IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering [LWN.net]

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 4, 2008 20:25 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

Did I demand that? I certainly have no standing to demand anything from Canonical. I am not a customer, I am not an employee, I'm not even a volunteer working under their management.

But I am free to ask questions, and they are free to ignore me...at their peril.

What I tried to ask is if Canonical patched Ubuntu components specifically for compatibility with the proprietary Virtual Bridges techonology. I think that's important information considering how vocal Shuttleworth has been trying to articulate a grand sweeping vision for the future of the linux desktop.

If Canonical doesn't want to share that information, I can't make them. Perhaps other people who do have standing with Canonical will be interested in asking the same question. Maybe a Debian contributor or two might find that sort of disclosure beneficial.

But I will say this. Canonical tries very hard to blur the line between its business interests and the Ubuntu community interests. Where are we headed by relying on proprietary services with closed APIs? Is that really in the community's best interest? The fact that critism of Canonical as a corporate entity is continually intepreted as an attack on the Ubuntu community..is quite..fascinating.

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 4, 2008 20:40 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]

for practical purposes Canonical == Ubuntu just like for practical purposes Red Hat == Fedora.

in both cases the corporate entity exercises extensive control over the distro

nothing goes in Ubuntu without approval from Canonical, nothing goes in Fedora without approval from Red Hat (if only from the Red Hat legal department)

if anything the ties are even closer for Canonical and Ubuntu, so your amazement over attacks on one being interpreted (or described) as attacks on the other doesn't stand up.

as for adjusting software to work in proprietary environments, every distro does this. that environment may be the IBM Virtual Bridges one that this article talks about, it may be the IBM S390 hypervisor environment that mainframes use, it may be the VMware hypervisor environment, or it may be the proprietary BIOS/hardware on the latest Apple server or eepc

every distro does this sort of work to some extent. Red Hat does a lot of work in this area.

If Canonical produced patches for opensource components to let them run on Virtual Bridges they should be thanked, Red Hat, Debian, and others can now benefit from this work.

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 4, 2008 21:16 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

Can you articulate the difference between excessive control and non-excessive control by a corporate entity?

In what way do you think Red Hat controls Fedora... excessively?

-jef

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 4, 2008 22:54 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

crap...
extensively.... not excessively...clearly a Freudian slip on my part.

The question still stands if you want to indulge me.

-jef

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 4, 2008 22:55 UTC (Thu) by PaXTeam (subscriber, #24616) [Link]

how about explaining the august events? when it happened to debian some years ago, people were told about the details, in much less than 4 months. that clock is still ticking for fedora and one would think it's not of their will.

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 4, 2008 23:43 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

I believe Paul has addressed again in his press interviews for F10 release.
It's an ongoing investigation and he's on record as saying he's committed to making a full disclosure when its possible to do so.

ref: http://lwn.net/Articles/308176/
ref: http://www.esecurityplanet.com/news/article.php/3787581/S...

I specifically declined to be told about details of the breach if it meant that I would be subject to the same disclosure constraints which would prevent me from talking publicly. It wouldn't really help to have yet another person who couldn't talk, unless you are one of the people who are tired of hearing me talk.

I have trust in the people who are privy to more details than myself such as Paul. And no, I have no idea how long this sort of investigation is expected to take. When Paul can make a disclosure, I'm going to be right up front asking pointed questions about the investigation.

But this does remind me, we did have a discussion about communicating an incident response plan for future issues. I should ping people about that.

-jef

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 11, 2008 18:56 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]

> Did I demand that? I certainly have no standing to demand anything from Canonical. I am not a customer, I am not an employee, I'm not even a volunteer working under their management.

So, you have nothing to do with them whatsoever, and don't even know anything about them first hand...

> But I am free to ask questions, and they are free to ignore me...

...which tends to happen to people who ask silly questions based on knowledge-free prejudices...

> at their peril.

...yeah, I bet Mark Shuttleworth is changing his trousers as we speak.

Jef, regardless of what you've deceived yourself into believing, this campaign of yours has nothing to do with Ubuntu or Canonical, and everything to do with the vastly overinflated ego you seem to have accidentally stumbled across in the street and decided to wrap yourself in. Please, put it back where you found it and get on with your life.

Quietly.