Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
| From: | Mark Shuttleworth <mark-AT-ubuntu.com> | |
| To: | Ubuntu Devel Announcements <ubuntu-devel-announce-AT-lists.ubuntu.com> | |
| Subject: | Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon | |
| Date: | Thu, 12 Apr 2007 07:24:38 +0100 |
Folks, allow me to introduce the Gutsy Gibbon, who will be succeeding the Feisty Fawn as the focus of our development love in a few short weeks, for release in October 2007. The Gibbon won the G-race to be our engineering mascot for this next release, but it was a close run. We very much wanted to honour the tremendous contributions of the GNU project to Free Software by awarding the role to the Glossy Gnu. This prompted an intense internal debate about trademarks, at which both the Fiery Fox and the Icy Weasel were heard. In the end, however, the judge, jury and elocutionary (that would be me) took a liking to the Gibbon's extraordinary reach, and the Gibbon won outright. The Glossy Gnu will nonetheless play a role in this next release, because Ubuntu 7.10 will feature a new flavour - as yet unnamed - which takes an ultra-orthodox view of licensing: no firmware, drivers, imagery, sounds, applications, or other content which do not include full source materials and come with full rights of modification, remixing and redistribution. There should be no more conservative home, for those who demand a super-strict interpretation of the "free" in free software. This work will be done in collaboration with the folks behind Gnewsense. Our Gutsy is an expert in brachiation, which is apt for a project that needs to navigate a complicated forest of branches very quickly. Some folks would say that any monkey can install Ubuntu (and sadly, other folks would say that many have), but the Gibbon will take easy installation to a whole new level, with work on an unattended-installation infrastructure in Ubiquity that makes it trivial to roll out Ubuntu desktops across an organization while getting on with other, more complicated stuff such as Windows service pack installations on legacy desktops. While Ubuntu is by no means the 800-pound gorilla in the server game, the Gibbon will show that lean and mean count for something! Agility of deployment, together with integrated management will be a focus for the Ubuntu server team. Gutsy will not be an LTS (Long Term Support) release, but it will nonetheless see a lot of server work and be useful for fast-moving server deployments. On a personal note, the monkey on my back has been composite-by-default, which I had hoped would happen in Edgy, then Feisty. I'm nervous to predict it now for Gutsy, for fear of a third strike, but I'm told that great work is being done in the Compiz/Beryl community and upstream in X. There's a reasonable chance that Gutsy will deliver where those others have not. I remain convinced that malleable, transparent and extra-dimensional GUI's are a real opportunity for the free software community to take a lead in the field of desktop innovation, and am keen to see the underlying technologies land in Ubuntu, but we have to balance that enthusiasm with the Technical Board's judgement of the stability and maturity of those fundamental layers. Of course, the real work of deciding Gutsy's goals will happen at UDS-Sevilla, May 5-11 in the wonderful Andalucia, Spain. I hope many of you will be joining us for some hard work and also, no doubt, a fair bit of monkey business! As usual we will be running a semi-virtual summit, open for participation by VoIP and real-time online editing of the blueprints for Gutsy Gibbon. If you have items you want on the agenda, please make sure they are in the Ubuntu blueprints list: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu ...and then also nominate them for discussion at UDS-Sevilla! Please only do this if you intend to participate in the developer summit - either in person or virtually - so that you can present your ideas and collaborate with the other developers. The summit should be a great combination of hard work planning Gutsy, presentations from cutting edge upstreams on their own plans for this next six months, and some time in the sun for R&R in the best tradition of the region. For those of you who can't make it across the Atlantic, we hope to see you for Gutsy+1 at UDS-Boston in the first week of November. Now that the Fawn has found her legs, and is ready for her debut on April 19th, we need to lay some foundations for Gutsy. In the next few days we will open up a limited-upload target for Gutsy and start uploading toolchain packages there. Our aim is to open Gutsy for general upload on the same day that Feisty is released. Wherever you are, that will be a day for celebration. Go ape! Mark -- ubuntu-devel-announce mailing list ubuntu-devel-announce@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-an...
Posted Apr 12, 2007 14:25 UTC (Thu)
by mbottrell (guest, #43008)
[Link] (12 responses)
I personally don't know the answer.... unfortunately until hardware vendors come to the party it's going to continue to be an issue.
I really dont wish to have to go 'hunt' for these items each time I install my OS. *sigh* I wonder if my days of an Ubuntu user may be restricted to the 7.04 release.
Posted Apr 12, 2007 14:39 UTC (Thu)
by madscientist (subscriber, #16861)
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Posted Apr 12, 2007 14:42 UTC (Thu)
by jheino (guest, #44621)
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Posted Apr 12, 2007 15:04 UTC (Thu)
by pbardet (guest, #22762)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Apr 13, 2007 14:49 UTC (Fri)
by nlucas (guest, #33793)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Apr 13, 2007 19:27 UTC (Fri)
by pbardet (guest, #22762)
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Besides which american will tell a south african what he can do or not with an african antelope ?
Try gnubuntu.org, and you'll be amazed where you're redirected ;-)
Posted Apr 14, 2007 0:01 UTC (Sat)
by drag (guest, #31333)
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Posted Apr 19, 2007 9:26 UTC (Thu)
by ekj (guest, #1524)
[Link] (1 responses)
I am positive that RMS would be deligthed to have the contributions of the GNU-project acknowledged by including "Gnu" in the name -- particularily if that flavour of Ubuntu really is squeaky clean Free Software.
Posted Apr 19, 2007 12:55 UTC (Thu)
by pbardet (guest, #22762)
[Link]
"Stallman supports the idea, but isn't happy with the name. Anyway, the name Gnubuntu will be kept, the corresponding domain gnubuntu.org is already registered - but with no content on it yet."
http://www.ubuntux.org/gnubuntu-a-completely-free-ubuntu
"Have had some discussion with RMS about this. He's supportive of the idea but not the name..."
http://os.newsforge.com/comments.pl?sid=53177&op=&...
But whether RMS likes it or not, I'm not sure it's up to him to decide.
It would just be bad to see this kind of fight in the Linux movement. I think it's more important to get it on as many desktop as can be done than losing resources fighting for a name. I personnally don't care for FOSS vs closed source. There are enough flavours of Linux to create competition and emulation between them. Natural selection laws will take care of the losers.
Posted Apr 24, 2007 18:43 UTC (Tue)
by pdundas (guest, #15203)
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/me runs away and hides
Posted Apr 13, 2007 6:13 UTC (Fri)
by mbottrell (guest, #43008)
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Thanks for the clarification and that makes much more sense ... even Gnusense! :)
Posted Apr 13, 2007 9:39 UTC (Fri)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
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The current policy that most distros take of "Don't worry about source code and free software, just give us a binary and we'll ship that" - that policy will never bring hardware vendors to the table. gNewSense is changing the policy, and maybe this flavour of Ubuntu will follow gNewSense in doing so.
Posted Apr 13, 2007 17:10 UTC (Fri)
by salimma (subscriber, #34460)
[Link]
I'd imagine they'd do a Debian, and make sure that the main repositories contain only FLOSS bits, and so you can quickly find out which pieces of hardware you have installed are not kosher.
Fedora's done this since day 1, in an even stronger way -- the non-free bits are hosted by 3rd-party repositories not officially supported by the project -- it's good to see Ubuntu seeing the light.
Posted Apr 13, 2007 4:24 UTC (Fri)
by kwink81 (guest, #33926)
[Link] (7 responses)
I solved the wireless firmware problem by buying an Asus WL-107G PCMCIA card. Cost me about $30 on eWiz.com. I think its even faster then my laptop's native Intel 3945 card.
Posted Apr 13, 2007 11:56 UTC (Fri)
by ewan (guest, #5533)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Apr 13, 2007 15:35 UTC (Fri)
by kwink81 (guest, #33926)
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Posted Apr 13, 2007 17:25 UTC (Fri)
by proski (subscriber, #104)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Apr 13, 2007 23:08 UTC (Fri)
by kwink81 (guest, #33926)
[Link] (3 responses)
I believe that the firmware is included in the driver tarball I linked to in grandparent. Either that, or the card doesn't need any. In any case, this card is specifically recommended by the FSF (see http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html). Its under the GPL, see LICENSE in the root of the tarball for more info.
How does one compile it?
You'll need kernel sources and headers, as well as GCC and GNU make. Untar the tarball somewhere, cd to Module, then type make && make install as root.
Posted Apr 15, 2007 3:14 UTC (Sun)
by proski (subscriber, #104)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Apr 18, 2007 2:28 UTC (Wed)
by kwink81 (guest, #33926)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Apr 19, 2007 8:56 UTC (Thu)
by tekNico (subscriber, #22)
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Thinking Past Platforms: the Next Challenge for Linux
Posted Apr 13, 2007 16:55 UTC (Fri)
by mikov (guest, #33179)
[Link] (14 responses)
I am not sure whether this is a good thing, but it is confusing as hell. I sure wish that all these distributions could ignore the 0.01% difference and work together.
Does anybody know (or have a reference explaining) why Debian is not considered sufficiently free ? (I am not being sarcastic - I am really asking). Is it because of the incompatibility between the GFDL and DFSG ? Or because Debian still includes some binary firmware ?
Posted Apr 13, 2007 18:42 UTC (Fri)
by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Apr 17, 2007 0:12 UTC (Tue)
by malex (guest, #15692)
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Posted Apr 14, 2007 13:30 UTC (Sat)
by Los__D (guest, #15263)
[Link] (11 responses)
Even though they all have the same goal of being free, they could be completely different with other goals, desktop manager support, desktop/server base, flexible/easy configuration (not that those necessarily are opposites), and so on.
Wanting them to be one is a bit like wanting other distributions to be one.
Posted Apr 14, 2007 16:53 UTC (Sat)
by mikov (guest, #33179)
[Link] (10 responses)
Of course in some cases it is necessary - when the distributions do different things, have different goals, etc. Different distributions have different teams working on them, so they make different technical contributions, etc, which is also a good thing.
Note however that in this case we have three distributions, all containing exactly the same packages (based on Debian), with the same goal - to be 100% free. I think it is ridiculous.
Posted Apr 14, 2007 17:31 UTC (Sat)
by Los__D (guest, #15263)
[Link]
I agree that the amount of distros can be a problem, but only because there's still problems making a package compatible with all.
Posted Apr 15, 2007 17:44 UTC (Sun)
by jbailey (guest, #16890)
[Link] (8 responses)
Posted Apr 15, 2007 20:20 UTC (Sun)
by mikov (guest, #33179)
[Link] (7 responses)
Some more details:
Administering RedHat is different from administering Debian which is different (although not that much) from administering Ubunty, etc. They all come with slightly different applications, slightly different behavior, different versions, different defaults, configurations in different places, etc.
Then comes the MAJOR issue of applications not included in the distribution (or newer versions of said apps). They usually come with installation instructions and binaries for a couple of distros, but usually not the one you are using :-) A "regular" person (e.g. my wife) would not be able to deal with it. It would be much much easier for a vendor to have to worry only about one distro and provide and test just one set of binaries and documentation.
To illustrate the last point, how is a regular person supposed to install OpenOffice 2.2 on Ubuntu ?
Of course, this problem applies both to desktops and servers.
Yes, a good engineer or a sysadmin will be able to handle any distrubution, eventually, with some effort, but most people are not good engineers or sysadmins. And even the good engineers and sysadmins have better things to do.
People who are not as enthusiastic about technology as the readers of LWN prefer to invest in learning something more universal. Once you know how to use WindowsXP, you will be OK on any Windows computer. This is not the case with Linux and Linux adoption suffers because of it.
Posted Apr 16, 2007 16:34 UTC (Mon)
by marduk (subscriber, #3831)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Apr 18, 2007 21:01 UTC (Wed)
by pbardet (guest, #22762)
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Posted Apr 19, 2007 12:29 UTC (Thu)
by ldo (guest, #40946)
[Link] (3 responses)
Which makes about as much sense as saying that multiple models of cars in the market make it harder for makers of car accessories to support cars, make it harder for drivers to drive cars, and make it harder for mechanics to support cars.
So what? Every organization worth its salt has an established policy about what sorts of platforms it will or will not support. Once that choice is made, you either abide by it, or you're on your own.
That problem is best left to the distro maintainers, unless you're really wanting to live on the bleeding edge.
Surely that's a simple matter of using apt-get or whatever the graphical equivalent is, in the appropriate version of Ubuntu? Like I said, if you're not knowledgeable enough to live on the bleeding edge, just leave the problem to the distro maintainers.
Until Microsoft abandons XP and forces you to move to Visaster...
Posted Apr 19, 2007 16:15 UTC (Thu)
by mikov (guest, #33179)
[Link] (2 responses)
Comparing cars and software is hardly a good comparison. Nevertheless the answer actually is "yes" - multiple makes of cars make it significantly harder to maintain cars. Surely that must be obvious. Don't try to stretch this comparison too thin though.
You are not really addressing my points at all. I will try to explain. You should NOT have to be knowledgeable in order to use newer version of applications.
Think about it for a second before letting enthusiasm take over :-) In Windows it is trivial for anybody to install OpenOffice 2.2 (or whatever) because there is an installation package for Windows on the web site.
This is NOT the case for the Linux version because OpenOffice would have to customize, package and test dozens of different packages for every distro out there.
Suggesting that users upgrade their OS in order to use a newer version of OpenOffice is absurd. If we can't agree on that, I don't think there can be a meaningful discussion on the subject.
Posted Apr 20, 2007 6:52 UTC (Fri)
by ldo (guest, #40946)
[Link]
It sounds like you think it's a Bad Thing. It's not--it's just the way the market works. The same economic factors that allow such a wide diversity of products in the car market, going back over a century right to its beginnings, also promote similar diversity in the open-source market. That's not going to change, whether you like it or not.
Really? How many of your typical Dimdows users are able to figure out how to download and install the package?
Posted Apr 24, 2007 14:02 UTC (Tue)
by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164)
[Link]
Sure users would have to upgrade their OS to have newer software... That's the whole idea of a linux distribution. the FOSS world does releases mostly every 6 to 12 months with the latest and greatest software, all specifically tested & compiled for that specific version. so YES, you upgrade your OS to have newer software. If you want it earlier, download & install & maintain it yourself, like you have to do on windows. And that is indeed even more work than it would be on windows - but it's a broken way of managing software for endusers anyway. Nobody, expect maybe professional system administrators and developers, should have to handle software management themselves (like windows users have to do). In FOSS, the distribution takes care of that.
Posted Apr 19, 2007 22:16 UTC (Thu)
by BackSeat (guest, #1886)
[Link]
Are you saying that Linux is at a disadvantage because a distribution typically ships a huge number of applications but possibly not the one, or the exact version of one, that a user requires? As opposed to Another Operating System that ships, effectively, no applications and thus does not suffer from this problem?
Whilst I understand the need to have a pristine distro that includes source for everything... it is a killer for items like network cards, video cards, etc.Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
I think you missed something. Gutsy Gibbon will NOT be the pristine release with only free software. There will be a separate FLAVOR of Ubuntu (just like Kubuntu or Xubuntu or Edubuntu), named with the "Gnu" tag, that will be the pristine, free-only release. That one will be worked on in collaboration (it sounds like) with the Gnewsense release announced a few weeks ago.Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
You do realize that the announcement said this is going to be just a new *flavour* of Ubuntu, right? Just like the server flavour or Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu...Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
I can see two distributions coming up:Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
- Gutsy Gibbon for the regular users (keeping the usual Ubuntu Kubuntu, Edubuntu, ...)
- Glossy Gnu for the FOSS freaks ;-) maybe renamed Gnubuntu in october to avoid having to come up with two different name sets for 8.04, 8.10 and after... Unless it gets renamed Unubuntused :-) after popularity contest.
I doubt RMS would be happy with having a commercial Linux distribution (although free) with GNU in it's name (and I doubt that could be registered as a trademark).Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
Have fun with this one:Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
GubuNtU. :-)
Could be the gnome distribution; Oh no, it's already Ubuntu...
Last I heard RMS has no problem with commercial software. He just dislikes closed source/non-free software.Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
To the contrary.Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
He was not in nov 2005.Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
And there is so many funny names you can create with an acronym that there is almost nothing that can be done against using it.
Could call it talibuntu, I suppose...Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
That's what you get for reading in the middle of the night (here in Oz).Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
"...until hardware vendors come to the party it's going to continue to be an issue."gNewSense is about bringing hardware vendors to the party
The reason would be marketing, in two important ways: 1) targeting FLOSS-savvy users who want to run pristine systems, and 2) pressuring hardware manufacturers into releasing specifications or open-sourcing drivers.Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
Sounds great! I'm using Gnewsense right now. Not only do I like the fact that its completely free, Its the most stable thing I've ever run (much more so then Drapper.) The only problem is that the package repository is starting to get old, which becomes a pain when I want to compile something. Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
And does that wireless card solve the firmware problem by having Free Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
firmware, or does it just have the same old non-Free, binary only
firmware, but built into flash?
By having Free firmware. The driver (rt2500, under the GPL) ships with Gnewsense, or can be downloaded at http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/DownloadsUbuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
I don't see the sources for that firmware. Or even the binaries for that matter. What license does the firmware use? How does one compile it?
Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
I don't see the sources for that firmware. Or even the binaries for that matter. What license does the firmware use?Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
Or maybe it has the "same old non-Free, binary only firmware, but built into flash", as ewan suggested. That sounds more plausible to me than the suggestion that the firmware can be compiled by the host compiler.
Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
If by "built into flash", you mean ROM, then there is no problem, as ROM is simply a type of hardware. There is no real moral obligation for hardware to be free. See http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1999-06-22...Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
An article from 1999? Welcome to 2007, to you and to RMS:Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000210
So, soon we are going to have three separate distributions, with 99.9% overlapping goals:Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
- Debian
- Gutsy Gnu
- Gnewsense
One conflict between Debian and the FSF is that Debian doesn't think that the FSF is sufficiently free, when it comes to documentation, and Debian removes FSF manuals from the FSF code that it distributes.
Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
You are not correct. Only those FDL licensed documents that actually contain invariant sections are restricted to the non-free archive.Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
Why should there only be one?Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
It is fairly obvious that the proliferation of Linux distributions is hurting the adoption of Linux in general - not only on the desktop. Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
Same base repo doesn't really make them similar, just Ubuntu alone has several different flavors, with different focus...Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
It's not obvious to me. Can you clarify?Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
Here is my theory in brief: Multiple Linux distributions make it harder for ISVs to support linux, make it harder for end users to adopt Linux on the desktop, and make it harder for sysadmins to support Linux.Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
Once you know how to use WindowsXP, you will be OK on any Windows computer.
True, but many Windows users don't know how to use Windows. They know how to use Hotmail or iTunes or whatever, but given the task of doing something outside their level of comfort and they're just as confused as a newbie Linux user. For example, I recently talked with a person who claims she's been using (Windows) computers since 1998, but she didn't know how to defrag her hard drive.
I don't think defragmenting a hard drive qualifies as "using a computer".Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon
It's more like a maintenance task that no one should care about.
Linux Diversity
Here is my theory in brief: Multiple Linux distributions make it harder for ISVs to support linux, make it harder for end users to adopt Linux on the desktop, and make it harder for sysadmins to support Linux.
Administering RedHat is different from administering Debian which is different (although not that much) from administering Ubunty, etc. They all come with slightly different applications, slightly different behavior, different versions, different defaults, configurations in different places, etc.
Then comes the MAJOR issue of applications not included in the distribution (or newer versions of said apps).
To illustrate the last point, how is a regular person supposed to install OpenOffice 2.2 on Ubuntu ?
Once you know how to use WindowsXP, you will be OK on any Windows computer.
Linux Diversity
Which makes about as much sense as saying that multiple models of cars in the market make it harder for makers of car accessories to support cars, make it harder for drivers to drive cars, and make it harder for mechanics to support cars.
Surely that's a simple matter of using apt-get or whatever the graphical equivalent is, in the appropriate version of Ubuntu? Like I said, if you're not knowledgeable enough to live on the bleeding edge, just leave the problem to the distro maintainers.
Linux Diversity
Comparing cars and software is hardly a good comparison. Nevertheless the answer actually is "yes" - multiple makes of cars make it significantly harder to maintain cars. Surely that must be obvious.
In Windows it is trivial for anybody to install OpenOffice 2.2 (or whatever) because there is an installation package for Windows on the web site.
Suggesting that users upgrade their OS in order to use a newer version of OpenOffice is absurd. If we can't agree on that, I don't think there can be a meaningful discussion on the subject.Linux Diversity
Then comes the MAJOR issue of applications not included in the distribution
Ubuntu: Introducing the Gutsy Gibbon