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Canonical Founder Says Recent Changes In Ubuntu Were Necessary To Prepare the Company For an IPO (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the inside-story dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Canonical was doing well with Ubuntu and cloud and container-related technologies, such as Juju, LXD, and Metal-as-a-Service (MaaS). In addition, its OpenStack and Kubernetes software stacks, according to Shuttleworth, are growing by leaps and bounds on both the public and private cloud. Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said "in the last year, Ubuntu cloud growth had been 70 percent on the private cloud and 90 percent on the public cloud." In particular, "Ubuntu has been gaining more customers on the big five public clouds." What hadn't succeeded was Canonical's attempt to make Unity the universal interface for desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Shuttleworth was personally invested in this project, but at day's end, it wasn't getting enough adoption to make it profitable. So, Shuttleworth said with regret, Unity had to be dropped. This move also means Canonical will devote more of its time to "putting the company on the path to a IPO. We must figure out what steps we need to take moving forward." That means focusing on Canonical's most profitable lines. Specifically, "Ubuntu will never die. Ubuntu is the default platform on cloud computing. Juju, MaaS, and OpenStack are nearly unstoppable. We need to work out more of our IoT path. At the same time, we had to cut out those parts that couldn't meet an investors' needs. The immediate work is get all parts of the company profitable."

128 comments

  1. Best thing Canonical did with Unity by el_smurfo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Was introduce me to Linux Mint. Thanks Mark!

    1. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought that Unity was Rack Sanchez's ex-girlfriend... that chick could really rock a civilization, but her new boyfriend is such a tool

    2. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yep, Mark's the man! Linux Mint for the workstations, CentOS for the servers.

    3. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Debian>Ubuntu>Mint

      And because of Unity i re-introduced myself to the "root": Debian!

      I can't understand the purpose of Mint as an independent distribution (instead of an Ubuntu "flavor"), especially now that Ubuntu returns to Gnome.

    4. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by TWX · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've tried twice to use Unity as a windowmanager, and both times I've found a friggin' Microsoft UI to be more useful for managing the way I use Linux (ie, lots and lots of consoles for SSH) than Unity. I've used MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, CDE on HPUX and SunOS, Enlightenment, KDE, Gnome, xfce, fvwm, classic MacOS, OSX, and even twm, tab window manager, and all are more intuitive to use than Unity.

      The only OS that I've had a harder time with was the command line on the Apple II, but that's because I have no idea what the commands are on an Apple II CLI. Even then though, I knew that I didn't know the commands, so my frustration was based on not having the literature. Unity seems like it should be familiar, it seems like it should work like modern GUIs, but it doesn't behave the same. Clicking and right-clicking do not do the same things. It's not obvious how to get to my applications, they don't seem to appear in any kind of sane heirarchical menu system. It just doesn't make any sense. When twm is easier to use then you know there's a problem.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    5. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

      Same here... If I wanted a mobile OS UI, I'll download and *get* a mobile OS UI.

      Dafuq were they thinking...?

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    6. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by ckatko · · Score: 1

      Except I freakin' love Unity now and now that people are finally getting used to it, they're like "nevermind, we're going straight shit back to GNOME3."

      The hotkeys (while using EVERY META combination) are super fast and intuitive for moving windows, moving virtual desktops, moving windows inbetween virtual desktops. I combine it with Guake (a quake-style drop down console that has multiple tabs and doesn't change as you move across virtual desktops). Unity makes excellent use of space on a Netbook, and the keys are likewise fast. I'm running a converted Chromebook with a mere 2 GB of RAM and a single Chrome tab takes more RAM and CPU than the operating system with the sole exception of the compositor (standard compiz) when running graphics intensive stuff.

      I program hobby games on this machine. I program shell scripts for work. I RDP into Windows systems. I've managed to do almost everything I normally used my windows machine for when I go to a client. All with 8+ hours of battery life. Life is good and Unity is a part of that right now.

      Yes, it's not very customizable because Ubuntu is a bunch of smug assholes. But that doesn't mean every product they touch is inherently bad either.

    7. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by JoeDuncan · · Score: 1

      Same

    8. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Why should I now switch to Mint?

      I understood at the time of the Gnome 3 / Unity debacle Mint offered something that wasn't available elsewhere, but I'm genuinely curious now, what is the benefit for Mint?

      I used to recommend Mint to a lot of people. I continued to run Ubuntu on my servers where the GUI didn't matter anyway (Mint's strongest point IMO). But recently I've just recommended Ubuntu again with a single command typed in the console "liberating" the desktop and making it traditional again.

      So what does Mint offer in 2017?

    9. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by jenningsthecat · · Score: 1

      ... But recently I've just recommended Ubuntu again with a single command typed in the console "liberating" the desktop and making it traditional again...So what does Mint offer in 2017?

      Umm... how about a distro managed by people who actually give a shit about the desires and needs of YOU, the user? How about the hard working devs who were there for Linux users and gave them an alternative when the twin crapcakes of Unity and Gnome 3 were being forced down their throats?

      Anybody who abandons Mint because of Ubuntu's about-face will SO deserve it if Ubuntu pulls another shit-headed fast one and leaves them scrambling to cobble together a decent Linux environment. And if Mint is gone by that time because it lost users to the 'everything old is new again' Ubuntu, they'll have one fewer viable alternative. Not to mention that with an IPO in the offing, Canonical is likely to become even less responsive to the average Ubuntu user than they are now.

      If people don't choose to stay with Mint out of loyalty, decency, and gratitude, I hope they can at least muster an inkling of a fucking clue about where their own best interests lie, and consider staying with Mint for the sake of promoting diversity. BTW, I'm NOT a Mint user. When I was looking at alternatives to Debian I didn't love Mint, and Xubuntu seemed the best choice for me. But I very much value the continued vitality of Mint. In fact, I'll be giving it another try soon - it's time for an upgrade from Trusty, but the possibility of a Canonical IPO is making me think twice about continuing with Ubuntu.

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    10. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      No I mean give me something tangible. I'm not going to recommend Mint over another flavour due to some wishy washy the developers have your best interests at heart bullshit.

      Remember this is the reason why Ubuntu started in the first place. Your interests are their interests since your interests will get their desktop installed. They only happen to have misread the market on the Unity thing. Quite frankly I believe the Gnome 3 crew with their simplification (dare I say stupification) of Linux has the interests of new users more at heart than those distros seeking to promote the status quo.

      So what real tangible benefit is there to using Mint over Ubuntu right now as a recommendation to a new user?

    11. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by 4partee · · Score: 1

      Yeah, we have been wondering what the G3 folks have been thinking for years. I am not spending any time trying to think about what those fuckers are thinking. They have keyboards too, so let them tell us what the fuck they are thinking.

    12. Re:Best thing Canonical did with Unity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Baby's First GNU/Linux OS

  2. Good while it lasted by fabriciom · · Score: 1

    Time to start looking for a replacement distro...

    1. Re:Good while it lasted by dknj · · Score: 3, Informative

      For the desktop replacement, you still have distros based on debian which have fairly up-to-date release schedules.

      KDE Neon is Kubuntu with a different name.
      Linux Mint is Ubuntu with a streamlined UI.

      In both of these you can swap out to plain gnome2 or gnome3, xfce, enlightenment, or windowmaker if you want.

      For server, you're kinda boned. You can go back to debian, which isn't too bad. CentOS with epel is a functional cross, but theres no way you are running bleeding edge with a RHEL distro. The plus about RHEL is that rpm packaging is dirt simple and you can have a bleeding edge environment if you don't mind the upkeep (1% project overhead in my exp).

      My worry is that Ubuntu is going to follow the path of RedHat. Where Ubuntu takes over debian as the defacto fork and updates trickle back to debian. Usurping the debian development and testing in the process. Anyway I suspect tinfoil and pennies to be given away freely in this thread.

      -dk

    2. Re:Good while it lasted by fabriciom · · Score: 1

      Debian it is then, old and stable doesn't bother me any more.

    3. Re:Good while it lasted by LiENUS · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > For server, you're kinda boned. You can go back to debian, which isn't too bad. CentOS with epel is a functional cross, but theres no way you are running bleeding edge with a RHEL distro.

      I gave up trying to get bleeding edge anything on those distros. I just run docker and run my bleeding edge service within docker.

    4. Re:Good while it lasted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, Ubuntu has already taken over Debian and trickle updates back. No way Debian has more users than Ubuntu.

      You also left out Fedora when discussing server distros.

    5. Re:Good while it lasted by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      My worry is that Ubuntu is going to follow the path of RedHat. Where Ubuntu takes over debian as the defacto fork and updates trickle back to debian. Usurping the debian development and testing in the process.

      This could've happened years ago if Ubuntu so desired, since Ubuntu has more users and more developers and more resources than Debian. They don't so desire. It's easier to be downstream than upstream and they know it. They'd rather help Debian remain their upstream so they can get some benefit from it.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    6. Re:Good while it lasted by Rod+Beauvex · · Score: 1

      No, I think you're onto something. I've known for awhile people, whether the US government, Intelligence community, or corporations were going to hijack Linux at some point, and I think all these changes and happenings in the community are the first fruits of those labors.

    7. Re:Good while it lasted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For Mint, both MATE and Cinnamon are the gnome2 lookalikes that come as preset options.

    8. Re:Good while it lasted by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Are you alleging that Gnome3 is part of a nefarious conspiracy theory?

      Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me too much. Why anyone likes that turd is completely beyond me, so an elaborate conspiracy theory would actually explain why it's so seemingly popular among Linux users and why so many distros push it so hard.

  3. "Ubuntu, the default platform on cloud computing" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LOL!!!

  4. That explains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...why he sold out to systemd.

    1. Re:That explains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...why he sold out to systemd.

      Ubuntu sold out to systemd because Debian sold out to systemd.

      Otherwise, they would have had to do all the work Devuan is doing now, to remove needless systemd dependencies.

      I'd still like to see an Ubuntu based on Devuan some day.

  5. Ditching Unity, big mistake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After foisting Unity upon users for years, now Canonical whistles a different tune. From a user perspective, you might as well learn a new distribution, or even a new OS. This is akin to the New Coke, Datsun/Nissian fiascos, etc. Whatever faults Unity has, it was what people were used to.

      Productive people get used to how they do things. Changing the UI suddenly presents new challenges for productive people who do not have the time, interest, or inclinatin to focus on learning a new way of doing their daily tasks. It's a great opportunity to move on.

    1. Re:Ditching Unity, big mistake by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      it was what people were used to

      In that we got used to another distribution.

    2. Re:Ditching Unity, big mistake by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Unity is a great game engine.... oh wait...

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    3. Re:Ditching Unity, big mistake by Merk42 · · Score: 1

      So it's bad Ubuntu used Unity by default and now it's bad that Ubuntu is not using Unity by default.

      Typical Slashdot hate: damned if you do, damned if you don't

    4. Re: Ditching Unity, big mistake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know, because slashdot is made of INDIVIDUALS, many of which are natural contrarians. It has always been like this which makes your post even more stupid than the supposed contradiction you are posting about.

  6. IPO and Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux is better with an IPA

    1. Re:IPO and Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The popularity of the IPA style in the last few years is a regrettable trend. It has to crowded out other, better, more balanced, more worthy craft beer styles on the pub's limited tap space. Dunkelweizen is particularly hard to find.

    2. Re:IPO and Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dunkelweizen

      Most people don't like drinking that bunker oil.

    3. Re:IPO and Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or a good Kölsch, my favorite summer beer. Unfiltered.

    4. Re:IPO and Linux by Barsteward · · Score: 1

      do you mean with a pint of IPA?

      --
      "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
    5. Re:IPO and Linux by TWX · · Score: 1

      Our favorite local brewery was bought-out by Anheuser-Busch and they dropped the Kolsch. Dammit.

      BTW, when did the ö character start working on Slashdot?

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    6. Re:IPO and Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BTW, when did the ö character start working on Slashdot?

      when they möved tö the clöud

  7. "Run Linux like a Fortune500 business" - fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does it not occur to him that FOSS can't easily transition to proprietary monopoly dreams?

    It's almost as stupid as Trump trying to 'run the government like a business' - what don't they get about this?

    That's not what it's meant to be, that's not the role it's filling currently, and there are REASONS FOR THAT.

    1. Re:"Run Linux like a Fortune500 business" - fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Ubuntu will never die. Ubuntu is the default platform on cloud computing.

      Until profits go down for one quarter. Then there will be a demand to "do something" to get the profits back up.

      An IPO makes a few people rich, and turns the company into just another collection of scammers looking to fuck the customer any way they can in order to boost profits.

    2. Re:"Run Linux like a Fortune500 business" - fail by Barsteward · · Score: 1

      thats why you drop all the expensive development efforts like unity and mir to use of the work of others for free. maybe with those out of work developers they can contribute to the common good and help move things like wayland along instead

      --
      "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
    3. Re:"Run Linux like a Fortune500 business" - fail by TWX · · Score: 1

      Having played just a bit lately with ChromeOS, I suspect that a true cloud platform would be better if stripped-down to essentials, especially if the point is to spin-up VMs at-will. An OS like ChromeOS, built on Linux Kernel and with only the daemons and permissions needed to do whatever cloud function is demanded, makes more sense than having a GUI-based, multipurpose server. ChromeOS obviously still has a GUI as it's tailored toward being an end-user frontend for web-delivered content, but it's been pared-back to the point that it only has on it what it needs and has permisisons that are intended to keep the user out of the system. If a cloud application is properly written then such permissions would probably work well to keep the system secure against both user and exterior threat so that it remains manageable through whatever management system is written for it.

      Unity and Ubuntu are basically the opposite. Designed as both a full-service server and as a GUI, it hasn't been tailored for this. Using dpkg-based package management works great when setting up a static server but is not really suited to spontaneously spinning up additional instances, it would take too long to customize to the specific application.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  8. Going the way of Cyanogen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A simple formula

    1) Get Investors and bring in 'people'
    2) ???
    3) Loss!

  9. Buy buy buy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow, a canonical IPO. Can't wait to get my hands on that! /s

  10. In other words... by Junta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To do IPO they brought in analysts, who made recommendations.

    I see a rough road for IPO at this phase. They've been a fixture for over 10 years and their repeated attempts to succeed as a business have been widely observed and have failed. While undoubtedly popular, it is painfully obvious because they are the most straightforward free option. They have not shown any hint of being able to parlay their status to significant revenue. Instead they have to keep hand waving less useful metrics about users of their software than any business relationships, and intentionally fuzzing things up by swapping the word 'customer' and 'user' as it makes sense ('user' to have big numbers and share, then pivot to referencing customers, to suggest the users==customers, rather than the reality that the vast majority of users of the platform will never become a revenue source).

    If they had IPOed 10 years ago, things would have been new enough for the investors to be enamored with the visions of what *could* be, but the passage has time has dashed pretty much all of the hopes.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    1. Re:In other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      They have not shown any hint of being able to parlay their status to significant revenue

      LOL, the curse of open source strikes again. Information may want to be free but it's damned hard to make a living building it. The only way that has been found so far is either support or subscription services and even then it's hard to get anybody to pay up.

      Hopefully, someday the FOSS idealists will wise up and realize that they're pissing away their hard work so that a bunch of ungrateful freeloaders can make a fortune for themselves. I'm not holding my breath though.

    2. Re:In other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, twatface, are you aware that the vast majority of OSS developers are in fact full time professionals working on OSS software for their corporate employers? Of course you weren't.

      Hold your breath for as long as you like, you're not important and are of zero interest; you won't be missed.

    3. Re:In other words... by Ramze · · Score: 1

      Because most people in OSS work for places like Red Hat which focus primarily on servers and thin clients. So much work put into databases, security, and websites, yet so little work put into user-experience, consistent GUI, APIs for GUI users, and desktop users in general.

    4. Re:In other words... by SurenEnfiajyan · · Score: 0

      Exactly. I was hinting at this. Pure FOSS model is viable in areas such as server and embedded space, but it fails short in consumers' world. Enterprises want pay money for support but not the consumers.

    5. Re:In other words... by geek · · Score: 1

      They have not shown any hint of being able to parlay their status to significant revenue

      That's why they brought in the analysts...................

    6. Re:In other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You really shouldn't use OSS and Free Software in the same sentence.

    7. Re:In other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So does this explain why ChromeOS Linux is being used in every school? Or why Microsoft has decided that the ChromeOS version of Linux needs to be countered with Windows 10 S. Or is it why Android Linux is the worlds largest phone OS? Yeah you only saw it on servers because if it has a GUI it must not really be Linux. Not true Scotsman/Linux has a GUI so Linux is useless for things with GUIs.

    8. Re:In other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Myself, and many (most?) developers do their work in the command line environement. That is really where most my production takes place. It is probable that most capable developers are not that interested in working on the GUI. Of course I use a graphical interface for many things. But my daily work demands a CLI. You have to pay people good bucks to work on something they are not that interested in.

    9. Re:In other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, twatface, are you aware that the vast majority of OSS developers are in fact full time professionals working on OSS software for their corporate employers?

      Double LOL; such an angry person you are. Sure, there are a few people being paid full time to work on OSS. And then there are companies like Amazon, Google, etc. that literally made hundreds of billions of dollars off their work. Employing a few token OSS developers is probably less than their annual budget for paper towels.

      Sorry that the truth hurt your feelings but there it is. FOSS, as an ideal, is nice but it also devalues software and trains people to think "all software should cost nothing and support should cost nothing and new features should cost nothing...". Not a great idea if your profession is making software.

    10. Re:In other words... by SurenEnfiajyan · · Score: 0

      Well, Android/Chromium OS are open source except the good parts. Chrome OS (Chromium OS) is roughly a modified Chrome/Chromium browser on top of the Linux kernel. What mostly makes Chrome OS and Android successful is the Google's services and apps (Google Play, Google Camera, etc) which are usually proprietary software. Also many vendors fork these OSes and make them proprietary by tivoing and closing the sources (except the Linux kernel, but GPL2 doesn't protect against tivo anyway). So it's not so rosy, Android and Chrome OS are almost proprietary. https://arstechnica.com/gadget...

    11. Re:In other words... by SurenEnfiajyan · · Score: 0

      Maybe... But I meant FOSS in this context.

    12. Re:In other words... by SurenEnfiajyan · · Score: 0

      Yeah, "I'm a Linux developer, I do everything strictly for myself".

    13. Re:In other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...said the guy who's never used Mint/Cinnamon.

    14. Re:In other words... by Junta · · Score: 1

      Analysts are sadly useless for knowing about what you *should* do or what the *future* is. They can do a serviceable job of past trends and current data, but their predictions about what could and will succeed are about as accurate as flipping coins.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    15. Re:In other words... by Junta · · Score: 1

      So if there are're many professions in OSS, why there is no Linux distro or other free OS of comparable quality to Windows 7 or even XP?

      Why should the distros *lower* their quality? ;)

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  11. IPO by djbckr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Somebody needs to explain to me why a company always feels the need to be publicly traded. It is never good for the consumer. It shackles the company to be profitable regardless of quality.

    I worked for a private company that did very, very well. Then the owners jumped ship and through a series of events finally went public. Everything went to shit after that.

    1. Re:IPO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Somebody needs to explain to me why a company always feels the need to be publicly traded.

      The IPO is how the people who started the company get their money + profits back. They didn't start the company just out of the goodness of their hearts.

    2. Re:IPO by hackel · · Score: 5, Informative

      Access to funds to expand, without having to sell half your soul to a VC?

    3. Re:IPO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      magick money. If a company is struggling because it can't get enough capital to do the expansion that it will inevitably need, they can be forced to consider magick money. IPO money is magick money. It makes the IPO investors rich, it makes the companies balance sheet rich, and it makes the owners rich, all at the same time.

      captch: mental
      Like the stock market...

    4. Re:IPO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Access to funds to expand, without having to sell half your soul to a VC?

      That's the answer for the Finance 101 final but not in reality.

      In reality it is an exit strategy. And the way public companies are valued, you get much MUCH more going public than by selling privately.

      Selling privately: it depends on the buyer's metrics BUT is may mean the they need to pay for the business with the free cash flows from that business in 5 to 7 years. OR they are what's called a strategic buyer and will pay something that costs less than what it would cost them to start from scratch.

      Going public means you issue stock to the public who thinks that they can buy your stock at $20 per share and it'll go to $800 - for no business reasons other than there are dumber people willing to buy it at a higher price - all because of hype and a great public relations team.

    5. Re:IPO by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Somebody needs to explain to me why a company always feels the need to be publicly traded.

      Companies don't feel needs. Someone in control of the corporation feels they could make a lot of money with an IPO. So it goes.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    6. Re:IPO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      because the board is voted in by the shareholders, and the shareholders are VC funds who invested with the idea of making an exit. if you don't want to do an IPO, be like Johnson and Johnson and grow slowly over 100 years with your own capital.

    7. Re:IPO by bankman · · Score: 2

      The company doesn't feel a need to do anything. It's a way for management and/or the owners to raise equity capital and/or sell parts of their share where a private sale isn't happening for whatever reason.

      The pressure public trading and enhanced scrutiny by financial analysts, who rarely understand the business the company is in, put on the company is often either not understood by management or accepted as a requirement to raising equity. The problem usually is the incredibly stupid short termism exhibited by the markets (well, financial analysts) which leads to fewer, if at all, strategic decision making.

      Unless your expansion plans require vast amounts of capital for your successful business an IPO doesn't really make much business sense IMHO.

      --
      I feel so sig.
    8. Re:IPO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why a company always feels the need to be publicly traded

      First, a "company" doesn't feel anything. People do.

      Second, the goal here is to cash out (i.e. to get rich). You don't need to think any further into it than that.

    9. Re:IPO by PCM2 · · Score: 1

      It sounds to me like you're of the opinion that Linux is primarily a desktop OS. You might want to examine some of the history on that.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    10. Re:IPO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read again. He said the company did "really, really well". I.e presumably the people who started it had probably got their money back already, they just went for an extra cash-grab on their way out. "I'm alright Jack, pull up the ladder."

    11. Re:IPO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. Guess Shuttleworth has had his fill of being the "benevolent dictator."

    12. Re:IPO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lots of reasons sometimes you need the captial to expand and the only way is to offer an IPO. There are 1000's of publicly traded companies that offer very good and ethical products with very good quality. A few bad apples in the bunch don't speak for the entire market.

    13. Re:IPO by bws111 · · Score: 1

      He said he worked for, not owned, the company. The perception of whether or not a company is doing very, very well quite often differs between those two groups. This is especially true when one of the parties use phrases like 'it shackles the company to be profitable...'. Yes, that is why companies exist, to be profitable, whether they are publicly or privately held.

    14. Re:IPO by organgtool · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So instead you chop your soul into millions of pieces and sell those pieces to thousands of greedy psychopaths rather than just one. I honestly don't know which is worse.

    15. Re:IPO by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      BWHAHAHAHAHA.

      IPO's are ALWAYS about cashing out the current ownership. No company seeking an IPO has done so to gain access to funding for growth since the 60's. And since around 2000 almost every single IPO was about giving the founders huge stacks of money so they can walk away before the company goes bankrupt.

    16. Re:IPO by djbckr · · Score: 1

      Replying to comments: Yep, I said "very, very well". And I mean it. All of the owners (3 of them) were easily millionaires by the time they got to jumping ship. They didn't need, nor necessarily want to sell, but were pressured - probably by their families - to sell out and make like a lottery win. Before this, they happily shared the wealth/profits of the company with the employees. Some of us got as much as $10k Christmas bonuses (depending on how long you worked there). We always had plenty of money to do the things we needed to do. And then some. They would take the entire company to ball games and lakeside parties. This made the employees happy to work there and put in extra effort when needed. There was simply no need to go public.

    17. Re:IPO by bws111 · · Score: 2

      OK, so you worked for a very profitable company. That has nothing to do with public vs private. There are public companies that treat their employees equally as well, and there are profitable private companies that treat their employees poorly.

      It sounds like the problem with your company is that once the founder left there was no direction. That is quite common, and has little to do with public vs private (although that can be trotted out as a convenient excuse).

    18. Re:IPO by xtronics · · Score: 1

      Their "Linux phone" bit failed. Time to cash out.

      ( To be accurate - their phone isn't really Linux - it uses an android kernel with binary blobs that insure zero security ) .

    19. Re:IPO by StormReaver · · Score: 1

      ...to thousands of greedy psychopaths....

      Billions! Once again, the press underestimates me.

    20. Re:IPO by sexconker · · Score: 1

      It sounds to me like you're of the opinion that Linux is primarily a desktop OS. You might want to examine some of the history on that.

      It sounds to me like you're an idiot.

      I never made such a statement. Ubuntu is certainly primarily a desktop OS. It was designed and marketed as being a free (as in beer, speech and fucking "Ubuntu") desktop OS to replace Windows for all sorts of casual users. Ubuntu was the noob-friendly Linux, and for a time it was pretty successful.

      Ubuntu is not the distro you want for production servers, cloud-based or otherwise.

    21. Re:IPO by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      Ubuntu's success among linux desktop users has in fact led to it gaining a chunk of server/cloud users (name recognition goes a long way regardless of merit), the latter being where the profit is. They aren't the leading player, but even a chunk of a profitable market is profitable.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    22. Re:IPO by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      I honestly don't know which is worse.

      The IPO. At least when you have a small number of investors, it's easier to find out what you're getting yourself into and you can always refuse to sell. If you're so low on funds that you can't refuse any deal no matter what (or you're just stupid or greedy), then an IPO won't help you.

    23. Re:IPO by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      So instead you chop your soul into millions of pieces and sell those pieces to thousands of greedy psychopaths rather than just one. I honestly don't know which is worse.

      Thousands of greedy psychopaths have a much harder time at deciding on a direction for a company to take. I'd pick that over a single powerful investor any day.

  12. That is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That is some bad JuJu there...

  13. Pre-IPO mode... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 0

    A recruiter asked me to interview at a company where the hiring manager kept rejecting many qualified candidates. I went in, interviewed and reported back that the company was in pre-IPO mode that made the company reluctant to hire anyone and the hiring manager wanted a computer engineer at a help desk hourly rate.

    1. Re:Pre-IPO mode... by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Why even bother interviewing at a place if you already know that the hiring manager is consistently rejecting qualified candidates?

  14. An IPO by Dunbal · · Score: 1

    The business model being...?

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  15. Canonical makes money? by hackel · · Score: 1

    Honestly, how? And why? Even on the server side, most of their stuff can be used for free. I know the trend is to sell "support contracts" and such, but I've never worked for a company that actually purchased one. I'm just curious. I really want them to succeed, as long as they do it with Free software. I'm just amazed that they make any money at all.

    1. Re:Canonical makes money? by prunus.avium · · Score: 2

      Enterprise support contracts. Specifically the enterprise cloud support.

      Large companies are completely wiling to pay to have a guaranteed response time for service calls. Especially when they don't have to buy the hardware.

    2. Re:Canonical makes money? by trochej · · Score: 1

      From support contracts. Really. There's tonnes of companies that want to be able to ask Canonical engineers for help. There are many, really.

    3. Re:Canonical makes money? by organgtool · · Score: 1

      Red Hat has that market largely sewn up. On my personal machines, I prefer Ubuntu to Red Hat but for servers, Red Hat has been in the business longer, so I would likely go with them for support. With that said, Ubuntu may be able to differentiate itself and be pretty successful if it shipped server versions with Upstart rather than SystemD. I'm not trying to troll - they need something to differentiate themselves from their biggest competitor and that is an option that no other enterprise Linux company is currently providing.

  16. Dreams of Replicating the RedHat IPO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I remember during the mass hysteria of the 90's when RedHat went from $14 IPO to $250 or so... it was insane...

  17. Evverybody looks at Unity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but the greatest loss is the people who had to go.

  18. IPO by sexconker · · Score: 0

    It's Phucking Over

    I mean, we knew that about Canonical already with the way they shat all over Ubuntu. But who the fuck can see/hear "Ubuntu is the default platform on cloud computing. Juju, MaaS, and OpenStack are nearly unstoppable." and then decide to throw money at the person who wrote/said it?

    Ubuntu isn't the default for anything. A few years back, it was the default for nerds giving their parents/grandparents a machine that wasn't Windows but was still a usable and familiar desktop. Juju? MaaS? OpenStack? I'd wager most nerds have only ever heard of one of those (OpenStack). And I seriously doubt anyone considers it "unstoppable".

  19. Wondering... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know they wanted to do the whole unified platform thing but part of me wonders what would have happened if instead of Unity they put their efforts in to cleaning up Mate and helping it's development along? Mint wouldn't be around maybe and I'd still be on the default Ubuntu distro instead of jumping over to Mint years ago. Oh well.

  20. Learn from others by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1

    So another computer company has repeated another error in logic - that 1 interface works on every platform:
    Microsoft's massive phone market share and accolades for Win 8 for some reason are ignored.
    Additionally, we see the path to the decline of Ubuntu - going public. Remove creativity and direction from users handing it to detached shareholders motivated only by EPS (earnings per share), dividends, and market cap will undoubtedly move Ubuntu in the "right" direction. ya.. that will happen.
    I bailed on Ubuntu years ago and went to the source, Debian. Haven't looked back.

  21. You can't bring yourself to say "Fuck"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That level of self-censorship doesn't inspire me to give a shit about your Desktop.

  22. Re:I can see the the hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    coming from all the people on here who (1) want everything free (2) hate companies who offshore to reduce cost of goods (3) simultaneously hate on companies that are simply trying to figure out how to pay their developers via a sustained business model (4) ascribe evil motives to every single commercial activity (5) want their OWN salary to go up for no god damn reason

    The delicious irony..

    "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity" vs. focusing on buzzwords for businesses (and that is as a bloated GNU/Linux distribution for beginners, with the inherent security risks...) + IPO...

    What's not to hate?

  23. Doesn't matter. by itomato · · Score: 1

    It's all built on the horrible Launchpad and Bazaar anyway.

  24. This will go poorly. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    Publicly owned businesses become focused on one thing and only one thing: profit. This is not good for Canonical or it's users because some very unpopular decisions will be made in the name of profit. Then again, perhaps it's time for Canonical to die because their past decisions haven't been much better.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:This will go poorly. by bws111 · · Score: 1

      Hate to break it to you, but private companies are interested in exactly the same thing. You know what you call a 'company' that doesn't exist primarily for profit? A charity (or maybe a hobby). The only difference that being public makes is that your profitability (or lack thereof) becomes public information.

      Here's another news flash: most employees are interested in one thing - a paycheck.

    2. Re:This will go poorly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is an interesting point, which makes me curious about the current Mint/Ubuntu relationship and how difficult it would be for the Mint team to fork from Ubuntu and just pull direct from Debian like Ubuntu does. You know, just in case some upstream corporate BS becomes worrisome.

    3. Re:This will go poorly. by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      Both must make profit to be sustainable, but public companies are required to meet a minimum amount of profit or they get delisted, reorganized, the CEO gets the axe...

    4. Re:This will go poorly. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Publicly owned businesses become focused on one thing and only one thing: profit.

      Canonical is not a non-profit and Shuttleworth is not a charity. They are just as focused on profits as any publicly traded company. Most of their strategy has followed this point: Get Ubuntu into the hands of less technically minded, put Ubuntu on every cloud, try getting Ubuntu on mobile phones and tablets. That goal is no different for Ubuntu than any other Linux distro.

      perhaps it's time for Canonical to die

      I wouldn't wish the death of any major Linux distro, even if I disagree with their policy and direction.

    5. Re:This will go poorly. by bws111 · · Score: 1

      What are you talking about? There is no such 'minimum requirement'. Where do people come up with this crap?

      You don't get delisted because you failed to make some 'minimum profit', you get delisted because nobody wants to buy your stock (ie you have a worthless company)

      Here is a little company you may have heard of: Amazon. It was 7 years between their IPO and the first time they made ANY profit. Yet they weren't de-listed or reorganized, and the CEO is still there. Why wasn't your 'minimum required profit' rule applied?

      Management changes happen in ALL companies, public and private, if the ownership of the company is not happy with their performance. The only difference with public companies is that the change is, of course, public.

      The only REAL requirement of public companies is that they tell their (potential) investors what their business plan is, what the expected outcome of their plan is, any challenges, etc so that the public can make informed decisions on what to do with the stock. If a company says 'we are going to make whatsits, and we expect to make $1/share profit, and don't expect any real problems', THEN the company had better deliver or changes will occur. If they say 'we are going to make whatsits, we have steep competition but have a product in development that is better than theirs, but might not see profit for 5 years', then there is no expectation of immediate profit and changes won't occur unless it does not appear that they are executing the plan.

    6. Re:This will go poorly. by Waccoon · · Score: 1

      There is no such 'minimum requirement'.

      I'm not talking about a legal requirement. Either you make a minimum amount of profit that the market expects (or re-invest all your profits) or investors bail (or fire the management).

      You don't get delisted because you failed to make some 'minimum profit'

      Generally, you do. Many stock exchanges will boot you off their listing if your company doesn't meet certain minimum requirements, such as minimum revenue or capital value.

      Here is a little company you may have heard of: Amazon. It was 7 years between their IPO and the first time they made ANY profit.

      You're confusing gross with net. They don't make net profit because they reinvest everything very aggressively. To say they make NO money is completely ridiculous. If they didn't, they wouldn't be building all those huge, fancy warehouses full of robots.

    7. Re:This will go poorly. by bws111 · · Score: 1

      As I said, it depends on what expectations you set for your investors. If you set the expectation that you will have a profit this year, then yes, you better deliver on that promise. Why should it be any different than that? What makes you think that is any different in private companies? Private companies DO go out of business you know. You know why that happens? Because the business was not making the profit the owner expected, so he closed the business.

      No, you do NOT get delisted because you didn't make some minimum profit. You gave two valid reasons for delisting, neither of which involve minimum profit. No revenue basically means the business is not operating. That is far different than operating but not making a profit. Not having a minimum capital value is exactly what I said - your company is worthless because nobody will buy the stock. Again, no profit may be a CAUSE of that, but no profit by itself does not mean the company is worthless.

      No, I am not confusing gross with net. Gross profiit is nothing more than the difference between the price you paid for an object and the price you sold it for. It discounts ALL the expenses of actually running the business. Net is the difference between how much revenue you made and how many expenses you had. Operating at a loss (which Amazon did for those 7 years) means they were spending MORE money than they were making. That is not 'aggressive reinvestment', it is 'going into debt'. Not only did they make NO money during time, they LOST money. And there is nothing 'ridiculous' about it, that was their business plan.

  25. Re:I can see the the hate by Merk42 · · Score: 1

    LOL and modded down to boot.
    "-1 Uncomfortable Truth" much?

  26. Typically Ubuntu by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Ubuntu sold out to systemd because Debian sold out to systemd.

    You missed the part in the middle where they attempted writing "upstart" as their own local "NIH daemon starting/hardware up-bringing" init replacement.
    And kept trying even after the rest of the Linux world standardized on systemd instead.

    (Just like they kept trying bazaar, even after everybody else moved to git)
    (Just like they decided to not follow the common Wayland efforts, but write their own Mir)
    etc.

    Ubuntu tried, but it didn't work well for them.
    Everybody else tried systemd and it turned okay for them.

    Otherwise, they would have had to do all the work Devuan is doing now, to remove needless systemd dependencies.

    If it's so much effort removing, maybe systemd wasn't that much needless.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re: Typically Ubuntu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To be fair Upstart did not start as a Ubuntu project and was used in RHEL6 among others.

    2. Re:Typically Ubuntu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it's so much effort removing, maybe systemd wasn't that much needless.

      Non sequitur much?

    3. Re: Typically Ubuntu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Upstart was available before systems was written.

  27. As opposed to others ? by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Changing the UI suddenly presents new challenges for productive people who do not have the time, interest, or inclinati[o]n to focus on learning a new way of doing their daily tasks.

    Yes, they should instead have followed the example of Microsoft.
    no, wait...
    (Ribbon interfaces are now suddenly all the rage ! Hey, now we need a tile-based interface !)

    Compared to Microsoft interface delirium, Ubuntu's move Gnome2 -> Unity -> Gnome3 is much tame.

    (Disclaimer: proud KDE user since the mid-late 90s. For obvious historical reasons)

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  28. accented characters by DrYak · · Score: 1

    BTW, when did the ö character start working on Slashdot?

    on the other hand I have spell ö as ö for years before ö started to get accepted.
    (Or did Slashdot suddenly turn UTF-8 support on ? "éàöü" ? seems to work in preview already)

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
    1. Re:accented characters by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

      Traditionally I think it was not ASCII, but CP-1252 that worked on Slashdot.

      CP-1252: äåé®üúíóöáßðøæ©ñ瀼½¾‘’ (okay, so not all of it. Mostly vowels.)

      Unicode Greek: ; (the entire alphabet reduced to one erotimatiko, which I expect really is just a semicolon.)

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  29. Re:I can see the the hate by sheph · · Score: 0

    I'm all for capitalism when you have an idea, invest your own money in that idea, market that idea, and succeed based on your own work. What I have a problem with is if they take something developed by a community of users for everyone and lock it up as though it were their own (like Red Hat did). In my eyes that's tantamount to theft. I've actually been moving away from Ubuntu anyway because I don't like a lot of the new stuff they've done. I've got a slackware install that's very functional and I love it. It was more work to set it up, but I'm learning a lot more about what's going on under the hood.

    --
    I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
  30. UTF-8 on Slashdot !!! by DrYak · · Score: 2

    (Or did Slashdot suddenly turn UTF-8 support on ? "éàöü" ?)

    Øh ! göð !

    That is the real top news of today !

    UTF-8 finally working on /. (with the editor silently turning it into HTML numerical refs)

    Soon we will be able to invoke Zalgo's name and spread the corruption.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  31. And to guarantee Linux's absence in the desktop by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 1

    Thanks to Canonical's efforts (and Red Hat's, to a somewhat lesser extent) Linux remains a nonentity in the desktop. Which is a good thing - I can still set up my Linux desktop without any of their bloatware, confident in the fact that the general public will not replace their Windows systems with Linux (what for? It is just a Windows wannabee) and therefore keeping the crooks mostly focused on Windows. Most Linux fans will not understand it that way, but the lack of a significant presence of Linux in the desktop is a blessing to many of us.

    1. Re:And to guarantee Linux's absence in the desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah! No normies in our sekret club!

  32. Ha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So Canonical lays claim to OpenStack and Kubernetes? That's a joke. In fact, I don't know of one thing Canonical has contributed.

  33. Annoyingly annoying by LesserWeevil · · Score: 1

    I just changed our password policy to require: A string at least 26 digits long A lower case letter An upper case letter A number Punctuation An Elvis song title The GPS coordinates of a national monument The binary representation of they day the password was created The octal birthdate of the password holder - mod 13 The weight of the password holder's last bowl movement in grams.

  34. How to become a millionaire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How do you become a millionaire selling free software?

    Start out as a billionaire.

  35. Hm, not good news for Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This isn't great news for the distro world. On one hand, Canonical hasn't really contributed a huge amount to the rest of the community. On the other, one of the most famous distros doing an IPO is an unambiguous "fuck you" to the users, contributors, and support/docs people over the years.

    I will no longer be recommending Ubuntu to new GNU/Linux users.

  36. Upstart -> systemd by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Upstart was available before systems was written.

    (Yes, and even RedHat / CentOS used it at some point in time)

    My point :
    yet after nearly everybody dropped upstart in favor of systemd (or, in Gentoo's case, went a different path with SysVInit -> OpenRC transition),
    Canonical persisted on using upstart instead.

    They have a strong case of wanting to do things their own way differently from everybody else (cue in xkcd's "yet another standard" comic), despite not having the developers resources to do so. (Unlike, say, Gentoo. Apparently they can successfully maintain their OpenRC).

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]