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Dozens Of Canonical Employees Resign As Ubuntu Switches To GNOME, Shuttleworth Returns As CEO (theregister.co.uk)
Alexander J Martin, reporting for The Register: More than 80 Canonical workers are facing the axe as founder Mark Shuttleworth has taken back the role of chief executive officer. The number, revealed today by The Reg, comes as Shuttleworth assumed the position from CEO of eight years Jane Silber, previously chief operating officer. The Reg has learned 31 or more staffers have already left the Ubuntu Linux maker ahead of Shuttleworth's rise, with at least 26 others now on formal notice and uncertainty surrounding the remainder. One individual has resigned while others, particularly in parts of the world with more stringent labour laws (such as the UK), are being left in the dark. The details come after The Reg revealed plans for the cuts as a commercial get-fit programme instituted by Shuttleworth. The Canonical founder is cutting numbers after an external assessment of his company by potential new financial backers found overstaffing and that projects lacked focus.
after the users left, it's normal that the devs leave afterward
Be or ben't
The title is "dozens resign" while the article (and summary) is "one resigned." Everyone else was laid off.
So part of the summary makes it sound like they're leaving in protest, while another part makes it sound like their positions will be going away - perhaps a "quit or be fired" sort of thing?
Of course I could just read the article, but I don't want to lose my Slashdot cred... so what's going on?
#DeleteChrome
Yea, I hear Linux already had a desktop and they decided to make their own anyway.
they will get rid of systemd and their users will come back.
So is Ubuntu Linux effectively a dead project/distribution at this point?
A shakeup of this magnitude can't be good for the project's health.
This really makes me worry about the health of the Linux ecosystem as a whole.
Between the PulseAudio, GNOME 3, Wayland, and systemd disasters, we Linux users have seen so much turmoil these past several years.
Now things are getting so uncertain within the Ubuntu world, with the whole Unity-to-GNOME-3 switch and now this news.
If the Ubuntu project falters, the Linux ecosystem will be getting even less diverse.
Even now there are fewer and fewer differences between Fedora and Debian.
In so many ways Debian and Fedora can be considered essentially the same: they use the same kernel, the same init system, the same desktop environment, and much of the same userland software.
Even the package management is almost identical now, with the main difference being whether we type "dnf" or "apt"!
This lack of diversity has resulted in stagnation.
I really want Linux to succeed, but all of these developments leave me feeling very uneasy.
It's interesting. This article was first posted with the headline "Dozens Of Canonical Employees Resign, Shuttleworth Returns As CEO." Then it was re-posted less than a minute later as "Dozens Of Canonical Employees Resign As Ubuntu Switches To GNOME, Shuttleworth Returns As CEO."
The only difference between the two is "As Ubuntu Switches to GNOME," but if you look at TFA, the word 'gnome' does not appear. So someone went to the effort of editing this post to add gnome to the headline despite its having nothing to do with the article. I guess to give us a target for hating on? Two of the stories about gnome this month have gotten more than 300 comments, which is relatively big these days for Slashdot.
Just an observation and a theory about the way our overlords try to influence the discussion.
The Unity vs GNOME debate is just like this comic: http://extrafabulouscomics.com...
but i use KDE so i don't really know what i'm talking about
Voxday? Take your stinkin' alt-right drivel with you.
The only thing I like about Shuttleworth is that he is a pretty motivated guy and actually manages to get things implemented (as opposed to the next 1000 guys with ideas that do nothing about them).
I think his problem is that he holds on to a losing model way too long (sort of like when you have a stock and it's going down and down and down and you are only relying on hope at that point when realistically you should cut your losses).
There is evidence to his broken model from an interview with him about 7 years ago when he was being asked about his "famous" Ubuntu Bug #1: Microsoft has too much market share. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1
He said, in that interview https://raphaelhertzog.com/2011/11/17/people-behind-debian-mark-shuttleworth-ubuntus-founder/ that this would be the solution: "The key to that dream is economics, and as always, a change in economics; it was clear to me that the flow of money around personal software would change from licensing (“buying Windows”) to services (“paying for your Ubuntu ONE storage”)." But I don't think that jives with reality. I don't think you can dominate with an Open Source project based on ideas relating to money.
You can even read in his blog and articles that his biggest frustration with Debian is that one person was not in charge, so it lacked a unified vision. That's great, but everything Shuttleworth does he wants to be the leader in, which is why he goes about re-implementing Canonical-only projects that already exist in the Linux-sphere that he could work with instead. And the problem with wanting to be the leader of everything is that when you are wrong you must realize it or you end up far outside of reality. But maybe he is starting to realize it now.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but... I've met Mark and I'm pretty sure his IQ is in the 90th percentile. He's one smart motherfucker... seriously. Bit of a psychopath maybe, like many CEOs, but one smart motherfucker.
Yes, the phone, unity, and Mir were projects competing in saturated markets fighting uphill battles. He funded those out of passion, and put his own money on the table for it. Who can blame him for that? It sucks that he couldn't find the market for it. But driver support won't be impacted by this.
Ubuntu seems to be doing well in the cloud though, and Mark can't keep funding Canonical by himself forever. From a cold commercial perspective, this seems like a smart move.
They are canceling development on two big in-house projects, Mir and Unity, and laying off many of the people who worked on those projects. The Register article is a followup on a previous article (which they linked), where this is explicitly confirmed by Canonical.
The last time I needed to set up a Linux box, I went with Mint because Ubuntu had clearly shat the bed. This was about a year ago.
Ubuntu was the single most successful flavor of Linux for desktop use. It was the closest Linux ever got to being widely appropriate for grandmas and neighbors and other people that people like us are sick of supporting.
I don't keep up with the various distros often enough to know the history of how Ubuntu failed, but I do know that it failed.
You missed Upstart
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The Canonical founder is cutting numbers after an external assessment of his company by potential new financial backers found overstaffing and that projects lacked focus.
So Shuttleworth is being a responsible adult and cutting the people who aren't doing anything useful and getting things back on track so that they don't waste man/woman hours on projects that don't have any point?
If so then good.
Does this also mean Canonical is going to ditch Mir and focus on helping to improve Wayland instead? Why reinvent a different and incompatible wheel when you could just help refine the one that is already there? This seems to be the reasoning behind switching back to GNOME as the default DE.
Does this mean Canonical is going to stop wasting time on dumb and redundant ideas like Ubuntu phone? I hope so.
If they're cutting these sorts of time wasters then it makes sense that they'd also cut the people that worked on those projects. Unlike Apple, Canonical is showing real bravery here by cutting employees from an already controversial company (open source people like to get angry). But if that's what brings the company back on track then more power to Shuttleworth.
What's curious to me is how Canonical got off onto those bullshit projects in the first place. Seems to me like the execs who suggested such fad-chasing (Ubuntu phone) and wheel-reinventing (Mir and Unity) should also be on the chopping block if they aren't already.
(full disclosure: I use Ubuntu on all of my computers at home and at work)
You do realize that Mint is based on Ubuntu, right?
This depends on the flavor of Mint you pick. Or at least it did the last time I tried it. There was a version based on Unbuntu, and another based directly on Debian. (Of course, Ubuntu is, itself, based on Debian...but it at least used to do lots of massaging for compatibility and adding drivers.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Hasn't GNOME been the default GUI for Ubuntu for years? You can still install other ones - and the Kubuntu release has KDE as default - but I don't recall there being another default for the base install.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
They at least have a going away party with kool-aid provided.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I'm conflicted here. On one hand, I despise Unity, so I think dropping it is a very welcome change. How refreshing that a company is actually listening to its users. I only wish it would have happened a long time ago. It's a bit ironic that the primary UI is shifting to GNOME though, who practically make a living from ignoring their users' wishes.
On the other hands, I feel really bad for these people who are now out of a job. They were most likely the devs who were just following orders to move Unity forward.
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
I never did understand how the bitter unfuckables arrived at "cuck" as their concept of the ultimate sick burn. I mean, I get the idea of projection and all, but why expose one's own ultimate insecurity this way? How is that tactically sound?
These headlines are so horribly written that they're misleading at worst, and confusing at best. After over 15 years visiting this site, I think I've finally had enough.
Says the micropeened incel.
Ubuntu seems to be doing well in the cloud though
Canonical Sues Cloud Provider Over 'Unofficial' Ubuntu Images.
What's your take on how leftists label everybody and everything they dislike as "Nazi", "Hitler", "literally Hitler", "worse than Hitler", "racist", "sexist", "homophobic", "intolerant", "bigoted", "transphobic", and so forth?
Is it because deep down inside they tend to harbor divisive, totalitarian urges, perhaps even wanting to engage in genocide against those that they hate?
I'm not sure if they're (capable of) thinking it through that thoroughly. One of them tried to insult a woman when she mentioned going on birdwatching trip with two male friends by telling her that her husband was a cuck.
...how does saying that to a woman about her partner even work as an insult? It fails on so many levels!
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I've never used Ubuntu and never will. Canomical is a vanity company, prizing the Benevolent Dictator's ego over being a good open source citizen. Ubuntu is by far the buggiest OS ever released, open source or proprietary. Proponents say that Ubuntu is good for linux, which is true in the same way that factory farming is good for chickens.
SJW is previous quarter's braindead stock phrase, currently you should be using 'special snowflake' for your inane comments, didn't you get the memo?
Who wants someone else's smelly foot on their desktop?
FTFY
Can't argue facts, gotta bitch about the source?
One of Us
I did the same thing a few years ago. Mint was the best of both worlds: It had all the parts of Ubuntu that Just Worked, but it kept GNOME, and even let you choose between GNOME 2 (Mate) and GNOME 3 (Cinnamon). Gets the job done, and on my HTPC, the kids can't tell the difference.
An IQ in the 90th percentile is not really that smart. Sure, it's above average, but that's not saying much.
It takes an IQ in the 98th percentile to get into Mensa, and that's still only two standard deviations above the mean, an IQ of about 130.
Lots of people smarter than that. (Lots more dumber than that, but that's not saying much. Half the population is dumber than average.*)
(*Assuming a normal distribution, which IQ does in fact follow.)
My theory is that the projection is so strong that it would never occur to them to question whether others have the same insecurity. It's not even worth evaluating to them: emasculation is the absolute worst thing for them, so it must be the worst thing for everyone, so trying to undermine their opponents' masculinity will be the most devastating attack they can make. Sadly, it differs from schoolyard insults only by vocabulary level, so it makes them look pretty pathetic, and because there's absolutely no way to reason with someone who thinks calling an opponent 'cuck' is a legitimate rhetorical approach, it tends to end the conversation and then they think they've 'won'. So they feel pretty good about it and keep doing it.
and even let you choose between GNOME 2 (Mate) and GNOME 3 (Cinnamon)
And xfce and kde
Cuck all you guys, I'm going home (to watch others doing it).
Although there is much to be said about the terminally-irresilient and their own issues with paranoia and jumping to conclusions about those they disagree with, there are also some marked differences that make them harder to pin down. Among other things, as you yourself have noticed, the conclusions they jump to actually vary: you had to assemble quite a list of varying list of insults to capture the breadth of vitriol the tumblrites can fling at a person, while the creeplords don't really seem to have anything other than "cuck".
From Wikipedia:
Canonical employs staff in more than 30 countries and maintains offices in London, Boston, Taipei, Shanghai, Tokyo and the Isle of Man.
and:
Canonical has more than 500 employees.
Isn't it the most popular Linux distro? It seems like one of the major OSes of choice for VMs and servers, not to mention desktops. If you count the multifarious derivatives based on it, it's huge.
HiThere covered most of it. The other part of it is what Canonical failed to realize.
When they ruin Ubuntu, others can just take the good and run with it.
You are obsessed with them, yet you likely rarely ever encounter any in person working in tech. You're essentially rebelling against the age old "college activist", which is nothing new and is not going to just disappear because you keep ranting about them in every goddamn comment. Easy solution to the SJW menace you think exists, stop visiting redpill, tumblrinaction, the_donald, Breitbart, watching Sargon of Akkad videos, following people on Twitter who obsess over them, and suddenly you should notice they in fact are not all over the place.
Can we get them to also switch away from Debian base as well? I've never seen Debian so fucked up as it is right now. Thanks Ubuntu backporters. This is probably really good news for KDE fans I would assume.
They do have a history of 1) Embrace 2) Extend 3) extinguish. It makes a lot of sense to me that they would fuck up the most stable distro base (Debian) and the most organized desktop framework (KDE). Next target: gnome!
Cinnamon is not Gnome 3. Not even close. Get a clue.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Truth is hard sometimes.
I was told time and time again that "The best part about Linux is, if you don't like something, just change it. So stop your whining and go fix it."
Is this no longer the case?
At least these volunteers didn't get their faces bloodied, or has Canonical adopted United's version of volunteering?
Which version of Linux does MacOS run?
The Mac OSX desktop is only the defacto desktop on Macs. Many Linux developers do not use Macs.
Unity Is Dead! And there was great rejoicing!
So this is wrong? "So they decided to create their own desktop environment, one that retains the same look and feel of a GNOME 2 (or MATE) desktop, but built atop GNOME 3 technologies. That was how Cinnamon came to be."
So, of the 30 users who don't think Unity is a counterproductive pile of shit that works against the user if you do anything more than consume media, we now find out that "dozens" of those users were actually the developers of it.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
Interview: Thomas Voss of Mir — October 2014
How is it that I never fall into the category of people described as "users"?
Does what I do for ten hours a day, every day, not fall into the semantic category of "using"? Me, and everyone like me? How do we always find ourselves filed under "a certain audience"? Well, this "certain audience" is today crying no giant room-temperature crocodile tears—neither any small, steamy gnat tears.
Here's the underlying problem: "user", as fantasized by far too many software developers, is the centerfold normalization of real womanhood.
Seriously? In 2013? When it couldn't even be demoed at a conference? Who told you that? Perhaps you should take a look at the mailing list archive of the time or ask someone who was paying attention at the time.
It's come a very long way since 2013.
Then you clearly either have no clue whatsoever or have some agenda to push.
Wayland just did not do what Ubuntu wanted in 2013 and probably does not even do it now. Ubuntu have different goals to you.
I am getting a very strong impression here that you are trying to deliberately mislead the readers for some incredibly petty reason or other. I do not think we should be doing that with software projects and should instead judge them on their actual merits.
On the "finished" window manger - beyond version 1.0, so it must be finished by your definition above.
On minimising windows:
The developers were not spreading bullshit. They were being completely honest about where they were up to and working towards a goal.
Why are you offsetting their excellent efforts by being a whining fanboy and revisionist? What did they ever do to you apart from give you a toy to play with?
50 out of 700 working on projects that _lacked focus_ *GASP*