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Canonical's Troubles With the Free Software Community
puddingebola (2036796) writes "Bruce Byfield looks back at the soured relationships between Canonical and the free software community. Partly analysis, partly a review of past conflicts, the writer touches on Mir and Wayland, and what he sees as Canonical's attempts to take over projects. From the article, 'However, despite these other concerns, probably the most important single reason for the reservations about Ubuntu is its frequent attempts to assume the leadership of free software — a position that no one has ever filled, and that no one particularly wants to see filled. In its first few years, Ubuntu's influence was mostly by example. However, by 2008, Shuttleworth was promoting the idea that major projects should coordinate their release schedules. That idea was received without enthusiasm. However, it is worth noting that some of those who opposed it, like Aaron Seigo, have re-emerged as critics of Mir — another indication that personal differences are as important as the issues under discussion.'"
The second any one party becomes big enough, or popular enough, to start making meaningful changes in the way Linux is implemented in their distributions, the knives come out.
but from what I can tell, the Ubuntu style release schedule took off over-all.
And as long as things are consistent, it will have the effect Ubuntu wanted (or close too it, they basically wanted upstream to release 4 months before them, so they could integrate if memory serves).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
... they and Shuttleworth disappeared up their own backsides in a blinding flash of self importance and inability to listen to users (Unity - the OSS version of Windows 8 Metro, need I say more). I'm afraid their We Know Best doesn't tend to adhere them to many people and I suspect they've now peaked in terms of their importance in the free software world and will slowly fade away as the years go by.
Unfortunately it has spread to other distros.
Once dubbed the official version control system of GNU (partly because of Git's GPLv2-only licensing and stuff), it's been sunk into oblivion, mostly by Canonical pulling off their own workers and nobody wanting to fill the void given Canonical's assignment policies and contracts (in contrast, the FSF at least gives guarantees regarding free-only use in return for an assignment).
Now even Emacs, once the poster child for Bazaar, is organizing its transition to Git.
'... probably the most important single reason for the reservations about Ubuntu is its frequent attempts to assume the leadership of free software ... [S]ome of those who opposed it, like Aaron Seigo, have re-emerged as critics of Mir â" another indication that personal differences are as important as the issues under discussion.'
Seeing the same critics reappear does not necessarily mean it is a personal difference. It really only indicates that the underlying disagreement remains. Mark Shuttleworth believes in centralization of authority, Open Source is implicitly about decentralization of authority. That is a difference with Mark Shuttleworth's world view; as long as he holds it, and particularly when he tries to be the central authority, he will not fit in the Open Source world. That is not personal in the sense of holding a grudge, but it won't change unless Mark genuinely embraces the decentralized nature of this method of software development.
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... I gave a chance to Unity about 3 months ago, with 12.04 LTS. I liked the desktop disposition (Mac global menu with side launcher), and the general integrated look and feel. Use of apt-get is really nice (as in Debian), and with use of PPAs I can keep almost all my software update to date in a global way. Almost all configurations are simple, which helps new users. Driver support is good (I just had to setup the hybrid graphical cards with Bumblebee). In the other side, I thought the fonts were a bit big, and I don't like the dark theme. How to text font sizes? Install third part software. How to install new themes? Install other third part software (themes is one of the most cool features of Linux DEs!). Can I change the duration of notification? Re-position launcher? No, no, only using more third part softwares. But ok, in my mind, all the problems can be fixed in the future. Then I started to look into launchpad to see the bugs opened, and the future plans. Almost all important issues related to Unity are still open, with almost no comments from Canonical (usually in KDE we have an official dsposition after few hours). Most of Canonical efforts then are focused in "convergence", which my question is "who asked for?". As the future Ubuntu phones will not use the same desktop applications, why I need a new Linux based device? I'd love if Canonical works in better integration with Android: the MTP support is a joke (stop to work after few minutes), and would be nice to attend my mobile calls with my desktop headset, read my SMS on systray, etc. I think that offer a better support for the most popular linux based mobile will be a nice flag. And then, I tested the new Ubuntu version. And I saw that I have Amazon over all the places: in desktop search, in the launcher, all activated by default. Why this? In these days of all the concerns about NSA and privacy, why not sell the "you're using an open source product with all the privacy concerns" flag? If they want financial support, why not allow users to donate, like on KDE? (I'm a KDE e.V. member). I remember too, the old Mandrake club, where users have access few days earlier than "normal" users. In my minds, it's a shame that the most talked Linux distribution has enabled, by default, a shareware scheme. And the worst: the dash search do not works well. I have avidemux installed, and if I type "demu", I got nothing. If I want to run the calculator, and I type "calc", I'll get "OpenOffice Calc" as first result. So, I mean, I can understand when Canonical choose the Unity way. Gnome team is out of this planet, removing all basic features from applications, and forcing a tablet/mobile interface too. But I cannot understand why force the shareware behavior, or other duplicate efforts, like Mir, Ubuntu mobile, etc.
Makerware is proprietary software. Live with it.
Is this different from how Sun tried to become the defacto standard UNIX? I never cared much for their tactics, eventually they burned out too.
I see no problem with this. You had to deal with it when people only released software for Windows. How is this any different?
People don't like/want leaders. Think about presidential candidates: as soon as one stops talking about how he'll competently adminstrate, and starts going on about leadership, you start thinking, "oh well, I sure ain't gonna vote for that one." What people want, is for others to get the fuck out of the way and stop putting up obstacles. And while most leadership isn't about really creating obstacles, if you have any ideas of your own, someone else's leadership is usually going to look like that.
Sure, you can see that as a Linux "weakness." But if the community didn't have this weakness, then it would be just another Windows or Mac OS, where the dictator says how things will be, and it might even have an internal logic and not necessarily be a bad idea, and yet 99% of the users are prevented from getting what they want. And if that's your idea of strength, then you already use Windows or Mac OS.
systemd is from Red Hat. It was adopted by other distros because they believed it solved a problem, not because Red Hat tried to tell others that they must use it.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I think rather quickly, Linux Mint Debian Edition will rise to greater prominence, eclipsing even the Ubuntu-based Mint for the same reasons.
Interesting point on lack of business and video suites buy why blame Linux for that. When vendors look to port their apps, Windows and Mac are considered, forget Linux. For crying out loud, ever tried to use a web app like Netflix! Supported by everything but Linux. Many vendors are scared to death of Linux and open source with other vendors pushing FUD so nothing gets done. Find a way to overcome all the "haters" and may have something.
As for replacements, I agree. For personal use, other than Netflix and Turbotax, I've used Linux for years without issue. Office apps, programming, other uses, all works great. For specialized software mentioned, users will not accept an alternative even if something does exist. Sometimes their are apps, ie Gimp, Blender but not the features or polish. Other issue, try to get your boss to accept running Linux on your workstation. In many businesses, just not an option unless you are IT with a special use case. Sometimes apps other times for a host reasons, much of it FUD from commercial interests who don't want the competition.
yea the problem it solved is ensuring there will exist continued access to udev and udisks which are a hard dependency a long way up the stack now. The systemd folks are doing everything they can to make sure the udev and udisks projects end up having systemd as a dependency.
So in short no I guess nobody held a gun to any other distro maintainers heads and forced them to package systemd but its been made abundantly clear that not doing so means they will have to devote enormous resources to maintaining compatible forks of udev an udisks.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Yes, damn Canonical for not toeing the party line as set forth by the self-appointed central committee of the supreme soviet who decide what The Software should be. The whole gang of miscreants should be banished to the gulag until reeducated properly to the free market, that is to say the market fee of competitive ideas. Only then will the One True Way be realized. Until then, they are stealing bread from the mouths of our software children.
That's for sure a trouble with the free software movement!
Don't like software form Canonical? Don't use it. They're a commercial company, so they have to break even ultimately. I understand if, after listening to everyone, they make their own decision. Their Mir project is all about Ubuntu phones: should that platform be successful, they'll take the merit, should they fail, the Free Software Community will still have Android as their reference platform. Even if Google is a commercial company, too, and compared to them Canonical is Candy Candy.
"Considering that a .deb is nothing more than a zip file with scripts that you can open with most archive softwares I would say that it's vastly different."
.cab file is.
Apparently you dont know what a windows
However it is different, because Windows has never really been a platform that claimed to respect user freedom.
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