Painful
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| r_a_trip Mar 08, 2013 11:24 AM EDT |
Quite heartbreaking to read how a valuable FOSS community member is confronted harshly by the raw reality that the Canonical "Ubuntu community" propaganda is just that; propaganda. Canonical doesn't involve the community, they dictate and you better walk in lockstep or be discarded. She is still in denial about the complete reveal from Canonical, that the community spiel was a mere means to an end and that the time to harvest that strategically sown advantage has come to pass. I wish that she finds that new place in the "Ubuntu community" she wants to keep alive. For me, as someone who stepped back from the whole Ubuntu thing (the moment Canonical let us know that they tell us what Ubuntu is and that we better like it with their disastrous PR around the left buttons), the past developments from Unity, the Amazon affiliate mooch scam, and now the disruption of our X replacement Wayland with a NIH, Canonical-takes-it-all Mir display server make it crystal clear to me that Canonical is using Ubuntu as the vehicle to become the same problem Microsoft and Apple are to free software. The only thing I sincerely regret is the time that I was one of the oblivious dolts, who naively helped Canonical gather all the buzz they needed to become the problem they are now. Yes, I know that Canonical, as a business, is morally and legally free to do what it is doing now. I, as an individual, don't have to like it one bit, as I see this Canonical shift as a massively detrimental thing for the Linux community. |
| caitlyn Mar 08, 2013 1:44 PM EDT |
You mean you don't like being an unpaid employee with no input at all regarding the direction of the project you're working on? That's pretty much the situation as I see it. I don't know that they are or ever will be Microsoft or Apple. They haven't said Mir wont be FOSS or usable by other distros. Othe rthan that, I pretty much agree with your comments. I certainly understand her frustrations. I don't think I'd be sticking around in her position. |
| Steven_Rosenber Mar 08, 2013 6:00 PM EDT |
I think Shuttleworth is being pretty clear about what the deal is: Canonical sets the agenda, community supports it. I'm sure there are plenty of projects that work the same way. You have to buy into SABDFL's vision. And if that vision/direction veers from what you believe, you can move on. I really see nothing wrong with that. |
| notbob Mar 08, 2013 6:42 PM EDT |
steve_R wrote:And if that vision/direction veers from what you believe, you can move on. Something the fan boys can't quite grasp. If yer gonna follow one messiah, ya' gotta preach HIS gospel. Shuttlecock has his way and it's the One Way! Don't matter what you contribute or want him to do, he's gonna do it HIS way in the end. Don't like it? LFS!! |
| r_a_trip Mar 08, 2013 8:48 PM EDT |
Canonical can and will do what they want. What irks me the most is that dictator Canonical initially cloaked themselves in Ubuntu community babble and I, like many others, fell for that ruse. With hindsight all the community blah blah surrounding Ubuntu was a sham. A dog and pony show to gather a Windows refugee userbase. If I would have been smart enough to rip the blinders off at an earlier stage, I wouldn't have helped Canonical making their product known around my part of the globe. They have become antithetical to what I feel are the core values surrounding GNU/Linux. I feel responsible for my (small) part in creating bug #2. |
| tracyanne Mar 08, 2013 9:15 PM EDT |
Personally I wish Canonical all the best, from a business perspective. I never was and never wanted to be a member of the Ubuntu community, although I have no problem using and when I think it appropriate recommending Ubuntu. The only problem I have with Canonical is the corporate ethics, which is best summed up by the dishonesty of Mark Shuttleworth in his dealings with the community, and the manner in which he answers his critics. In the long run I believe Shutleworths vision for Ubuntu includes emulating Google in how the company remains an "Open Source" company, in that I believe the label of Open Source (but not Free Software mind) is important to him from a marketing standpoint. As a consequence I believe we will see Canonical developed software dumped over the wall, in the same way as Google currently does with Android and ChromeOS. If people have no issue with Google doing that, I believe that should have no issue with Canonical doing it. Those people who have been long standing Ubuntu Community members, and who have given of their time, and money, and code, to help Ubuntu succeed, will have to deal with the fact that they are simply resources to be mined, and live with it or leave. |
| Steven_Rosenber Mar 09, 2013 2:59 PM EDT |
@tracyanne You are right on the money (literally and otherwise) with this one. |
| vainrveenr Mar 10, 2013 12:02 AM EDT |
Quoting:Those people who have been long standing Ubuntu Community members, and who have given of their time, and money, and code, to help Ubuntu succeed, will have to deal with the fact that they are simply resources to be mined, and live with it or leave. OTOH, Canonical Inc's Community Manager Jono Bacon expresses this point in perhaps a more subtle fashion in his recent blogpiece 'Thoughts On Recent Community Concerns' found at http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/03/08/thoughts-on-recent-community-concerns/. As Bacon explains it from Canonical Inc's perspective (with appropriate bold-emphases included): Quoting:While making tough decisions is important, it is also important that we maintain our Ubuntu values too. One core value is that our platform and community are open for discussion and participation, so everyone is welcome to help put their brick in the wall. Our archive has long been open and there are many ways to contribute, and while some of these projects were secret before-hand, now everything is out in the open and available for participation. Some may disagree with the rationale of keeping things private, but particularly in the case of Phone and Tablet, the “big-reveal” helped us to have a big splash and generate more press interest and partner inquiries, and thus help us along to our vision. Discerning readers may accurately note that Bacon avoids any specific mention of "valuable FOSS community member" Krumbach in his blogpiece here; a somewhat surprising development given that Bacon and Krumbach both operate within the overlapping Ubuntu circles of one another in the San Francisco Bay Area. One may even ponder whether or not the Canonical Community Manager is in fact somehow attempting to distance the parent-company from such outspoken and noted Ubuntu community members as Krumbach ?? |
| tracyanne Mar 10, 2013 1:37 AM EDT |
Jono Bacon's blog, and his comments, are, as is to be expected, given that his position is in reality a Marketing position, couched in marketing double speak. Deconstructed, what he is really saying is "Input from the community is more than welcome, and is as always, actively encouraged, as we are more than happy to continue mining the community for anything useful to Canonical." The Ubuntu community is in reality little different from the Mac and Windows communities, in that community members are there to provide a ready made evangelical team when needed... and in reality that's what the Windows and Mac fanboys are. Jono Bacon is quite simply no less dishonest than Mark Shuttleworth, it is after all the corporate culture of Canonical. In fact his job as Community Manager depends on him continuing to be so. The only difference I can see is that he seems slightly less obvious. |
| CFWhitman Mar 11, 2013 9:23 AM EDT |
I've never been a user of Ubuntu proper. I have, however, used Xubuntu and Ubuntu Studio extensively and Lubuntu to an extent. I am more concerned about what the eventual fate of all the spin-off distributions is going to be than what happens with Ubuntu itself. It's possible that things won't change much as long as all the software continues to be available in the repositories. If some projects are eventually dropped by Ubuntu themselves, then that's what universe and multiverse are for. It's possible that some of these spin-offs will switch to a different base. The nice thing about the Ubuntu repositories, though, is that they fairly up-to-date, but not unstable. Debian stable tends not to be up to date. Unstable and even testing sometimes break, but that's the nature of rolling repositories/distributions. I'm uncertain about where an appropriate base might come from for a distribution that wants to be more up to date than Debian stable, but doesn't want to be a rolling distribution. |
| Steven_Rosenber Mar 11, 2013 12:48 PM EDT |
Ubuntu drew on Debian Sid/Experimental, Crunchbang and Linux Mint Debian draw on Debian Testing (at the moment for #! which will stick with Wheezy as it goes Stable). Distros could base off of Fedora. That is more up-to-date than Debian Stable and isn't rolling. |
| flufferbeer Mar 12, 2013 5:30 PM EDT |
++1 r_a_trip for your comments. Same for vainrvennr's. It seems to me surprising that this Lizzy Krumbach STILL fails to realize that she's effectively been buttonholed into being the Fall Gal for the Canicomical M$ and JoBacon mucky-mucks!! @Steve_Rosenber, >> I'm sure there are plenty of projects that work the same way. You have to buy into SABDFL's vision. And if that vision/direction veers from what you believe, you can move on. I really see nothing wrong with that. There you go (AGAIN!) uncritically rushing to defend the Canicomical M$ and JoBacon mucky-mucks as quickly as you can... 2c |
| Steven_Rosenber Mar 12, 2013 6:42 PM EDT |
It's not like Ubuntu went from a happy band of merrymakers to a community in revolt overnight. This has been years in the making -- it goes back to the beginning of Unity and probably to the whole "buttons on the left" situation. Canonical is going to take care of the Ubuntu core (after they copy most of it over from Debian) and set the technical agenda, the community will follow (or bail). If Ubuntu manages to succeed in its current endeavors and gets phones, tablets and TVs into the marketplace (BTW, I'm not optimistic) and they get any traction at all, there will be a huge community clamoring to be part of it. It won't necessarily be the same people, but there will be some overlap. Shuttleworth is making a big gamble -- the kind of gamble that can't be reached by vote or consensus. He's changing the game in the middle. But it's his game. Sure a lot of people have contributed substantial amounts of time to making Ubuntu a success in the Linux space. But when it comes to money, it's all SABDFL all the time. That's what separates Ubuntu from the rest of the Linux distro market. Companies like Red Hat and SUSE put a lot into their distros, but they get a lot out of them, and they have separation between their commercial offerings and community projects. We shouldn't forget that Ubuntu has the same thing: Consider Ubuntu with Unity the commercial offering and Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME and Lubuntu the community projects. I've written many times that I feel sorry for Jono Bacon. Whatever his actual title may be, he's in charge of marketing and public relations and has to carry a lot of water for Shuttleworth. It looks painful. How do you make money with a pure Linux play? If I knew, I'd be ahead of 99.999 percent of the rest of the people out there. |
| jdixon Mar 13, 2013 6:23 AM EDT |
> How do you make money with a pure Linux play? Buy RHT when it was trading at $8.56 in Nov. 2008, and sell it when it hit $60.95 in Apr. 2012. :) And no, I didn't manage to do that. :( |
| flufferbeer Mar 13, 2013 12:31 PM EDT |
@Steve_Rosenber You seem to insist on KEEPING the subject focused on Canicomical's leaders and its moneymaking efforts rather on Baboontu-specific community persons such as Krumbach -- the starting subject of this thread, remember?? >> It's not like Ubuntu went from a happy band of merrymakers to a community in revolt overnight. This has been years in the making -- it goes back to the beginning of Unity and probably to the whole "buttons on the left" situation. Canonical is going to take care of the Ubuntu core (after they copy most of it over from Debian) and set the technical agenda, the community will follow (or bail). Another take: It's not like Canicomical has been taking care of Debian or its particular community of late. Since MWOTHW-M$ and his minions took most of BOTH over from Debian even before Loonity got shoved out the door! >> I've written many times that I feel sorry for Jono Bacon. Whatever his actual title may be, he's in charge of marketing and public relations and has to carry a lot of water for Shuttleworth. Another take applied to you: I've written many times how much I feel sorry for Jono Bacon even though the chameleon is so well known for TWISTING his eloquent words around and engaging in "marketspeak" (just like me, Steve_Rosenber?) Regardless of your OWN wannabe notions in volunteering as an advocate of Canicomical and becoming another Jono Bacon yourself, it STILL looks painful for people like this Lizzy Krumbach -- or do you want to the subject of actual community-member servants for Jono Bacon to just completely go away already? Touche ;) and 2 more community c's. -fb |
| Steven_Rosenber Mar 14, 2013 12:17 AM EDT |
So what do you think should happen? If it was your project, if you were SABDFL, what would you do? |
| montezuma Mar 14, 2013 10:24 PM EDT |
I was also a Ubuntu community member for a few years until it became apparent what Bling Shuttleworth was up to. I don't understand his business strategy though. What is his angle commercially? The way I see it Red Hat has the server side locked up and Google has the phone and tablet side locked up. So what has Ubuntu got to offer? Seems to me that Shuttleworth has raced from shiny bauble to shiny bauble in search of a viable business model. Some have compared him to Jobs but I don't see it. Jobs was focussed on design and up market sales and he ultimately prevailed. What is Canonical focussed on? Whacking Ubuntu on a tablet with Unity? Wot a laff! |
| tuxchick Mar 15, 2013 12:31 AM EDT |
Way back when Ubuntu/Gnome was still good, I thought Canonical had a good shot at a good general-purpose stack for the small business, small enterprise, and retail home user. I'm sure it's a lot harder than it sounds, given the multiple levels of lockin to break through. But to my way of thinking they had a perfect top-to-bottom stack: a solid server distro with support, a solid compatible desktop with support, add-on business services, and a good retail home user desktop. They always get high marks for help and cooperation from independents like System76 and ZaReason, and building all the different flavors on a common, binary-compatible base is brilliant. You want Kubuntu, Edubuntu, any other flavor than the one you downloaded? Then download the Kubuntu or Edubuntu or whatever bits on your existing Ubuntu. Easy peasey. It's been said before-- they're spread too thin and chasing too many faster-moving competitors. |
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