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LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystemLPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystemPosted Sep 18, 2008 12:53 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304)In reply to: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem by mcopple Parent article: LPC: Fitting into the kernel ecosystem
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.
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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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