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

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 4, 2008 20:40 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)
In reply to: IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering by jspaleta
Parent article: IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

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.

(Log in to post comments)

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