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LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystemLPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystemPosted Sep 18, 2008 3:36 UTC (Thu) by mcopple (guest, #2920)In reply to: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem by Burgundavia Parent article: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem
His bias does not change the ultimate fact, which the referenced blog acknowledges:
"Canonical is primarily a consumer of the Linux kernel. It is one of the building blocks we need in order to fulfill our primary mission, which is to provide an operating system that end users want to use. It is, on the whole, a good piece of software which meets our needs well. We routinely backport patches from newer kernels, and fix bugs which are particularly relevant to us, but our kernel consists almost entirely of code we receive from upstream."
The Linux "ecosystem," whether that contains just a few pieces or every piece of software ever made for Linux, only works if everyone contributes. Eric Raymond spent quite a bit of time making this point in Cathedral and Bazaar. We know that in practice, only a small proportion of the user base actually contributes back to the community; therefore, it is even more critical that major distributors, of which Canonical is undeniably one, need to do their part to give as much back to the community as they take away from it.
Greg is saying, with a lot of justification, that Canonical is letting other distributors, especially RedHat and Novell, carry its water. The referenced blog post admits as much, but then goes on to try to cast it as a virtue, to opine that Ubuntu is about the whole operating system, not the kernel alone. Fair enough. But RedHat and Novell are in the business of putting together operating systems that "...end users want to use..." as well. What happens if, on Monday morning, they decide to follow the Canonical model, and become "...primarily a consumer of the Linux kernel...?"
Greg made it clear that, whatever your opinion on RedHat et al vs. Canonical, the majority of kernel hackers are doing this for a paycheck. If RedHat and Novell decide to pay their hackers to do something else, then the kernel process gets a lot slower and probably, a lot less functional.
It is time for Canonical to step up. I see claims all over the 'net that ubuntu is the most popular Linux desktop; it is time for Canonical to put some money behind that reputation. Step up, or shut up.
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LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 7:06 UTC (Thu) by gregwilkins (subscriber, #515) [Link]
I think this criticism of canonical represents a pretty one-eye view of how what constitutes a contribution to open source. Patches are not the only way to contribute.
Canonical has put a huge effort into ubuntu and have made it one of the most easily consumable distributions of a vast amount of open source software. This exposure to users is the lifeblood of many projects.
It would be a fool who would try argue that the open source eco system would be better off without Canonical and ubuntu. If we are better off with them, then they must be contributing in somehow! So is the criticism that they are obliged to contribute more because they benefit from support contracts with users?
All users of open source software benefit from using it. We don't demand payment in cash or kind from our users, so why should we hold those that contribute in other ways to a higher standard?
To say that anybody is obliged to contribute back just devalues the gift that all contributions (code or otherwise) are!
To say that canonical is under some moral obligation to contribute developer time, is paramount to saying that we license our software freely so long as you don't get too big a benefit from it, in which case you are obliged to give in cash or kind! This is like the old ext.js license which was LGPL (unless you mades lots of money or were competative to ext.js)
That's not the deal! it's free! FREE F R E E !
Free as in freedom and that includes being freedom from moral obligations or guilt trips at the hands of those that think that only the kernel commits counts!
Canonical do contribute and even if they didn't it is wrong to say that they should.
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 7:44 UTC (Thu) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link]
"Free riding happens with open source, news at 11". It would be great if Canonical poured even more of Mark Shuttleworth's money into various projects, but I think they're doing a pretty fine job in terms of making a product that is winning a lot of converts to Linux and open source. If they do less kernel work and more work on the distribution, isn't that simply taking advantage of the open source model? It's the concept of "comparative advantage": concentrate on what you do best.
Comparative advantage Posted Sep 19, 2008 18:34 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] Clarification of the economic principle of comparative advantage: it isn't "concentrate on what you do best"; it's "concentrate on what you do most better (than others do it)" So even if Canonical can submit kernel patches better than it can distribute Linux, and even if Canonical can submit kernel patches better than anyone else, and even if Canonical can't distribute Linux as well as others, it may still be best for everyone if Canonical concentrates on distributing Linux. What you compare is the difference between Canonical's and others' patch-submitting ability and the difference between Canonical's and others Linux-distributing abilities.
LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 12:53 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Possibly Canonical prefers to spend its effort developing components which aren't in the rather small set Greg checked? Things the users can actually see? Things like, oh, GNOME? (Or KDE, I suppose, although Ubuntu isn't KDE-focussed.)
The Linux kernel and infrastructural stuff is very nice, but not everyone who uses it as a basis needs to enhance it, nor is there anything immoral or unethical about choosing to enhance non-infrastructural components instead.
RE: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 14:38 UTC (Thu) by mmcgrath (subscriber, #44906) [Link]
"Possibly Canonical prefers to spend its effort developing components which aren't in the rather small set Greg checked? Things the users can actually see? Things like, oh, GNOME?"
Yes, surely thats the ticket! Tell yourself whatever lies you have to, the work Ubuntu does, is for Ubuntu. If you think not... Go get the source and prove me wrong. Greg mentioned he looked at more then just the kernel but left it open enough that someone could tell themselves "Oh, they must just not work on the kernel."
I'd challenge anyone with Ubuntu/Canonical to post their own numbers _from an upstream repo_ and show where Ubuntu/Canonical commit count is at vs other distributions.
RE: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 16:43 UTC (Thu) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]
I'm not a Ubuntu user and are not connected to Canonical in any ways. I have it tried once and deleted it a few weeks after. (It's not my style of distribution; I guess I'm too used to the old-fashioned Unix way, being a (literal) grey-beard Unix user since 1984 and a Linux user since 1994.)
But even I can see the value that Ubuntu (and Canonical, by paying the salaries of Ubuntu developers) provides to the Linux community: Packaging code into a coherent and *nice looking* whole, targeted towards desktop usage, that appeals to new users that have never used Linux before. And for that target audience their distribution is better than Debian or Red Hat, and arguably better than SUSE or Mandrake. In my book, this is a big win and a big contribution for the Linux community.
If they don't contribute code upstream to core infrastructure projects in addition, too bad. It mostly irks the developers in that projects; but other members of the rest of our community might see that providing packaging and user attraction (and also marketing) is a value in itself. At least, I do.
(To put that into context where I'm coming from: I use Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, and SUSE (in alphabetical order :), and almost all other Unix systems. As a developer, I belong to the TeX development community, and am active there since 1982.)
RE: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 19:14 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]
> Tell yourself whatever lies you have to
I appreciate that your feelings are running strongly here, but after that little outburst I can't take you seriously.
Back on topic: Slackware contribution count, anyone? And unlike Canonical, Slackware sell copies of their distribution. Yet nobody's slagging off Pat Volkerding for freeloading (have they ever done so, even when Slackware was the most popular distro out there?).
This is "tall poppy syndrome" at its worst; if I'm alone in finding it kind of disgusting, then so be it, but I do.
RE: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 19:44 UTC (Thu) by mmcgrath (subscriber, #44906) [Link]
"I appreciate that your feelings are running strongly here, but after that little outburst I can't take you seriously."
And why would you. I've asked for someone to provide numbers, facts. Why do that when they can just attack the person requesting them. ad hominem anyone?
RE: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 22:37 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]
> I've asked for someone to provide numbers, facts.
Maybe so, but the bit I quoted and responded to was
> Tell yourself whatever lies you have to
which is aggressive and rude, and makes your response of
> Why do that when they can just attack the person requesting them. ad hominem anyone?
amusingly ironic (although a little sad).
RE: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 23:18 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] OK. I will then politely ask: can anyone provide statistics on how much Ubuntu employees have contributed to Gnome, as compared to other contributors like Red Hat, Novell, and Sun?
RE: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 18, 2008 23:48 UTC (Thu) by chromatic (guest, #26207) [Link]
I'm not sure that information would be useful or interesting either, unless there should be some metric of goodness based on an amount of contribution upstream.
In my mind, the question is *does* a project contribute upstream, not *how much* does a project contribute upstream.
RE: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem Posted Sep 19, 2008 11:19 UTC (Fri) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] Ubuntu employees The difference between a company and a distribution is, well, key. Maybe this comes close to answering your question, maybe it is better to go here for the datamining software, download the latest Gnome tarball and answer it yourself.
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