Whither UserLinux?

Posted Sep 8, 2005 13:24 UTC (Thu) by TxtEdMacs (guest, #5983) [Link]

I concur heartily with your statements regarding Perens - too often he has been wrong when in a position of "power" (having leverage would be the more accurate statement) and long afterwards recants the damage he has done.

This year my son was really taken first with Debian (the distribution of choice now for me) and soon after for Ubuntu (which I will be testing too soon). I was skeptical about Ubuntu and its probable staying power, though I was never against its goals.

Recently my impression of Shuttleworth and his goals have changed towards the much more positive. Read for yourselves his interview in Linux Format (hard copy magazine published in the UK) the short version on line: http://linuxformat.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Ne...

If possible I would suggest reading their October issue pp 74-79 LXF issue 71 for the complete interview. Or better yet take an hour or so and listen and watch him in this video: http://linux.blogweb.de/uploads/02-Ubuntu_Talk-Mark_Shutt...

[Above links were found on comments section of LXer.com. This site is relatively new and is devoted to daily Linux news. It was created by Dave Whitinger formerly of Linux Today site.]

I am sorry to say my impression of Perens was never as high as it seemed to be on slashdot and other similar places, it has since slumped continuously with his attitude only he can do it well and those that succeed where he failed released a flawed product. Shuttleworth is not the rich, self-centered dilettante that was my first impression nor as Perens seems to snidely imply.

Posted Sep 9, 2005 18:23 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Bruce will little-doubt be reading these
comments, as he's a LWN
subscriber and does post his own comments...

>> Ubuntu... more of a rich man's hobby than a company.

Yes... that immediately rubbed me the wrong way as well. I'm personally
quite happy as a Gentoo user and thus have no personal iron in the
Shuttleworth/Ubuntu fire, and am mainly interested in Debian due to its
influence on particularly the freedom side of the debate, so I'm as much
of an uninterested third party in Ubuntu as could be had in the community.

Still, the above /really/ grated the wrong way. What's the entire open
source community, to the proprietary business community, but "more of a
hobby for a few men than successful company"? True, there are a lot of
individuals that now happen to get paid for the contributions they make,
but the fact is, most of them were doing it as a hobby long before they
began doing it for pay, and most would /still/ be doing it as a hobby,
altho likely at a slower rate, if they /weren't/ getting paid to do
it. /That's/ /the/ /whole/ /point/, for many folks, they do it for
the /love/ of it, not for the money. Within such a community, what's so
wrong about a rich guy contributing some of his resources, money, in this
case, to the project as well? If that is to be dismissed as "not serious
enough to build a business upon", where is the line to be drawn, isn't
the /entire/ FLOSS community then "not serious enough to build a business
upon"?

What would our reaction be to someone like Bill Gates making such a
statement? Maybe Bruce is part of the community; maybe we are losing him;
maybe he has gotten too big a head and needs to apologize (and yes, I say
that last fully aware that he's likely to read this, yes, I /am/ that
disappointed in him, lately, not that my personal opinion matters,
but...).

Anyway... as the article pointed out, User Linux isn't in a position for
the prime mover behind it to be throwing stones, certainly not at Ubuntu
or the prime mover behind it. Which one looks to be the "rich man's
hobby" (rich being somewhat relative, but Bruce certainly isn't wondering
how he's going to buy his next meal or where he's going to be calling
home, next week, even if he doesn't have the funds of a Shuttleworth) and
which one looks to be the real project, with two concrete releases behind
it and another one on the way, "rich man's hobby" or not?

In a sense, if we have the time to debate this sort of thing, we are /all/
"rich men" (or rich women). As ES Raymond rightly points out, a gifting
society, an economy of respect based on what one has given to the
community, such as that of the FLOSS community, does not and cannot exist
until basic needs are met. I somehow doubt many of us would be here
debating such things, if we were literally fighting for our survival in
New Orleans. That we are even here, discussing this, indicates that by
the standards of many in the world, we are "rich". Thus, we are /all/
"rich men", tending our "hobby", in some form of the term. The community
is /made/ of such folks. Then Bruce comes along and implies that's
a /bad/ thing? Is he trying to insult us? Has he turned proprietary and
now is on the MS payroll? What's up? That certainly doesn't sound like
the sort of statement I'd /expect/ to come from a leader in the community!

As for User Linux... IMO, it'd be best to fold the effort back into
Ubuntu. Yes, there are all kinds of Linux distributions each with their
own emphasis, their own angle. However, the stated goals of User Linux
aren't compatible with being simply another minor niche distribution, and
I fail to see how it could now make the sort of contribution to the
community it originally intended. (Really, check my comments on the
original announcements here on LWN, and you'll see I always thought it
wasn't quite the right solution, but that's beside the point.) Given
that, IMO it's better to fold it into what's there and let the
participants devote their energies to something else. IMO, the only thing
keeping that from happening is community politics and people's egos, and
that's just not a good enough reason, IMO.

Duncan