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Canonical Founder Criticizes Free Software Developers Who 'Hate On Whatever's Mainstream' (google.com)
Canonical Founder Mark Shuttleworth said Saturday that "I came to be disgusted with the hate" on Canonical's display server Mir, saying it "changed my opinion of the free software community." After announcing his company was abandoning Unity for GNOME, Shuttleworth posted a gracious thank-you note to the Unity community Friday on Google Plus. But on Saturday, he added a sharper comment:
"I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream. When Windows was mainstream they hated on it. Rationally, Windows does many things well and deserves respect for those. And when Canonical went mainstream, it became the focus of irrational hatred too. The very same muppets would write about how terrible it was that IOS/Android had no competition and then how terrible it was that Canonical was investing in (free software!) compositing and convergence. Fuck that shit."
The comment begins by saying "The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind - it's free software that does something invisible really well. It became a political topic as irrational as climate change or gun control, where being on one side or the other was a sign of tribal allegiance. We have a problem in the community when people choose to hate free software instead of loving that someone cares enough to take their life's work and make it freely available."
The comment begins by saying "The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind - it's free software that does something invisible really well. It became a political topic as irrational as climate change or gun control, where being on one side or the other was a sign of tribal allegiance. We have a problem in the community when people choose to hate free software instead of loving that someone cares enough to take their life's work and make it freely available."
I'll hate it!
Interesting it took him this long to figure out that its common human nature to find a scapegoat and kick it endlessly.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Never understood the Ubuntu hate,
particularly for Mir.
Just seemed to be a lot of idiots jumping on the bandwagon.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
The best reason anyone could come up with was (para-phrasing) "it'll mean closed-source graphics drivers will have to support 2 display servers, and they may not want to do that"
I guess Python 3 finally went mainstream. A Python 2 asshat took me to task because I only have Python 3 installed on my system, all my Python code is in Python 3, and, when I couldn't find an easy to use automation tool in Python 3, I used Ant (Java) instead.
I saw it as a good sign Canonical might've realized they made a mistake for once.
I guess it's too much to think they'd accept responsibility rather than trying to point fingers.
There are plenty of bad apples in any community, but sinking to their level in emotional insecurity just causes more issues here.
That's not why they hated Mir. Canonical had committed to helping flesh out Wayland, and then suddenly abandoned that effort and developed Mir instead, despite Wayland being much further ahead and doing everything Mir wanted to do, better. Wayland is essentially finished and ready for the masses now, but it could have been at this point *years* ago if Canonical hadn't backpedaled and switch to a worthless piece of trash instead. Also calling it open source when they surround it with licence agreements is rather farcical. They wanted to monetize it hard if Ubuntu phone kicked off, this abandoning of it only happened because they realized they had completely failed that effort.
Literate people hate your post.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I don't think he recognizes the issue people had - when Canonical became successful they began acting like they were the 800-lb gorilla in the room and that they could do whatever they wanted and everyone else would fall into line. Classic not invented here syndrome, then expecting others to write & maintain support for Canonical's custom software.
Sending user searches to Amazon doesn't help either - the Linux community is much more privacy minded then the general community using public.
...highly profitable software tends to come bundled with arbitrary and stupid usage restrictions, harsh DRM that creates needless compatibility issues and forces people to deal with annoying overhead and price-gouging, and rushed-out code that presents extra security holes that are kept secret and not fixed when discovered.
If paid software didn't have these problems, I fully expect that there would be a lot less hatred for it.
As a moderate conservative, I hate the stupidity that has become the Republican Party.
No one in their right mind would suggest Scala over Java for work, unless they wanted headaches and no help.
Apparently 'ol Mark never asked for Help on a Linux Forum, because if he did, he would have been Flamed.
That's what they do to newbies.
I'm surprised it took him so long to figure this out.
Most Linux Forums are just abusive crapfests when it comes to getting help.
And like Mark said, "Fuck that shit."
Which one do you mean?
* Pulse Audio?
* Systemd?
* Unity/Gnome 3/KDE 4?
* Windows 8/10?
It's not that people hate something that's mainstream. The problem is that mainstream is often a polished turd which companies or alternatively gifted individuals try to sell you as something which is better and novel, while being in an order of magnitude less usable and having tons of bugs.
Java Model Railroad software is both free and part of my life. Could not have a much fun in my hobby if it was not there. And a dedicated group is keeping it alive with regular updates. Thanks to all who help keep open source viable for the rest of us. Thomas DeSoto, TX
We need another display server like a hole in your head. That goes for Wayland, too.
You took for free from volunteers and you exploited our hard work to make money you don't deserve.
And then you have the audacity to wonder why we hate you?
How fucking stupid are you, you greedy scumbag?
What seems to not be able to enter his thick.. opinions, is that Ubuntu diverged sufficiently from what people loved.
The UI seems to be promoted by whoever couldn't get a job with apple.
The controversial systemD was pushed in although Ubuntu isn't red hat nor uses it the same way.
Mir was the 'yeah devs want to refactor to Wayland, but WE can do it better".
On a on a on.
In retrospect, I have no clue how Mr shuttleworth acquired his wealth (nor can be arsed to Google it), but with Ubuntu, some things from that character are reflected in the failed direction: delusion, inability to scope, inability to judge the market userbase, insensitive to the development culture.
Etc etc.
Of course he isn't seeing this as a failure on his end, but instead : entire *communities* are wrong.
Typical psychopath.
Why in the fuck do these guys think making a Linux system more like Windows is a good idea?
I think I speak for the vast majority of open source developers and users when I say 'what is a Mir'?
While I'm sure whatever project it was was important to Mr. Shuttleworth - I don't think it every had awareness outside of a tiny circle of people, let alone is a source of significant hate, criticism, etc. from open source users and developers.
As a liberal, 'hate' is too kind a word for how I feel about the hypocritical bs shown by the Democrats.
We should be harder on the parties that claim to represent our ideals.
The GPL offers that freedom. So pipe down and enjoy your slice of GPL freedom.
Give me my Linux phone
People hate the compromises, dumbings-down and blinging-up that are made for something to become mainstream.
I guess it's lucky that Ubuntu will never be mainstream. It will never fall victim to those who hate things that are mainstream.
while you were fretting over muh ideology, the joos took over this country. just now they have brought us very close to ww3
fuck you cuck
This is why I'm not a Republican anymore.
Hi bitterness here would seem to indicate that he was designing it more for himself than for the community. If he was designing it more for himself then he should not care about what other people think about it. If, however, he was designing it for the community then he should have been more willing to listen to community input and constructive feedback.
If something terrible is not mainstream, I merely dislike it. If something terrible is mainstream, and I'm forced to use it, only then does it merit actual hate.
If something's not terrible, I'll like it regardless of whether it's mainstream or not.
If I were in charge of a company that made FREE software I'd tell the trolls to go fuck themselves. Fucking losers don't have anything better to do.
I don't respond to AC's.
While I think Shuttleworth is right that the software industry in general suffers from profound sociopathy, he doesn't seem to have asked the obvious question, which is why people hated his UI, and Ubuntu in general. Sure, we should be grateful that a group of developers would share the fruits of their labor with the community, for free. Perhaps we should actually pity them for not being able to monetize it worth a damn, while legions of their users profit, directly or indirectly, from their work. To that extent, the economic model of open source is completely broken. That said, I don't consider Ubuntu an asset worth sharing. It's so buggy, so slow, so awkward, so annoying, and so devoid of architectural consistency, that it's just a giant liability masquerading as a "Trusty" OS. I see no commitment to quality assurance, or even a commitment to user engagement. Their project is swamped with a hundred thousand open bugs, most of which having rotted for months on their website. They constantly mix new features (read: annoyances) with bug fixes, so nothing is ever stable. At least when Microsoft created its own dogpile of an OS, its founder reinvested the profits in laudible charitable causes. But Ubuntu has just created more hassle than it relieved, taxing its users in many nonobvious ways including potential privacy compromises, and AFAIK not even making enough money for its creators to be worthwhile. Give up, Mark. Your heart is in the right place, but unfortunately not your head. Acquire Solus Linux. It actually works, and it boots like 10X faster.
Gnome (2) was mainstream. Unity was a totally confusing resource hog peace of shit. In 1998 I installed SuSE with KDE at my friends, still would not give anyone Unity crap in 2017. If Ubuntu would just focus on getting rock solid Linux to the people. But no, they need to tinker with everything and f*ck it up in non standard ways. That is not the way to success, and how you make friends, ...
My 2 € cents, ...
As a liberal, 'hate' is too kind a word for how I feel about the hypocritical bs shown by the Democrats.
You mean like the Senate Democrats giving the Supreme Court nominee a fair committee hearing instead of boycotting the committee hearing as some liberals have advocated?
I prefer government that works. The Senate Democratic did their job. If you think that's hypocritical, then you're part of the problem.
My wife and I have said this about people in general. If you agree with them they are your friend, if you have a differing opinion they hate you. I have felt for a while the open source community act sort introverted and stuck up. Some even degrade the new open source users into probably just giving up on open source. A act that hurts their very focus in life to promote instead they push away. Acting like a exclusive cult of users who carefully review every person who wants to join. Its why I gave up on open source and wouldn't touch any of it.
"I used to think that it was a privilege to serve people who also loved the idea of service, but now I think many members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social types who love to hate on whatever is mainstream."
Mr. Shuttleworth has exactly identified why it will NEVER be the "Year of the Linux Desktop".
Three decades of legacy code need to go. Concentrate on making the interface fast for desktop users. If you want network connectivity then make it a module. Also what is the deal with the new X resolution test? It used to be a 1x1 pixel checkerboard of grey/black. Now its a solid black screen. Great way to check if things are readable! Might as well put my monitor in sleep mode for that test. Oh and you can't even ctrl-alt-backspace to kill the server when it does the solid black screen. You have to find which virtual console it is and ctrl-c there. Who the hell thought any of that was a good idea?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Summarizing today's news story, wealthy and somewhat benevolent Mark Shuttlesworth doesn't appreciate some of the criticism his projects have received, notwithstanding his mixed generosity. I say mixed because part of the plan was to make money, too (though I think he's donated way more money than he's earned on this Ubuntu thing). His real unhappiness is probably that he feels his generosity is insufficiently appreciated.
I actually agree with Mr Shuttlesworth that much of the criticism was unjustified, but I have two responses: (1) Some of the criticism was merited and (2) What else could they contribute?
Response (1) is about the biggest problem with the big donor model of charity (even if Ubuntu has some non-charitable aspects). Sometimes the big donor makes a mistake. In general the big donors don't just throw in the big money and go away. You can say it's a matter of trust or accountability or whatever, but they stay involved. In the specific case of Ubuntu, the development priorities have sometimes gone a bit astray. Obviously the shell kerfuffles are examples, but the low priority on Japanese language support has actually been the main recommendation barrier in my case. I'd like to encourage people to adopt Ubuntu, but (after using the OS for many years (probably since Dapper Drake in 2006)) I still can't.
Response (2) is really about frustration. At least I don't see what other alternative most of the potential users of Ubuntu have. Some of the top programmers presumably have Mr Shuttlesworth's ear and can influence things, but most of us are on the outside. Way on the outside. I actually think that many of the problems with Ubuntu are ultimately due to programmer-driven decisions. Good programmers want to do fancy things. They want to push the envelope and develop fancy features for fancy hardware. Or maybe it's just my problem that I have other things to do with my time or that I'm too cheap to buy new computers fast enough?
I need to disclaim that I feel some frustration and disappointment with Ubuntu, too. I had hopes that it would become a dominant desktop OS, but it never did. It's not like there weren't major opportunities. For example that Vista fiasco. It's just that Ubuntu never filled any of the big vacuums. However, I mostly didn't care that much, so I never even investigated the details. I just observed the results.
(By the way, I do think there is at least one possible solution. Are you brave enough to ask me about the Charity Share Brokerage for small donors? Hint: Kickstarter and Indiegogo aren't there yet, but maybe that idea could be fixed...)
Anyway, things sometimes turn out for the better, at least when the term is long enough. Turns out the desktop OS doesn't matter that much anymore. Maybe Linux won out after all, but via the backdoor leading to Android smartphones? Still a bit of the big donor problem, but at least the google seems more competent than evil. For now. I recommend Dogfight on the smartphone war, but maybe you have a good book to recommend? (Yeah, I'm sure there are some interesting blogs and webpages, too, but mostly I find them as half-baked as this selfsame noddie.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Aloha snackbar, bitch.
Thank you Mark, fellow South African
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
Some people want to be different, just like the other people that want to be different
love is just extroverted narcissism
What will happen to the government when the weight of "doing their jobs" rests entirely on the minority party?
Play Command HQ online
This guy seems to be unaware of that little fact. Ubuntu is a pretty good example for it though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I agree that there are some folks who hate anything mainstream. But seriously, there are some rationale to be negative about Mir. Don't want to beat a dead horse, but there's absolutely no reason but "not invented here" syndrome for the existence of Mir in the first place. Fortunately, it seems like for the cases like this natural selection works quite well. OpenOffice isn't quite dead yet, but it surely smells funny. Xemacs, RIP. My gut feeling is that Mir may end up exactly like those two. I'm sure there are more examples of that. And, while we're at that, someone mentioned Perl vs Python. As a person who had to main large Perl-based system, many years ago, I came to the conclusion that Perl was written by geeks and for geeks, with very little concern for requirements of production environment where maintainability of a code is a key. Perl exists solely so geeks can have fun writing a code no one else can read. And that's exactly why Python is becoming a standard script for the large production system, and I wouldn't care less about the "evil white space".
What will happen to the government when the weight of "doing their jobs" rests entirely on the minority party?
The tail (minority party) gets to wag the dog (majority party).
I introduced so many people to Ubuntu in 2005. Ubuntu with LTS(Long Term Support) won me over. The Unity GUI was like Gnome 3.x and nice looking but very useless for me. I'm a desktop person that likes my Desktop GUI to behave like some thing functional. [How many clicks does it take to open an app? If there was 100 software/app on my PC.]
I was actually waiting for a Ubuntu Cell Phone with DLSR Camera like LG and Samsung.
My Desktop of choice has been Linux Mint for a long time since they got the GUI part right for Desktop people.
Before Linux Mint/Ubuntu, my desktop of choice was Fedora. I'm at the age now where I don't want to reinstall every 6 to 12 months. So, Ubuntu got this part right with LTS(Long Term Support).
I've also been around kids for a long time that calls things Bloatware. I call Bloatware=> FEATURES. It's nice to see Developers add features to Software.
With this big news, I've thought that I might give up Linux Mint and try Ubuntu again with Gnome 2.x style for GUI. Gnome 3.x takes me way to long to find my app/software.
But you're still apparently clueless if you left the Republican Party over anti-Semitism.
Re-read my original comment. I wrote "stupidity" of the Republican Party. Any party that takes pride in and makes ignorance a virtue is a party not worth voting for.
I'm skeptical, but if true I'm sure the Republicans don't miss a Democratic partisan shithead like you.
Without moderate conservatives in the Congress, the Republicans are going to have a hard time rubbing two nickels together (see healthcare bill).
Ignoring the last 16 years of Schumer and Reid and claiming the Democrats are good guys is proof positive you are a fucking moron.
That's your opinion, not mine.
The GPL also allows criticism, so if you don't like criticism "pipe down and enjoy your slice of GPL freedom"
Republicanism.
As Shuttleworth would have it:
* mainstream, n.
A technology so rooted in public acceptance that it's no longer necessary to communicate up front with the users who will most suffer from the upcoming change cycle.
I didn't leave Ubuntu because of Unity.
I left Ubuntu because no transition plan was put forward to aid me in riding out the early adoption cycle from a safe remove whereby I retained the full use of my extra monitors and the meticulous workflow depending upon these that I had painstakingly adopted over many years.
There's nothing intrinsic to mainstream that I reject, other than how becoming meanstream seems to immediately entitle the proprietor to carpet yank—without even the courtesy of a gruff dentist, who at least mutters reassuringly "this won't hurt a bit".
Why does Canonical hate the main stream, and tend to roll their own instead? Wayland, Unity, Upstart ...
I just want to say "thank you" to Mark and everyone on the Ubuntu team for all your hard work.
Now I agree with him that a lot of people in OSS do not act like professionals and they make petty arguments that a most always boil down to an emotional attachment to the code that one has written. That really annoys me. However, the lack of support for Mir to me comes down to the fact that it is redundant with Wayland and isn't as big of a technical step forward as Wayland. There is a real cost to needing to implement 3 different display drivers for each GPU instead of 1 or 2 (X11, Wayland, Mir.) So it is entirely understandable to me that there would be some pushback. Once Intel decided to only provide drivers for X11 and Wayland that really should have been the wakeup call to just switch to Wayland and be done with it instead of trying to reinvent absolutely everything.
So called "Free software" is not free. There is labor spent be it time or money to produce it. It comes down to the biggest economic question going back to antiquity, "What is the proper exchange and reward for labor?" In the capitalist world, it is simply money payed to a provided for an agreed upon value of the delivered good or service. To the Free Software world, it is gratification or services to utilize said "free" software.
Nobody claimed there was any violation of the license.
and switched back in 2011/2012.
In 2006 they just fixed the things in debian which were a little bit annoying.
in 2010/2011 they started making the distribution completely unusable (do you remember the first releases with unity?)
Most of their gold-coated crap was badly documented and did not fit into the rest of the distribution.
I was heavy into LTSP back in the Hardy days. Ubuntu was seemingly 100% behind making the project thrive. And then one day, they simply went on to something else. They left our community out in the cold, trying to scavenge for any kind of real long-term support for LTSP networks. It became a real mess. I went (back) to Debian. What a relief that was.
Seems like that's what they're doing the same thing with Unity now. They've lost interest, so they're simply looking at the next new shiny thing. I admittedly know very little about Mir, but I'm not surprised at some of the hate people in the community have for it. Personally it seems like Canonical likes to announce huge projects, push at them for a while, then simply turn around and go push something else.
Also, I don't like how he tries to classify an entire software ecosystem as a monolithic thing. Canonical might be a monolith, but it's one monolith in a billion monoliths in the lith-o-garden. Yep. I just said that.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Tha amazon store tie in
hopefully that post was by a 12 year old kid and not a fully grown and presumably educated adult.
Coming from the person who opened 'bug 1' as 'microsoft has the top market share'. I agreed with the Shuttleworth of that time, Windows gets a whole lot wrong (of course back in the day, Linux was competing against single-user Windows, which was miles worse, but MS's uneven evolution into a robust operating system has very little to admire, and a whole lot of stuff that isn't so good).
But anyway, generally it's not 'the same people', that's what it feels like when you see criticism on all sides, but generally people are consistent.
On Mir, you had people thinking it was a bit silly given Xorg, and on the other hand you had people thinking (seemingly now accurately) that Mir was a distraction and wasn't realistically going to deliver what Canonical wanted: To mature faster than Wayland, but not have substantially different goals.
Canonical on the phone received skepticism as it came on the heels of repeated varying failed ventures into non-conventional territory (and some of those being exceptionally silly and not baked at all, just a concept to toss out at a conference to fish for interest). Also, the convergence story is something that people have complained about since Windows 8 started getting tested, it was not something that Canonical uniquely got criticized for, just that they got caught up in the converged story and the desktop experience suffers for trying to accommodate scaling down to a phone interface. Those who understand how operating systems work and how similar the design of computing devices get caught up in the assumption that people must be annoyed by things not being cohesive, when in practice it seems people have repeatedly overwhelmingly chosen to have distinct devices that focus exclusively on different usage scenarios.
In terms of Android vs. iPhone and not much alternatives, frankly that market is so casual (even most enthusiasts deal with their mobile device as a casual thing and focus their enthusiast bent on other systems), so people aren't caring that much that there aren't more competitors, simply because they have other things to worry abut.
People didn't rail much against Gnome 2, they railed against Gnome 3, since after giving Gnome 2 pretty much the title of 'de facto' interface, Gnome 3 was so dramatically different, and shoved down everyone's throat by carrying the 'gnome' brand (again, with many HIG changes specifically for Tablets and small screens that didn't really pan out). Rather than trying to float the concept as a different thing to displace, it was called 'gnome 3'.
I guess the short of it is, he is suffering some frustration with the reality that trying to do Ubuntu as a business has failed as his ability to fund it has run out and there's no external investment for a company that never makes money. So now the question should become whether or not Ubuntu can continue as a volunteer effort, particularly with changes in Debian. Ubuntu's exceptional ambitions (Unity, Phone, TV, Music store, amazon integrated into desktop search, etc) will not be missed by many folks, leaving the core original success of a reasonably paced debian derivative with integrated attention to practical things like codecs and drivers even if not 100% libre. Painfully this means that his employee count is not sustainable and a lot of good folks will have to go other ways. Financially he repeatedly pursued potentially interesting, albeit unlikely revenue streams and you can only do that so much without success before it's not feasible to continue.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Come on guys, don't take anything Mark Shuttleworth says too seriously at the moment.
We already know he's just making press releases to line up his company for a buy-out, and needs to make his company look like it's not run by neckbeards.
Nothing more.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Of course this requires effort from the programmer, but if you think someone (including you, of course) may at some point call your code with a type you can't handle, you can check for the type and react accordingly.
Personally, I don't find it to be a problem. But that's just me.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
GIMP: I just installed the latest version. The UI seems better now. But before, people didn't like GIMP because of a poor user interface. How much time did you want to spend teaching people how to use software? Especially when those people you were teaching disliked the obviously foolish, unfinished UI?
GIMP has a long history of being limited by its name. A "gimp" is a physically disabled person. If they wanted to be more extreme, they could have named the program "Lung cancer".
Mark Shuttleworth and conflict: It's wonderful that Ubuntu is available. However, I think the development of Ubuntu has been limited by Mark Shuttleworth's lack of ability in dealing with conflicts. I spent about 30 minutes talking with him, and offered help, but he didn't accept.
Yes, "... members of the free software community are just deeply anti-social..." However, it has often happened that Shuttleworth didn't know how to deal with that.
I don't hate "mainstream" per se. I dislike crap. I *HATE* "new and improved" crap that becomes "mainstream" enough to force its way onto my machine.
1) I started using ICEWM on my home machine in January or February 2010. Since then my "desktop" has remained basically unchanged. System configuration on my machine has remained basically similar, with text files in /etc.
At work, before I retired, I went through Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. Every few years, even power users were reduced to noobs who had to go through basic training on the "new and improved" UI. System settings were even worse. It was basically "everything you know is wrong" after each "new and improved" system. Apparently, GNOME and KDE users go through a similar nightmare every year or two. I use my computer to do stuff, not to be constantly learning new interfaces.
2) Firefox *USED TO BE* a great little browser. I used it from day 1, back when I had to build "Phoenix" as a subset of "Mozilla", back around the time of "Mozilla 1.0". Remember how AOL destroyed Netscape by trying to turn it into an abstraction-layer/pseudo-OS that would run on top of Windows or linux? Mozilla foundation similarly destroyed Firefox by turning it into a an emacs-like pseudo-OS... that lacked a lightweight web-browser. WebRTC, Hello, Pocket, etc, etc, were piled on.
The last straw for me was the Atrocious^H^H^H^H^H^H Austraulis interface. I heard rumblings that there was a new interface that many people didn't like. I wasn't concerned, because I always set up a customized version to my liking anyways. I was shocked when it it hit the release version, and I found I could not customize it away. The UI-hipsters knew that people would hate it, so they went out of their way to remove the ability for a regular user to customize it away. For several months, the most popular Firefox extension was a "classic-UI restorer". It accessed stuff deeper down "under the hood" and restored the classic interface. But that was too late. I had left for SeaMonkey, and then eventually Pale Moon when it got a linux version.
3) PulseAudio and systemd may work OK *TODAY*. But they were beta-quality when they were first released. I avoided them, and the pain of being the linux equivalant of a Windows user, acting as a guinea-pig for beta quality software.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Wow, I'm dazzled by your mind reading capabilities. Not to be compared with your screen reading skills. Perhaps you should reread what I actually wrote and clarify how your response is related to my actual words rather than what you think you read directly out of my mind? It's not that I mind going there (though at this point I'd mostly have to guess where you think you're going), but mostly a lack of justification.
Right now I mostly regard your reply as an example of having nothing to say, but insisting on saying it anyway. Then again, my reply is too close for comfort. The proximal problem is that by the time I return again, the entire topic will probably have expired...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Amy Schumer often blames her audience for Amy's own failures, usually calling them "haters."
Must we like everything the industry poops out?
Lots of people hated Linux before Linux had a whopping 1% of the desktop. Lots of people hated, and still MacOS, even though MacOS has a small share of the market.
Systemd is only on about 1% of desktops, but lots of people hate it.
People hated Unity, even though it was only on a small percentage of desktops.
everything would be total shit. deal with it.
So he hates canonical for trying to develop their own desktop environment? In other words trying to move away from mainstream kde/gnome/....
I remember a job fair, waiting in line at a Nothrup-Gruman line. The guy ahead of me steps up and starts talking about what a great VB programmer he was. The recruiter told him they were only looking for C++ and Ada. He then asked what could be done in Ada and C++ that couldn't be done in VB. The recruiter explained that they make military aircraft, and that most modern advancements were in the software that controls them. He says something that aircraft can't do that and walks away. I step up laughing and the recruiter and I share a knowing look. When you are a mainstream button make, or a mainstream paper maker, there is nothing new. But tech changes, and the mainstream always tries to make every problem into a nail. It's especially worse which linux which is highly configurable. Many companies that have become mainstream start getting large heads and start dictating configurations rather then go with the flow, and OSS people tend to be more independent and get ruffled by such actions.
... and buy a Mac; I've never looked back. It was all due to Shuttleworth's hate over GNOME, presumably because it was too mainstream and functional, in preference for Unity, that caused me to ditch Linux entirely. Now he's going back to GNOME?! LOL. Too late, buddy.
Maybe hes butthurt that Ubuntu got too big for its boots and Mint stepped in.
>>>
Why isn't linux on the desktop? Fragmentation.
>>>
Ten years ago it was freedom of choice. Next excuse please.
Let's focus our hatred on RedHat's political landgrab named SYSTEMD. That is real cancer.
Yup, Mark Shuttleworth nailed it and it resounds perfectly well with these nut anti-systemd zealots.
hate on whatever is quite terrible, when it's new? Should terrible software be given a pass because it's new? How new? Should it be flagged as "further development continuing" or is it OK to leave it as a pile of crap for some period of time before we're allowed to call it being a pile of crap?
And why is it hate? Surely if it's shit, calling it shit is not hate, it's an accurate and logical assessment of the work?
Should Canonical Founder hate everyone who doesn't accept whatever new shit he's putting out?
Some stuff is just shit. Some stuff is shit with a certain mindset (see Photoshop v GIMP, one is shit to someone who knows only how to use the other, it's still subjectively shit, not hate). Systemd is a mess and isn't even in alpha state, and never will be because as soon as it gets one feature vaguely right, it envelops yet another feature that has nothing to do with system startup.
Because the goal of Systemd is to make every configuration file XML, and that requires that everything that has a config file in /etc or /var be taken over by the team that wants to see XML configs everywhere. So systemd, using XML, has to take over every function so that the old system with its "oh so bad" plain text file that can be edited with vi in 1MB of memory on a 72 character screen and explains what the bits mean in a human readable way (because only humans will be reading and writing it) is removed and only systemd remains, and it will mandate XML for its configuration, because XML is cool and modern and "human readable" (except to make it not take 40x the space, it's compressed) because *in theory* every element can have its explanation tag, its value ranges and so on and so forth in that same file.
Except to rush out and take out all the text file configured programs in Linux, it hasn't got time to do all that faffing about, so it's a badly written and explained non-human-readable compressed ASCII Text file that requires a multi-meg XML reader and reading in the entire config file to memory to then write it out with even LESS explanation of what the hell the values and tags mean than the original.
But in the battle against being able to use vi or edlin to make it "sexy XML", this abuse of users in so many ways is a simple price to pay for people who love XML for being not plain text. After all, you're the ones paying that price, not them.
I like things that are mainstream and more obscure. None of those attributes tend to factor in though. It depends on the problem. Saying that I occasional have a bias in selection for mainstream which is justifiable. Mainstream in Open Source means more tried and tested, more contribution, more community support and a larger talent pool to hire from. It's not always good. Some things get massive contribution, even too much that quality goes out the window and you have a maintenance nightmare. On the whole though, mainstream tends to be alright.
"The whole Mir hate-fest boggled my mind - it's free software that does something invisible really well."
Actually I got really annoyed at this. Not specifically at Mir. At the whole there's always two things to choose from. Wayland/Mir, Systemd/Upstart, MySQL/MariaDB, oi.js/node.js, Electron/nsjw, etc. Choices are always annoying. Node.js managed to fix things. For a lot of things I find myself avoiding being an early adopter and wait to see how those things work out first to see if they merge or there can only be one.
There are two things I really hate. Bandwagoning and the unique/superior obscure tool obsession. You often see spikes in tech use due to bandwagoning that then drops as the language turns out to be too much trouble but then you still have the lingering stench of it because of a bunch of legacy products that used it. Bandwagoning can be linked to the other thing. Often someone will want to learn an obscure and often over complicated language so to not have competition and because they believe a theoretically superior (perhaps potentially than actually materialised) tool will offer them that. It will make them special or something. This can happen with new tools but ironically everyone has the same inclination so you get a burst of them. Then when they all realise that actually this boat is quite crowded they all bugger off to go master a variety of other obscure languages like Haskell, Erlang, Prolog, Lisp, Ada, R, etc. All of them though secretly dream their language will suddenly become famous and that they'll be the master in it or at the forefront. I just stick with what works well for the problem rather than some new fangled technology then adopt something when it becomes mature enough and suits the problem well. If language A is the traditional choice for domain A, then language B comes out claiming to suit domain A better, I can't really know that without a point of reference, such as language A, except when language A has been used in domain A a million times but language B ten times then I know that language A is a pretty safe bet. Don't get roped into being a guinea pig more than is necessary or that you really have the time for.
Some disabled people have the opinion that the name is offensive, for that reason. Whether or not that's a valid opinion, the GIMP devs seem to display all the sensitivity and empathy of a thirteen year old edgelord whenever the issue is raised.
Okay, now I understand your focus, but it was a minor point to me. I regard selling to the makers rather than the actual users to be one of the two major keys to Microsoft's success. The other one was ducking all liability in the EULA. Neither was original, but Microsoft perfected them.
From that perspective, the obvious response would be for Ubuntu to have gone after makers. My suggestion regarding small donors would be unlikely to help there, though I do think that a superior and real-user-driven OS would have some advantages to offer to the makers. Going after the makers needs major marketing with really big donors behind it. Perhaps Mark Shuttleworth should have focused there when he had the chance? However, I admit that I'm not optimistic given how little success the google had with their Chromebooks... (Do they still exist?)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Many may not listen to Shuttleworth, but perhaps they should listen to Yoda:
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
John_Chalisque
Ubuntu is the only Linux distro I've ever used which had auto-updates enabled on a server. Suffice to say that after 1-2 years running smoothly and forgetting about it the thing updated its node.js version, tanking applications which required months to repair (before the package.json aspect was a standard thing to use for NPM packages.) Combine that with overly-complex-impossible-to-secure nonsense like systemd and I can soundly say fuck Ubuntu, never again.
Mir was yet another failed attempt of NIH mixed with ignorance of the problem domain, creating something that technically worked, but was poorly designed.
Mark, we're not hating on what's mainstream. We're hating on your ass forcing the lack of choice upon us, when Linux is about choice. Systemd is shit. Mir is shit. Unity is shit. You took a decent user-friendly Linux OS and loaded it down with BLOAT. Your OS is no more useful than it was back in the 8. versions, yet it is easily eight times larger.
You've gone entirely Microsoft. Bloat, useless code, and a bunch of internal politics via assholes like Poettering simply made me go the fuck away from Ubuntu years ago.
But I bet you're too fucking egotistical to come right up to me and admit that I'm right, aren't you Mark Cowardworth?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
>> "Windows does many things well and deserves respect for those."
I promise I'm not intentionally trolling and am asking a sincere question:
Which things are these? I can't think of a single one, at least that is great on their own merit (and not because of monopolistic marketing), and isn't done better by something free in Linux.
As irrational as climate change?
Fuck that shit, Mark!
Wow...have the hipster douchebag devs finally reared their ugly ridiculously flat cap adorned so obviously fash-ion tragic that goes instantly stale heads to the point where people like Mark are actually taking notice?
Well that confirms that the 80's douchebaggery that is the obvious & stale upon first viewing fash-ions, not to mention pathetically funny hipster douchebag attitude which is if it's mainstream it's bad has held sway. The hipster douches fall from grace will be so fantastic the rest of us will be enjoying it for so so many years to come :0).
A Gimp is a GNU program, it manipulates images. Lung Cancer has nothing to do with GNU and doesn't manipulate images.
I think you're confused because Ubuntu was all about commercialism since day 1 of its birth.
I am a software developer and I hate Ubuntu. I don't hate mainstream. I used to use Mandrake/Mandriva back in the days when it was mainstream. I now use Fedora because RedHat is mainstream. I have valid reasons to hate Ubuntu. One of them is that they do not contribute to common projects such the kernel nor to any open source technology they incorporate in Ubuntu.
The goth kids had to go somewhere and grow up eventually. They are still goth kids, cursing the mainstreamers.
Here it is, for everybody to see... the actual, primary reason when there is anger towards new software. No, it's not because users are Luddites, or afraid of change, or stuck in their ways, or too stupid to know what's good for them. It's because it broke something that worked.
That's it. Really. If you're a developer on a project, and a user of your new shiny says "hey, that doesn't work for me", consider that maybe, just maybe, they're not idiots, nor throwing up roadblocks, nor complaining for the sake of complaining, but pointing out that yes, there really is a problem here, and if you want them to be able to use your software, you might think about fixing it.
From the Shuttlesworth quote
" When Windows was mainstream they hated on it."
In what mad universe is windows no longer mainstream?
BTW http://askubuntu.com/questions/21730/how-does-ubuntu-make-money
This is pretty strange. Last week I started doing quite a bit of work on my Ubunuty/Unity desktop. I got pretty miffed when I couldn't create simple desktop launchers. So I checked out some other desktops and decided to use Cinnamon. Unfortunately Ubuntu's Cinnamon is a bit buggy particularly when it goes to sleep and you wake it up again. As such I installed Fedora 25 Cinnamon and It's been great so far. The NEXT DAY I read an article that Ubuntu is discontinuing Unity. Then the DAY AFTER THAT I hear that Ubuntu has been sending my input information to Amazon and possibly others. I wasn't aware of this. I don't recall ever being given the option to OPT-OUT. Whatever the reason, I think Canonical is being just a little dishonest with it's users and the effects are starting to show.
It really is absolutely horrible.
I don't like gnome either because it allows people to brick systems when just exploring settings...
Windows is OK after configuration.
KDE4 can be configured better than Windows. It comes down to how the menus are, and how the taskbar can be seen but covered, and pop-over when the mouse comes back...
It's all about functionality.
I couldn't even figure out how to use KDE netbook, or Unity... They grind up good stuff, give it a bunch of bacteria and acid, and make a lot of poo.. without extracting the energy from it ... Sigh the metaphor breaks down... but they really really sucks. The people who made them are brain dead.
I need the functionality of my hardware.
I couldn't figure out how to use unity, it just wasted a lot of screen space and made finding apps hard... so I never really explored Mir... or wayland for that matter... all that matters is that my 3d games work... and cad programs... and my videos play back...
windows 10 with classic shell is just fine.
KDE4 with configuration is better, but whatever.
The problem comes with windows10 is that they force updates on you when you have work open... and you loose that work.
I am a compulsive updater, and I will update the damned computer at the beginning of each session... so don't loose work in a later update.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw
Casteism
No, the open-source programmer does not make a program or a library or a toolkit in order to serve. They do that for pleasure or in order to prove to the world that they can. It is a distributed model (as opposed to a top-down model like Canonical's) that has worked well for decades. It has nothing to do with service. Maybe Shuttleworth should read The Cathedral and the Bazaar before equating open-source with service.
--- Andy West http://andywest.org
So what party does the "moderate conservative" creimer vote for?
They didn't have the votes to stop a hearing committe.
The one area they did have the votes to be able to obstructe they tried to use (the filibuster) .
So what party does the "moderate conservative" creimer vote for?
I usually vote for the best candidate for the job. The party letter next to the name doesn't matter.
I'll take that bet.
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