The company can't or at least won't be indefinitely sustained by Mark Shuttlesworth's billions. It would appear Canonical is just copying Linspire right down to the "bankruptcy" strategy. For anybody who followed the "Desktop Linux Summit" (an almost completely Linspire focused and funded event) it was cut about a year before the company went belly up. Canonical hired many Linspire employees and cloned click-n-run and many of Linspires mistakes (not so much CNR, but other things unsurprisingly).
Well, none of their attempts at being profitable came to fruition - not Ubuntu desktops, not Ubuntu server, not Ubuntu TV, not Myth TV. Ubuntu is the latest example of why companies tied to the GPL can't make money on GPL software, unless they are from one of the blessed 4 - hardware, services, advertizing or donations. Donations never are good enough - let's get that out of the way. Hardware is now at the point where its margins couldn't be thinner. Services is something that Red Hat has succeeded w/, but in this economy, fewer companies are availing of them. As for servers, they'd be in an already crowded market on the Unix side alone - Solaris, the BSDs, RHEL, Debian, et al.
As I pointed out elsewhere, they would have done well to have entered the market using something like PC-BSD to begin w/. That way, they could have kept themselves different from the rest of the pack (I'm not talking about making themselves different w/ things like Unity, which are double edged swords). But there is no reason for people to buy Ubuntu when they could get Mint, Trisquel or any number of Ubuntu based distros. So at the end of the day, Ubuntu is left doing all this work and no revenue stream to show for it. At some point, Shuttleworth was going to get fedup of it and pull the plug on the free funding - nobody can afford to keep pissing cash away like that, not even Gates or Buffet.
Glad that you said Ubuntu GNU/Linux instead of 'Ubuntu Linux'. That shows you're the kind of loser nobody takes seriously anyway. I'm sure your employer would be sending you to a conference registered as TrueSatan. Good luck with that in the real world.
the old will go away just like people all sorts of fashions and trends and other fads.
You say that now, but fashion is cyclic. One day I will have a use for my crates of mood rings and parachute pants.
Bi-annual == once every two years
Biennial == twice a year
c'mon now /. ...
Yes, but there is a difference between using your real name when discussing professional topics, and giving your real name to Google who can now associate it with everything you do online, professional, recreational or otherwise.
wait a minute "Anonymous Coward", if that is your real name*... are you suggesting this, our beloved /., is not a "professional environment"?
*Dr. Strangelove reference
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...
This NoScript user would still strongly prefer adverts over having to deal with the TSA by travelling to the US.
I really like the US, but thanks to your paranoia and TSA thugs, there's no way I will be visiting any time soon.
Another grammar nazi here. Bi-Annual means every 2 years. Semi-annual means every half-year, every 6 months.
Like the fable of the goose that laid golden eggs, /. readers like yourself don't really seem to care whether the goose lives or not. Well, newsflash - if Canonical or Red Hat cease to exist, they won't keep writing FOSS. And when companies/organizations - profit or non-profit - can't fund themselves for their daily operations, writing great software would be one of the last things on their mind.
Also, despite the theoretical possibility that everybody in the world can edit it and make a great system, in fact, few do. For starters, few people are actually programmers, and even in the event that they are, they are probably applying that towards their day jobs (something else that GPL would, under the laws of unintended consequences, kill off if they were successful), and are usually not available to work on that software, except maybe for a sporadic bug fix or more, unless they are contracted to regularly work on it. How many people outside Mozilla work on Firefox? How many people outside Debian work on their ports? How many people outside Mint refine Cinnamon? The bazaar theory is all very good, but even in the bazaar, people need their stalls - shopkeepers don't try to push their neighbor's products, since they are too busy working on their own. Similarly, anybody who thinks that Ubuntu will last over the remains of Canonical is living in a dream world. And no - knock-offs, like Mint, Zorin, Hybride, Trisquel, et al do NOT count - they are different distros, even if derived from Ubuntu.
I don't know why you're getting down-modded; your post is one of the funnier things I've read all day. Thanks!