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IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offeringIBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offeringPosted Dec 7, 2008 1:19 UTC (Sun) by Ze (guest, #54182)In reply to: IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering by jspaleta Parent article: IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering Firstly I want to say that this is a much better comment than one of your trolls. It's the sort of comment that others respect , sure it has a few tiny flaws and biases but then so do most comments. This is why I like uses direct quotes as much as possible. I'm not sure I can find any actual Shuttleworth commentary which goes as far as to say that users numbers are more important than contributor numbers. I've certainly not going to suggest Shuttleworth said anything like that unless I can find an actual quote. Your right Shuttleworth didn't say that, and more so that's not what I was saying above , furthermore I said he thought that users counted towards the direction of the project , now I'm only inferring his thoughts from his actions and I could be wrong. Understand I think that Shuttleworth's heart is in the right place. What I was talking about earlier was when Shuttleworth spoke of a direction for a group of large projects , where canonical wasn't a large contributor to them (or even a small one in some cases). That irked a lot of contributors. In the end it's the contributors who decide the direction of the project and if any company wants a project to go in a particular direction then they need to throw contributors at that direction. It's also reasonable to assume that usage numbers do matter to the larger ecosystem. Contributors come from somewhere, they don't grow on trees. If Canonical is expanding the linux userbase with Ubuntu then they are most likely indirectly helping to grow open source contributors. Yes they make a difference but only indirectly , contributors come from them and they make support demands on companies which focus contributors on that problem.the more important question is this. Is the culture Canonical created inside the Ubuntu community helping to turn users into contributors at a faster rate than other distributions? A bit biased Jef , now if Canonical/Ubuntu Community was helping to turn users into contributors at a slower rate we'd have a problem that the linux community should reflect on. If they are helping to turn users into contributors at a higher rate than we have something positive for the community to reflect on and for other distributions to learn from. If the rate is the same as other distributions then we simply have the status quo and there is no negative or positive implications. Translations should be an absolute slam dunk if Canonical really was building a better way to contribute to the ecosystem. And yet, Ubuntu translator contributions into upstream projects are frustrated by the process flow that Canonical has created for the Ubuntu translation community. When I've looked at launchpad and the associated process flow , I must say I haven't been impressed with it but then I haven't been impressed with the process flow in the overall linux ecosystem in general. I think that is one of the areas that can be improved for lots of projects. It's a tough problem in general though. Maybe something that better integrates wiki's+bug trackers + discussion{mailing lists,forums,newsgroups, perhaps even IRC}. In my experience hardware (specifically some input devices + 3G modems) can be a bit of a PITA to setup and then work out how to push the fixes upstream and even where to fix it.
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"non-contributing" users do matter Posted Dec 7, 2008 4:51 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
quote:
now if Canonical/Ubuntu Community was helping to turn users into contributors at a slower rate we'd have a problem that the linux community should reflect on
I disagree with you
if Ubuntu is introducing twice as many people to linux and is converting half as many to contributers they are still just as good as other distros.
or if they are introducing people to linux who would never use the other distros, but only converting 1% of those people into contributers, it's still a net win for the number of contributers
this is completely ignoring other effects of "non-contributing" users
these include
not to mention reducing the amount of money going to microsoft and other proprietary-only vendors.
do you think that there is any chance at all that Adobe would have released a 64 bit flash for linux if the only people who used linux were people that contributed directly to opensource projects?
in other words, users do matter, even if they aren't "contributers".
IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering Posted Dec 9, 2008 22:09 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
"What I was talking about earlier was when Shuttleworth spoke of a direction for a group of large projects , where canonical wasn't a large contributor to them (or even a small one in some cases). That irked a lot of contributors."
Its best to provide a reference to the exact quote so everyone reading gets a chance to read the original quotation which you are referring to in context with the personal editorializing. I'm pretty sure I know what you are referring to but its best not to assume. I try to do it as much citation as possible, but I fail to include it sometimes myself.
"A bit biased Jef , now if Canonical/Ubuntu Community was helping to turn users into contributors at a slower rate we'd have a problem that the linux community should reflect on."
I make no attempt to hide my bias, be afraid of anyone who attempts to claim they are unbiased. I do not yet work for Fox News so I still have the luxury of being biased, unfair and yes even unbalanced.
And I am in fact reflecting on this very problem. I think Canonical's approach to building a community distribution around a set of proprietary services that implement the processes of how that community is to work together shows a systemic and fundamental problem with Canonical's corporate view of how the open ecosystem is meant to work.
The fact that Shuttleworth can say that:
But then Canonical goes and builds the critical parts of the Ubuntu collaborative process, the mechanisms that grind the Ubuntu sausage, as a set of proprietary services...that is a problem. And it continues to be a problem. Even if Launchpad is opened by next November, and Canonical gives up on Launchpad's proprietary service model..its still not clear if Shuttleworth plans to take the concept of the proprietary service and wedge it deep into the linux desktop moving forward. In his vision of the "weblications" of the future, how important are open services? Will Canonical rig up new proprietary desktop services or will Canonical fully embrace the idea that the open development process is the better development process?
The Ubuntu DaD service should never had to need to exist as a separate service. Its a travesty of duplication of effort caused by Canonical's core corporate culture. The MoM service should have been an open codebase for the Ubuntu contributor community to extend if Canonical as a corporate entity really believed that that free software=better innovation.
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/DaDandMoM
That specific example is better now, as Canonical appears to have opened up the MoM codebase and DaD is going to be merged with it. But other areas are not. The services that the Ubuntu translators work with are still closed and are not open to the community to extend or adjust to better meet workflow needs. I bring it up DaD/MoM only to stress the point that I think Canonical's corporate culture has a systemic problem that goes beyond translation workflow.
Then there is also the fact that Canonical has put forward an Ubuntu code of conduct which talks about upstream collaboration as an important aspect of that code, but has largely failed to be a shining example of that collaboration is a problem. It's easy to say that Canonical is a small company and doesn't have the manpower to commit to upstream, that's a real easy excuse to use. But the reality is, they have come out and made a statement that to be a good community member you should value upstream collaboration. That is a value statement embedded in the Ubuntu code of conduct. Does Canonical as a corporate entity managing the Ubuntu community live up to the very expectations its set for that community? If they aren't a shining example of the collaboration ideals they would have their own community meet then you can't really expect that community to be better.
This "do as I say, not as I do" approach to open collaboration is a systemic problem to the Canonical corporate culture, which will only be reinforced and strengthened over time as traditional business pressures take hold as Canonical transitions from a cash-burn tolerant venture-capital mode into a profit-maintenance established business. These are corporate culture behaviors that Canonical must address to be better members of its own community as well as the larger ecosystem.
-jef
IBM's new Ubuntu-based desktop offering Posted Apr 23, 2009 16:38 UTC (Thu) by kitterma (subscriber, #4448) [Link]
"That specific example is better now, as Canonical appears to have opened
up the MoM codebase and DaD is going to be merged with it. But other areas are not."
It's not ... is going to be .... It's done. DaD was shut down by the people
GPL code here:
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