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

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 5, 2008 17:39 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

As a larger open community we are running headlong into a crisis with web services. Shuttleworth is one of the most outspoken proponents of the deeply integrated network services into the desktop experience and I'm not sure he's articulated whether or not open services are important in his vision.

Are open desktop clients important to you? Virtual bridges doesn't have an open client as far as I can tell. Are open network API's important to you? Virtual Bridges doesn't have an open API as far as I can tell. Are open server codebases running on your linux servers important to you? Virtual Bridges has a closed one.

If more and more traditional desktop functionality is going to be served to us over the network, via a set of services that are themselves proprietary via closed APIs and closed server and client codebases, we as users and developers will be losing significant benefits because the access to the codebases which enable those network services will not be open for us. This is going to be a problem, especially when the CEO of a major linux distribution company appears to be pushing hard for exactly this sort of future of proprietary network services.

Now if you don't believe that continued access to the sourcecode is fundamentally important to how this linux ecosystem works then you won't share my concerns. You will most likely happily fork over cash for the Virtual Bridges technology to get the gratis IBM Lotus software, and run a virtualized Ubuntu desktop to get access to that suite. This bundle exactly targets those people who do not value the openness of Ubuntu and just care about cost. The deal sweetener..the Lotus application suite...is the most valuable portion of the bundle in terms of retail cost. Take that away, and would this be a compelling offer? Would people buy Ubuntu virtualized over Virtual Bridges without the free Lotus suite? Canonical as a business does have to make money.. and this sneaky $10 a user support fee is a way to do it. If the support fee was optional instead of mandated in the bundle cost to get the free Lotus application suite, would people pay for the "per user" support?

The customers can do the math. $10 to Canonical for support they don't need..to get $200+ proprietary IBM software for gratis. There is immense cleverness in this bundle with regard to how IBM is giving away its normally expensive Lotus software, while at the same time strong arming people into paying something for what is normally an optional Canonical support offering. Essentially IBM takes a loss and Canonical is ensured a revenue stream. It's almost like watching IBM hand money to Canonical to keep its business afloat...almost. If you want Lotus this is a really good deal. If you want Ubuntu, but don't care about Lotus...maybe not if you don't need the Canonical support.

But if you do share my concern about the future openness of deeply integrated network services, then you should encourage Canonical to find a way to build a competing technology that replaces the Virtual Bridges remote proprietary tech. This may even be something the Ubuntu community can take a lead in, and show Canonical there is a better open way to handle this sort of remote desktop service with open tech. Coupling FreeNX with KVM virtualization seems like an obvious place to start as a replacement to Virtual Bridges server and client code.

It would feel a whole lot better if Canonical made it clear that they were doing this bundle now as a stop-gap measure, while also working in parallel to bring up an open remote virtualized desktop technology.

I wonder if the bundling agreement Canonical/IBM/Virtual Bridges share includes a non-compete clause which would prevent Canonical from working on an open solution to the Virtual Bridges problem. Even if there is, the volunteer Ubuntu community is probably not constrained in exploring a Virtual Bridges alternative and making it available in universe.

-jef

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 8, 2008 19:23 UTC (Mon) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

Do me the favor of using exact quotes from me before interpreting what you think my motivations are.

My criticism is explicitly about Canonical... not Ubuntu. I think Canonical is doing some things fundamentally wrong as a community managing entity and is setting a bad example for all corporate citizens of the open ecosystem.

I think Canonical's choice to setup launchpad as a closed service to be the backbone of a community distribution such as Ubuntu is fundamentally wrong and it stunting the larger Ubuntu community's ability to interact more directly with upstream projects. Lauchpad's design is fundamentally flawed and does not take external upstream workflows into account. This design flaw is a direct result of Canonical's business interest for a centralized Launchpad service which is in direct conflict with the ecosystem of distributed project development. Launchpad's services as designed maybe compelling for individual upstream projects, but for distribution development where collaboration with external upstream projects is required, the centralized nature of Launchpad isn't necessarily a good approach. Canonical may have turned the corner recently with bug triaging by opening up the Launchpad plugin API, and creating the bugzilla and trac launchpad plugins... but for patchsets including translations.. its not clear that the Launchpad services as designed is helping collaboration with upstream and in fact it maybe hurting collaboration by encouraging people to do their work in launchpad instead of encouraging people work directly in upstream.

Ubuntu translators really do want to work more directly with upstream, but they are hamstrung by how translation development in Launchpad works, and they do not have access to the code to implement changes to the translation tools so they can build a better process. Right now they have to rely on Canonical to make changes to Lauchpad. That's a problem for the Ubuntu translation community and for the upstream projects. A problem created by Canonical's business interest in a proprietary Launchpad service.

I think Canonical's choice to setup a community remix trademark policy, then bend the rules of that trademark policy for Canonical's commerical benefit so Canonical could create the commercial OEM netbook remix images with specialized hardware support is a problem for the Ubuntu community and shows a lack of respect for the volunteer Ubuntu community who isn't getting a Canonical paycheck. As a corporate entity, if you are going to setup a community trademark policy for a secondary trademark, abide by that policy as you would have any other community member and don't twist the rules for corporate benefit just because you are the mark holder and can not be held accountable by the larger community. Canonical is building the OEM specific netbook images and calling them "remixes" in direct conflict of the "remix" trademark policy they established for the non-Canonical employeed Ubuntu community to use. Canonical didn't have to call the commercial OEM offering a "remix", they could have abided by the community trademark policies and called it something else. A 'Do as I say, not as I do' management style, is never a good way to manage a community. This sort of willingness to subvert communicated community oriented policies for business reasons is a problem. It will become a bigger and bigger problem as Canonical adjusts its business focus more narrowly on profitability and less on brand recognition. If they are willing to subvert the community "remix" trademark policy what other policies are they going to be willing to subvert?

I think Canonical's handling of a community ports area as an architecture graveyard that does not include a way for the Ubuntu community to initiate ports of Ubuntu to new architectures is a problem for the Ubuntu community. Is the only way to open up an Ubuntu port to a new architecture is to first have Canonical provide the infrastructure in a failed effort to monetise the architecture? Can motivated Ubuntu community members who are not employed by Canonical add new architectures to the Ubuntu ports area without having to pay Canonical to do provide the build hosts? Are community members really forced to run those sorts of ports as external projects without access to the Ubuntu branding? Isn't that a problem for the wider Ubuntu community? If Ubuntu's build infrastructure was modeled on Debian's decentralized community approach, Ubuntu would already have a community led ARMv5 port up and running inside the Ubuntu ports system.

If Canonical addressed any one of these managerial problems, the Ubuntu community would be stronger for it and Fedora would not directly benefit.
If my motivation was to sabotage the Ubuntu community for my own self-interests, I wouldn't be publicly critical, I would instead take a job with Canonical and reinforce the walled-garden corporate culture from the inside.

-jef

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 9, 2008 13:21 UTC (Tue) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link]

"Do me the favor of using exact quotes from me before interpreting what you think my motivations are."

I judge your motivations based on what you say. And no, I'm not going to post quotes about the multitude of whining you do here.

"My criticism is explicitly about Canonical... not Ubuntu."

Why? Why do you keep on whining about Canonical? Why does it matter to you at all what they do or do not do? Hwy don't you focus on making your product as good as it can be, as opposed to spending your time here whining about your competitor? Yes, I understand that it can be pretty annoying to see an upstart like Canonical/Ubuntu do something in a short time that Red Hat spent years to reach. But whining does not change that fact. What you should be doing instead, is to make sure Fedora is as good as it could be. But you are not doing that. Instead, you spend your time crying about Ubuntu/Canonical.

Your endless whining is alienating users. I was so-so when it came to fedora, but your whining made it pretty easy for me to dumb Fedora.

"I think Canonical is doing some things fundamentally wrong...."

Well, that's their problem, is it not? Why are you so concerned about a mistake someone else is making? I see lots of companies doing something that I think is stupid, yet I don't waste my time whining about it, especially since those things do not relate to me at all.

"I think Canonical's choice to setup launchpad as a closed service to be the backbone of a community distribution such as Ubuntu is fundamentally wrong and it stunting the larger Ubuntu community's ability to interact more directly with upstream projects."

Again: that's their problem, not yours. Why not focus on your problems, as opposed to whining about others problems?

"Ubuntu translators really do want to work more directly with upstream"

There's nothing preventing them from working with upstream. if they choose to work in Launchpad only, that's their problem, not yours.

"If my motivation was to sabotage the Ubuntu community for my own self-interests, I wouldn't be publicly critical"

Your motivation is to cast Ubuntu/Canonical in a bad light, because you feel that they threaten Fedora. I think it speaks volumes about the quality of Fedora when you have to resort to endless mudslinging and whining about your competitor. Yes yes, "I have only Canonicals best interest at heart!". That's a load of crap if I ever saw one. Why don't you focus on Fedora and problems it faces, as opposed to losing sleep over someone elses problems? But I guess this all boils down to the fact that Canonical came out of nowhere, and took huge chunk of Linux-users mindshare just like that. That must be annoying for someone who spent years trying to do that, only to see some upstart doing it instead?

And now you start to whine about Ubuntu in threads that have nothing to do with Ubuntu! And by that I mean the post about Luis Villa's blog-post. give it a rest already. You sound like a broken record, and you have nothing worthwhile or new to bring to any discussion. It will always be about "Waaah, Canonical sucks!"

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 9, 2008 14:01 UTC (Tue) by njd27 (subscriber, #5770) [Link]

Please do not feed the troll.

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 9, 2008 17:20 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

I do not feel that Ubuntu threatens Fedora. What would threaten Fedora is if Canonical actually got so heavily involved with upstream projects that upstream development roadmaps for important subsystems like the kernel or Xwindows or GNOME were driven by Canonical's upstream activity.

I feel that Canonical as a corporate entity is a poor example of a corporate citizen of the larger ecosystem of open development and is exhibiting behaviours that negatively impact sustainability of that larger ecosystem. I point out those specific behaviours which need to be addressed. I will continue until those specific behaviours change.

-jef

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 10, 2008 7:50 UTC (Wed) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link]

"I do not feel that Ubuntu threatens Fedora. "

Your behavior here says the opposite.

"I feel that Canonical as a corporate entity is a poor example of a corporate citizen of the larger ecosystem of open development and is exhibiting behaviours that negatively impact sustainability of that larger ecosystem."

So you think that because Ubuntu does not contribute as much to upstream as some other distros do, they are threatening the viability of the entire ecosystem? I'm sorry, but that does not compute. They are not actively harming the ecosystem, what they MIGHT be doing at worst is that they are not actively benefiting it.

But, OTOH, I think that Ubuntu does have a positive contribution. They have increased mindshare of Linux and various projects associated with it. They have brought more users to Linux. And all those are positive things.

There are ways of helping Linux that do not involve patches. As long as we think that "only way to help is to submit patches!", Linux will be doomed to a niche. The ecosystem is not just code.

"I point out those specific behaviours which need to be addressed. I will continue until those specific behaviours change."

In other words: "I'm annoyed because Ubuntu is threatening the popularity of Fedora, and I'll vent my anger and frustration in lwn.net!".

Pretty sad, really. And what's even sadder is the fact that everyone else that read lwn.net needs to suffer your endless whining.

IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering

Posted Dec 21, 2009 15:36 UTC (Mon) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]

I would really like a filter that suppresses all jspaleta comments, and responses (including this one). He's managing single-handedly to turn LWN into something closer to Slashdot...