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A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times)
The New York Times profiles Mark Shuttleworth, which gives a look into how the "mainstream media" views Linux. "The notion of a strong Linux-based competitor to Windows and, to a lesser extent, Apple's Mac OS X has been an enduring dream of advocates of open-source software. They champion the idea that software that can be freely altered by the masses can prove cheaper and better than proprietary code produced by stodgy corporations. Try as they might, however, Linux zealots have failed in their quest to make Linux mainstream on desktop and notebook computers. The often quirky software remains in the realm of geeks, not grandmothers."
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A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 17:40 UTC (Mon) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]
Why is it that anyone that likes and or uses Linux is
1: A Geek
Just for Information the world is full of zealots and geeks and they all run some form of crapware from M$ Corp think it is called windBlows or something similar
Seriously they big stumbling block is money Linux does not have the funds to
1: Tell manufactuors (SP) they must supply Linux or pay a tax for not doing so
2: Pay for the vast amounts of advertising that M$ Corp uses to ensure it's virul infestation gets the big bite of the market
Whoa there... Posted Jan 12, 2009 18:12 UTC (Mon) by dion (subscriber, #2764) [Link]
I have read a few comments from you that I seriously have a hard time understanding, I'd hate to post a grammer/spelling flame as I'm not big on form myself, but it's really getting in the way of the message.
Sorry if this offends you, but might I suggest that you read through your post a few times before hitting Preview comment button?
Whoa there... Posted Jan 15, 2009 18:25 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]
Don't worry, his posts never repay the effort.
Whoa there... Posted Jan 15, 2009 22:35 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Actually, this post is one of the best. It even appears to make sense! I don't know if petegn is improving or if I should worry.
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 18:51 UTC (Mon) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]
To a certain extent, anyone who likes an operating system at all is a geek or a zealot. The normal state is to either for the operating system to make no impression or to be annoying, since people normally use their computers to perform tasks, not to use operating systems.
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 18:56 UTC (Mon) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link]
"An Application is a thing that gets in the way between you and your data. An Operating System is a thing that gets in the way between you and your applications."
I wish I knew the origin of that quote....
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 13, 2009 0:40 UTC (Tue) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]
We don't call car enthusiasts geeks, though. Even though the term is now socially more acceptable, the term 'geek' originally denotes a level of discomfort by the mainstream.
So sorry.... Posted Jan 13, 2009 3:32 UTC (Tue) by robla (subscriber, #424) [Link]
You'll have to forgive them. Some geek started Craigslist and hollowed out their business.
So sorry.... Posted Jan 15, 2009 12:00 UTC (Thu) by Quazatron (guest, #4368) [Link]
I was going to mark your comment (+5 funny), then I realized this is LWN. :-)
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 18:59 UTC (Mon) by lambda (subscriber, #40735) [Link]
You might want to try toning down your rhetoric if you don't want people to consider Linux users
zealots. While you may have a low opinion of Microsoft or Windows, calling them "M$" or "windBlows" makes you sound more like a zealot than someone engaging in a reasonable debate.
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 19:42 UTC (Mon) by roblucid (subscriber, #48964) [Link]
> Why is it that anyone that likes and or uses Linux is
> 1: A Geek
In Mark Shuttleworth case, he apparently identified himself as "Being a Linux geek sort of brings balance to the force. Was the quote implausible?
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 20:54 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Any chain of thought predicated on the assumption that IBM has no money is
fundamentally flawed.
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 18:15 UTC (Mon) by quartz (guest, #37351) [Link]
Bah, the story shows a bunch of FUD on the product (hey, updates MAY break your system - like Windows updates never do) and tries to generally portray Shuttleworth as eccentric if not misguided.
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 19:11 UTC (Mon) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
I think you put it to a vote to all of humanity, the consensus view would be that anyone who has chosen to pay money to fly into space would be both eccentric and misguided. From a human experience perspective that's a "way out there" sort of thing to do.
And even from a technical perspective, flying into space is most likely inherently an eccentric endeavour:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_eccentricity
The path Shuttleworth took probably was somewhat eccentric. We'd need to access to the flight records of the trip to space to verify any misguided flight path claims of flight.
-jef
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 22:24 UTC (Mon) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link]
Traditionally, ships are defined as having a female gender. The ship has never been married. The ship guided the flight. Thus, it was indeed miss-guided.
Oh, the Pun! Posted Jan 13, 2009 0:09 UTC (Tue) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] Have you considered participating in the O. Henry Pun-Off? ;)
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 12, 2009 20:16 UTC (Mon) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link] This story is in the New York Times. That's a mainstream publication primarily targeted at one of the most elitist subcultures in the country. The fact that they are covering Shuttleworth and Ubuntu at all is the important message. For them to portray him as anything other than eccentric would be absurd. If Linux wasn't "eccentric" then where would the story be? What would make a story about MacOS X or Microsoft Vista rate any coverage by the Times? The next version's development is behind and it will ship late ... again. A new bug is detected and it's gonna cost players on Wall St. this much of clean up the mess ... again. Mundane occurences are not newsworthy events. Every story must have some sort of hook or angle (and usually that means it has to be covered in a negative light ... or at least in the condescending mode reserved for "eccentrics"). To the writers an publishers and most of the audience of the NY Times a computer is something that runs MS Windows or, sometimes, MacOS. The very idea that there are some sorts of "computers" that don't natively run MS Word and Excel is vaguely misguided and definitely eccentric to them. Let's just enjoy the fact that this is progress. (Yeah, I know, Linus was on the cover of Forbes almost exactly a decade ago; but the NY Times is still a boost from that). When Linux does truly reach mainstream dominance then the stories, in any mainstream press, will be almost uniformly negative. What would be the alternative? In breaking news today: the trains continue to run sorta on time, the sun rose in the East, and the garbage dumps in New Jersey still reek!
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 12, 2009 20:56 UTC (Mon) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Here's what's most interesting. This is the first time I've seen Shuttleworth go on record with a number to represent Canonical's revenue numbers. But no associated number for expenses.
Shuttleworth is on record saying that Canonical's revenue is approaching 30 million. He goes on to claim that is sustainable. But without the corresponding estimate on expenses, Shuttleworth's claim as to whether that 30M is sustainable is completely unverifiable. Should we just take Shuttleworth's word for it that that 30M in revenue can sustain Canonical as a small company?
We are left to guess as to what Canonical's expenses are. But we can start trying to make educated guesses using Red Hat's financials to create an estimate for Canonical's expenses. Ubuntu is a small company, with somewhere between 200 and 300 employees so obviously its expenses are not going to be directly comparable to larger, publicly traded companies where the financial information is known. But let's see if I can't put an estimate on the map for discussion.
I'll do that by calculating Red Hat's operating expenses per employee and applying that number to Canonical. By doing that I get that $30 million in annual revenue at Canonical represents a net loss of ~ $19 million in annual operation at Canonical. Is that $30M in revenue for a company with 200+ employees really sustainable? In order for that 30 million in revenue to be sustainable that's going to mean that Canonical has achieved a per employee operating expense of $150,000 or less assuming 200 employees. Is that a reasonable number for a sustainable business?
Yes, this estimate its not perfect..but its an estimate that attempts to scale across the size of the number of employees using the available information. If you've got a better way to estimate Canonical's expenses...feel free to play along and redo the comparison. If you can get Shuttleworth on record with the annual expenses number..even better. I think if a corporate rep is willing to quote revenue numbers, the laypress should insist on the corresponding expense side financials to put that revenue in the correct context. Shame on the interviewer for not asking for that information and putting Shuttleworth's claim on sustainability to the test.
Okay so here are the the numbers to backup my calculations:
Employees 2200 ~200 (understimate)
Revenue
Operating Margin: 12.82 % -65% (calculated)*
Operating Income: 80.49M -19.76 M (calculated)*
Operating Expenses: 547.35 M 49.76 M (calculated)*
Operating Expenses
* These values are the result of assuming the same per employee operating expenses at Canonical that exist at Red Hat. This assumption is a bold faced untruth which can only be lifted if Canonical goes on record with their expenses.
** Red Hat numbers taken from:
-jef"My home business is technically sustainable. I have 0 revenue and 0 operating expenses"spaleta
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 12, 2009 21:23 UTC (Mon) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
Your "argument", as usual, is that desktop Linux is not a sustainable business. In 2009, that is possibly true. This is an area which must be grown essentially from a seedling. Fortunately Mark, of all people, has been willing to invest large amounts of his own money into growing this area. And Ubuntu is probably the only distro whose devs have enough sense of the real world, filled with real people, *and* enough resources, to do it. Red Hat isn't interested, and is too busy looking for profit centers to care. Novell cares a little, but only to the extent that they think it might improve their server revenues. And the Fedora devs are too busy trying to impose their own values upon users and consulting with Red Hat Legal to do a very good job. (Though they always seem to think they are doing a wonderful job. Such is the comfort that comes from wearing blinders.)
Basically, you come off as hoping for the demise of desktop Linux. I would prefer to see it succeed. I suppose you're wanting to see Fedora take Ubuntu's place. But that is not going to happen without some serious attitude adjustments both at Red Hat and among the rank and file of Fedora's developers. Don't hold your breath...
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 12, 2009 22:05 UTC (Mon) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
My argument is that Canonical as a business is not sustainable and that Canonical is doing a disservice to its community of contributors by not being more transparent about where sustainable opportunities are and where the expenses are. If Shuttleworth is going to go on record and claim that $30 million is sustainability revenue for what Canonical is doing, then they need to go on record with the expenses and show its sustainable. If it is, great..but show us.
I'm not interested in dismissing desktop linux. I make no arguments about whether linux on the desktop is sustainable. I use nothing but linux personally on my home desktops. What I am doing is questioning the idea that Canonical as a business endeavour is a sustainable one. And I also posit that we do our larger ecosystem a disservice by not being critical of the things Shuttleworth publicly claims. When he claims there are 8 million Ubuntu users, for 3 years running, but will not go on record as to how he gets that estimate..that is a problem. We he claims that $30 million is sustainable revenue for a company with 200 employees... that is a problem.
Just because he's making promises and saying things we really want to hear, doesn't mean we should cut him some slack as to scrutiny.
If we as a community or going to be relying on Canonical's business operations to spearhead continued linux growth into the consumer space, then its in our best interest to demand transparency about the operation of that business. If your personal hopes and dreams for linux are tied to the success of Canonical as a business..you shouldn't give Shuttleworth the opportunity to blow smoke up your backside...you should demand some transparency. Every single Ubuntu community member should think of themselves as shareholders in the Ubuntu brand. You have not invested money into Canonical, but you have have invested your time and talents. You helped Canonical build that brand. And as shareholders in that brand value you have earned some transparency into how that brand is being used as a return on your investment of shared vision. Is Shuttleworth doing right by you by talking to the press about sustainable revenue in the way that he does? Is he doing right by you by talking about the number of users in the way that he does?
-jef
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 13, 2009 7:19 UTC (Tue) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link] My argument is that Canonical as a business is not sustainable and that Canonical is doing a disservice to its community of contributors by not being more transparent about where sustainable opportunities are and where the expenses are.Naw. I have Ubuntu on a system currently and don't need a financial report to justify using it. If I decided it was the best distro to use for a 200 person call center, the lack of disclosure wouldn't deter me. I've heard this logic before, and instead of using reliable privately held hosting services, we got Time-Warner trash instead (it was bad). I'd be surprised if Shuttleworth doesn't have $150 million sitting around that he's fully willing to invest into Linux distribution development over the next decade (or $15 million a year average). If this isn't the case, the community can continue on regardless, perhaps without as much power, but it will move on. When Red Hat did the whole Fedora/RHEL split, people stepped up with White Box Linux, and of course Centos fills that space today. Debian will still exist as well. A great thing about open source is options. Count on BeOS and they disappear, you have what you have. Red Hat, Canonical, and Debian won't all disappear overnight. If they do, the code remains open and there's enough people relying on it that something will be done. Financials are hyped on commodity services that can be moved and software with no lock-in. If you get lousy service, you can move with some discomfort. Here's the thing about financials: They aren't the whole picture. Red Hat could decide Fedora isn't worth further investment, and then what happens? Unless I'm mistaken, Fedora isn't directly profitable and public traded companies have been known to drop these sorts of operations while being profitable overall. If Shuttleworth is going to go on record and claim that $30 million is sustainability revenue for what Canonical is doing, then they need to go on record with the expenses and show its sustainable. If it is, great..but show us. He doesn't have to show anything. In regards to deciding on call center software (as mentioned above), Fedora would be eliminated due to short life cycles and (non FUD) breaches in repository security (like this one). If anything needs disclosure, that is it. Red Hat can be profitable yet still drop Fedora. Every single Ubuntu community member should think of themselves as shareholders in the Ubuntu brand. You have not invested money into Canonical, but you have have invested your time and talents. You helped Canonical build that brand. I did help move a friend over to Ubuntu and got a 20% commission on the price of the OS without asking ($0). As far as brand equity, the same can be said of Fedora/Red Hat. Building Fedora is building for the commercial entity Red Hat. If this is a problem for you, I hope you're on the Red Hat payroll (are you?). If not, Debian is the obvious choice.
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 13, 2009 8:12 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
You are absolutely right, you don't need a financial report about Canonical to choose whether or not to use Ubuntu. You can certainly use Ubuntu without contributing to it. No one said that you as a user needed this information. I certainly don't care if you care about this. But perhaps Ubuntu users were not Shuttleworth's intended audience when he decided to drop the 30 million in revenue quote in this interview. I think Shuttleworth is a pretty bright fellow, and I think he chooses what he says in the press with some care and forethought. He mentioned that revenue number to the press for a reason. Whomever it was Shuttleworth was trying to talk to about revenue and sustainability deserves to know the associated expenses information so that they can evaluate the sustainability of revenue number in context. The omission was deliberate.
-jef
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 13, 2009 21:09 UTC (Tue) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] My argument is that Canonical as a business is not sustainable and that Canonical is doing a disservice to its community of contributors by not being more transparent about where sustainable opportunities are and where the expenses are.Naw. I have Ubuntu on a system currently and don't need a financial report to justify using it. If I decided it was the best distro to use for a 200 person call center, the lack of disclosure wouldn't deter me. I've heard this logic before, and instead of using reliable privately held hosting services, we got Time-Warner trash instead (it was bad). Sorry, for me it would make quite a difference on wether it is "the best distro for a 200 person call center". I would not want to find out day after tomorrow that I'm stuck with a dying distribution, and that I have to find a viable replacement ASAP. Sure, with Linux in general it is not too hard, but it is a very least a unneeded nuisance. I'd be surprised if Shuttleworth doesn't have $150 million sitting around that he's fully willing to invest into Linux distribution development over the next decade (or $15 million a year average). If this isn't the case, the community can continue on regardless, perhaps without as much power, but it will move on. To continue on in the same way will cost around that much money, regardless. Sure, there is the "community", but even the most community-driven distributions have their financial backers paying for the bills. And yes, you have invested something in the distribution of your choice. You learned how to use it, how to manage it, where to find help. You told your friends about how great it is. Perhaps you fixed some bugs or packaged a bit of software, or helped others out. If the distribution goes belly-up, you do lose.
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 14, 2009 8:16 UTC (Wed) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link] I'm curious. What would you go with?Naw. I have Ubuntu on a system currently and don't need a financial report to justify using it. If I decided it was the best distro to use for a 200 person call center, the lack of disclosure wouldn't deter me.Sorry, for me it would make quite a difference on wether it is "the best distro for a 200 person call center". I would not want to find out day after tomorrow that I'm stuck with a dying distribution, and that I have to find a viable replacement ASAP. Sure, with Linux in general it is not too hard, but it is a very least a unneeded nuisance.
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 14, 2009 12:52 UTC (Wed) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] For a 200-people call center? First of all, an "enterprise" edition (long life saves the hassle of updating). Second, backed by something I can trust on being around in a few years. That means, thirdly, that it has traction in the marketplace and a sustainable business model behind it. Depending on other details, I'd look into a distribution with paid support (if my business is a call center, it probably doesn't include futzing around with the computers). Or I could go for a "no cost" version of the above (perhaps paying support for some of the critical systems). In my case (mostly computer labs), I'm running Fedora on desktops and CentOS on servers. My personal machine is Fedora. In the above scenario I'd probably use Red Hat Enterprise for critical machines, CentOS for everything else (the users will be running in some sort of canned interface, I presume).
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 13, 2009 18:27 UTC (Tue) by TxtEdMacs (guest, #5983) [Link]
RE: " ... Every single Ubuntu community member should think of themselves as shareholders in the Ubuntu brand. ... "
An extremely odd assertion from a known non-member of the community. I use Ubuntu, at the moment exclusively so I ask, who are you to tell me how to act?
Moreover, this statement is no more than a completely unsupported assertion that I can see could be ultimately destructive: " ... you should demand some transparency". Really? Neither you nor I own stock nor is our investment at risk, that's my assertion. Moreover, I intend to supply no evidence simply because you have been sloppy and have not supported your assertions about Ubuntu's sustainability nor its need to be transparent.
However, I will give an example where you have been careless while appearing to be analytical. You take the stance as an expert on all things Ubuntu, hence, you should have been aware that Shuttleworth set up a foundation for the company. Thus, the interest income could be easily a part of the financial support he was thinking when added to the 30 M income mentioned. Also depending upon the laws under which the foundation was established, e.g. in the U.S., a portion of the capital would have to be consumed every year. If he were thinking longer term he might see the combination sufficient to have Ubuntu become sustaining by the end of that period.
I assert by revealing too much information, the competition might be better prepared to effect counter measures that will destroy Ubuntu before it obtains its goals. So being privately funded the lack of transparency is both legal and desirable (at least from some reasonable perspectives preferable) - that's my assertion.
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 13, 2009 19:18 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
yeah... that foundation.... the hedge against the collapse of Canonical. I am aware of it. My understanding is that its incorporated on the Isle of Man, as is Canonical. I have no idea what the reporting requirements are for non-profits incorporated on the Isle of Man are. But for the US and other places an annual report is required by law to keep your non-profit status. And healthy non-profits use that reporting requirement as a communications tool. Has anyone heard anything from that foundation since the press release?
The Gnome Foundation has one. They even release it online:
The online bit isn't strictly necessary of course...but its certainly a nice touch for a Foundation like Gnome that is overseeing a distributed international community development effort. Oh wait that sounds a lot like the demographics of Ubuntu too.
Here's the really funny thing. Shuttleworth runs another foundation. The cleverly named... Shuttleworth Foundation.
Even better the release of the Shuttleworth Foundation annual report was picked up on an independent Ubuntu oriented news site.
Has there ever been communication from the Ubuntu foundation since that initial press release? Ever? And since the Ubuntu foundation doesn't materially own any of the infrastructure by which Ubuntu is built or released, nor does it even have a legal claim to the Ubuntu trademarks, its not clear what role it really can play in a doomsday scenario other than providing unemployment benefits. Unless Canonical goes the extra mile and signs over ownership of the equipment/code and ownership of the Ubuntu trademarks to the foundation, the foundation is a non-entity without an active role to play. But it still may require an annual report to be filed for tax purposes. That $10 might as well just be sitting in a bank account collecting revenue interest for Canonical itself.
-jef
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 12, 2009 22:20 UTC (Mon) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link]
Let's see... Ubuntu inherits from Debian. Debian is well known for their social contract. I'm guessing that Ubuntu's main goal is not to subvert that contract but to make an easier to use Debian that has a more rapid and predictable release cycle.
Fedora is similar to Debian in a few ways... and I'm guessing its stance on freedom is one of those that you think is holding it back? You didn't really say what about Fedora would need to be changed but I'm going to assume that it is their desire to keep patent encumbered software out. Is that it? If not, please specify.
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 12, 2009 22:40 UTC (Mon) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
As fedora user and contributor... I'm perfectly fine with that assessment.
The lack of patent encumbered technologies and the lack of closed source drivers are a problem for consumer adoption of Fedora itself. OEM's could provide a Fedora remix which solve that problem but that's neither here no there.
Xandros is arguably the most successful linux distribution in the consumer computer market to date because it was/is the linux pre-installed on the Asus EEE models. Why doesn't the laypress spend time attempting to talk about Xandros in proportion to its success as a retail linux offering over the last year? Isn't the rise of Xandros both the success and tragedy story that the laypress should be telling us about?
-jef
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 12, 2009 23:49 UTC (Mon) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]
I could see Linux on the desktop succeeding as a concept without succeeding as a business. If Windows 7 were to do as badly in the market as Vista did, and Apple's market share increased substantially, and Canonical produced a version that played well to end users, but then Canonical went out of business, a consortium of OEMs would probably take over maintaining it as an expense necessary to support their main business. If the market for OEM desktops were collapsing due to lack of a viable operating system, Dell could probably save themselves most obviously by pushing Linux, and they could put the kind of losses Canonical presumably has as overhead.
Of course, I don't think things are too likely to go this way. For one thing, it would require Microsoft to be so deadlocked as to be unable to release an okay system with their survival on the line.
Another, more likely, case is that IBM could decide to sell their customers business-wide deployments that are entirely Linux, based on doing an incremental amount of work beyond Ubuntu. This could easily mean that desktop Linux for unsophisticated home users is incidentally well-supported, simply because desktop Linux for technically unsophisticated salespeople is well-supported and commercially important.
There's also the possibility of vendors like Dell or IBM getting to the point of relying on having Ubuntu to distribute just enough that letting Canonical cease operation for lack of money would be untenable, and they'd just send money to Canonical out of self interest. (E.g., make an industry consortium parent that funds Canonical's operation out of membership dues.)
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 12, 2009 22:14 UTC (Mon) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
I have to apologize. I've broken my own rule accidentally.
I should have said "Canonical is a small company" instead of saying "Ubuntu is a small company."
Ubuntu is a BIG community being managed, shaped and constrained by Canonical, a SMALL company. Canonical is leveraging a large pool of unpaid labor in the Ubuntu community in an effort to create a sustainable business.
-jef
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 13, 2009 2:20 UTC (Tue) by qg6te2 (guest, #52587) [Link] Canonical is leveraging a large pool of unpaid labor in the Ubuntu community in an effort to create a sustainable business.Just like Red Hat, de facto managing Fedora, largely for the purposes of making a beta for RHEL (in spite of all the smoke and mirrors in an attempt to make Fedora appear as an "indenpendent" distro). (Disclaimer: I use Fedora and contribute to it. My frustration is with the freewheeling attitude which comes to non-QA'd updates that break systems. The likelihood of this happening on RHEL is much lower, and I sincerely wish Red Hat would apply the RHEL QA process to Fedora).
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 13, 2009 6:34 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
Well, with the majority of package maintainers being non-Red Hat volunteers, that wouldn't be Red Hat's decision. Within the Fedora space, it would primarily be the job of Fedora's QA team and FESCo but I think before asking for RHEL's QA process, you would do well to understand what it is. For one, I don't think it would fit at all
Good luck to Canonical Posted Jan 12, 2009 22:50 UTC (Mon) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link]
To some extent, I can understand the intrigue of picking through Canonical's finances. Clearly, the information would be important if you were about to invest in that company. However, as nobody is able to do that directly, the point is moot. In the mean time, it is clear that Shuttleworth is willing and able to take a long bet on something he feels will in any case be important. I would agree with his call (and one suspects jspaleta fears the bet might be a good one, too). Anyway, it's (nearly) all free software, so (almost) none of the effort will be lost.
Moreover, if Canonical has already reached the stage where revenue is almost half of costs, I would suspect that the curves for the next few years look quite rosy. Certainly, Shuttleworth can sustain a loss of a few million a year for a very long time :-) And do a lot of good in the process. Good luck to him!
PS. I don't use Ubuntu, but I do like to be able to recommend a distribution to newcomers, and their forums are very active.
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 13, 2009 3:57 UTC (Tue) by keybuk (subscriber, #18473) [Link]
This comparison would only work if RedHat and Canonical operated as largely similar companies. You're not taking into account one of the major differences between the two operations.
RedHat is primarily a typical company, it has offices and employees work from them. While it has a higher telecommuting ratio than other companies, I imagine (only from vague outside knowledge) that the majority of its staff are office-based.
Canonical on the other hand was deliberately set up to be a distributed company. The absolute vast majority of its staff work from their own homes.
I can't imagine that the lack of need for office rental, electricity, lighting, etc. doesn't make a huge dent in the operating cost of both companies.
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 14, 2009 10:59 UTC (Wed) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Have you read the article? Mark says, Canonical is self-sustaining. I.e. the $30M revenue is enough to keep it going without further investment from himself. If you can verify this claim or not is not important. With 200 employees, it's $150k per employee. And since those mostly telecommute, and there's no big hierarchy of bosses and supervisors with obscene bonus schemes, and maybe they also live in cheaper places than Silicon Valley, it's more than plausible. Canonical is not a normal company. It doesn't have to be.
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 14, 2009 17:04 UTC (Wed) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Yep you are absolutely right. We should never ever feel the need to verify the claims any corporate officer makes to the press. Never in the history of modern corporate culture have corporate representatives said misleading things in press interviews..even accidentally.
Yes, lets just sit right back and hear a tale from the good ol' skipper of Canonical, about the clear skies and smooth sailing while he's standing at the helm of his ship. There's no need for us to look out the windows with him. Do you think the Skipper of the Minnow saw the storm coming that ended up shipwrecking him,his crew, and his passengers? I bet Gilligan saw it...but who listens to Gilligan, that goof.
So that $150k per employee. I challenge you to find any publicly traded software company in this list http://biz.yahoo.com/p/821conameu.html with a zero or better operating margin and comparable in size to Canonical's 200+ employees with operating expenses as low at the $150k per employee.
If Canonical's approach to how to run a distributed business is that big a cost saver that in itself maybe big freakin news and I think mainstream business would like to learn more about. That maybe far more revolutionary and have a deeper impact for Canonical's brand awareness than Canonical spending time talking about how their estimates of the Ubuntu userbase over the last three years indicate no growth in the Ubuntu uptake.
-jef
Check your figures Posted Jan 16, 2009 0:06 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I don't see how your US-centric list relates even remotely to a company incorporated in the Isle of Man and with a distributed mostly-European telecommuting base of developers. For starters there is the savings already stated: offices, electricity, heating. There is also the issue of taxes, which in a fiscal paradise should be pretty low; no costs associated to running a public company, and (very important) the almost absolute lack of legal expenses as compared to the States.Also, keep in mind that salaries over here are much lower than in the US. Even if we take the UK as a reference, Linux devs have an average salary of £40k; while Raleigh, NC software engineers have an average salary of $80k, or about 50% higher at current exchange rates. And that is the UK; in Spain you would get two guys for that money. Tech businesses with about $150k per employee are not that hard to find here. Then there is the telecommuting bit, and the fact that for many people a job at Canonical is a dream job -- and they would probably accept less money than e.g. at a bank. All in all, half the operating costs per employee than Red Hat doesn't look so difficult, and not half as noteworthy as you think.
Check your figures Posted Jan 16, 2009 0:51 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
I think you are being a bit simplistic. Both Canonical and Red Hat have physical offices located internationally. Both have employees which work remotely.
I very much doubt that the cost of living in Rayleigh sets the payscale for the Red Hat employees in Brisbane or in India. Just as I don't think the Isle of Man payscale whatever that is, sets the cost of living for people employed at Canonical's Lexington Massachusetts, Montreal or London offices.
Hey here's a fun fact! The Canonical office in London is in the Millbank Tower, an office building the Labour Party use to have offices in, but then later moved because the rent was too high. The United Nations used to have offices in there to, but then decided the rent was too high. I wonder if the rent have come down since then. Hey, but I'm sure the view from the 27th floor office Canonical is renting is totally worth the expense no matter what the price. Like totally worth it.
-jef
Check your figures Posted Jan 16, 2009 1:41 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Of course the rent's come down you twit, the UK's in the middle of an
epochal property price crash. Commercial property is down 50% or more from its peak.
Sheesh.
Check your figures Posted Jan 16, 2009 1:51 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Want to take bets whether its cheaper to rent space in London's Milltown Tower, versus anywhere in Raleigh on a per square footage basis?
http://www.choregus.co.uk/servicedoffice-blog/office-spac...
http://www.finfacts.ie/cbre.htm
All of this points to the fact to my original point. We can't really know if Canonical is sustainable just by knowing its revenue. Certainly Shuttleworth wants people reading that NYtimes article to believe its sustainable...but unless he's willing to also go on record with Canonical's expenses...the revenue number doesn't tell the whole story.
Want to take any bets on whether Canonical moves that London office, before or after they cut back on staff?
-jef
Check your figures Posted Jan 16, 2009 7:59 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] You will appreciate that having an office for Shuttleworth and attendants is not the same as having a building to house most of your employees.Actually I don't think you will appreciate it at all. Your mind is too focused on attacking Ubuntu and everything around it: just as you think that Canonical needs to break down expenses to you, when you don't believe the figures already quoted ($30M and sustainable). If Shuttleworth was to say that "revenues are $30M while expenses are $28M" you might as well dispute those figures, so why bother giving arguments?
Check your figures Posted Jan 16, 2009 22:23 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Do I want to take bets on whether it's cheaper to rent office space in
London or... somewhere on a different continent, without apparently taking purchasing-power parity into account or even the simple fact that relocating across continents isn't as simple as you seem to think it is, nor necessarily something that they want to do?
No. It would be a complete waste of time. Just like reading your
Check your figures Posted Jan 16, 2009 22:44 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
There's no conspiracy. Shuttleworth went from saying they were not close to break-even in May.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/22/internet...
then in October he's on record saying "several millions of dollars in revenue" but that Canonical still requires continued investment and would require a minimum of two more years and that he was prepared to invest into Canonical for 3 to 5 more years.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/27/shuttleworth_ubun...
And now in Jan, less than 3 months later..miraculously Canonical is sustainable? You don't find that change in story in this latest interview breathtakingly disjointed from previous statements he's made to the press?
-jef
Check your figures Posted Jan 17, 2009 1:43 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
I don't know: we don't have the data, and the financial world is churning
so very hard right now that I'd find it hard to disbelieve *anything* I heard in that domain.
Furthermore, I don't care. I have no idea why you care. What's the worst
No software is lost: no work is lost: Launchpad, if it weren't already
So why the hell are you making such a lot of noise about it?
Oh, and this nonsense is off topic.
Check your figures Posted Jan 17, 2009 11:52 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Also, businesses do not only have expenses and revenues, Jeff; they have investments, profits, leasings, devaluations, taxes to name a few concepts. No, life is more complicated. When you invest in a business you don't just expect it to break even; you invest in it until you can profit from it. The three Shuttleworth statements "not close to break-even", "requires more investment" and "is sustainable" are not mutually exclusive: just picture the pre-break-even Amazon which was investing heavily in their businesses to have a healthy business for many years, and it makes sense.Knowing exactly which kind of sustainability Shuttleworth is talking about requires an intimate knowledge about Canonical finances and future plans. Even if you had access to this material you would probably dispute it, so why bother?
Check your figures Posted Jan 16, 2009 7:53 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Of course I'm being simplistic, but the argument I'm responding to (dividing approximate revenues by estimated number of employees) is not very sophisticated either, so there is no need to do anything fancy.Yet I provided a specific example of a Spanish NASDAQ-listed tech company, Telvent, which also does business in the US and also has a $150k revenue per employee figure. I might dig up more if it were necessary. Should we call the NYT to tell them to run a special on low revenue-per-employee companies? Of course not! Suggesting that such a low figure is "big freakin news" or "revolutionary" is nothing short of malicious, and Shuttleworth doesn't need to break down revenues or expenses to you.
Check your figures Posted Jan 16, 2009 8:41 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
No, you are absolutely right.. Shuttleworth doesn't need to break down revenue. Canonical is a privately held company. He could very well choose never to make any financial information public. But he went out of his way to put the revenue on record in the NY Times interview. That is what i find the most interesting about that article. This is the first time Shuttleworth has volunteered revenue numbers. If he's going to go on record with revenue numbers and claim its sustainable then he needs to go on record with expenses as well. One without the other, makes any claim to sustainability unverifiable. And that is the point. If he wants to claim it, provide the information to verify the claim.
-jef
Check your figures Posted Jan 16, 2009 14:55 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] If he's going to go on record with revenue numbers and claim its sustainable then he needs to go on record with expenses as well. One without the other, makes any claim to sustainability unverifiable.Actually, any claims from Shuttleworth are essentially unverifiable. Having two figures (revenues and expenses) is no better than having the statement "it is sustainable" on the NYT. The "information to verify the claim" that you request is not an expenses figure, and you might as well ask for full access to Canonical's books. Good luck with that. If he wants to claim it, provide the information to verify the claim.Again, why? So that Ubuntu users (who have paid nothing in return) can have a theoretical and unverifiable assurance for the future? That does not seem relevant at all. I don't know or care the revenues or expenses of SPI and still use Debian; I am sure that Gentoo and Fedora users feel the same about the respective foundations. Those who care about these things may go to publicly traded companies and pay them for the assurance; even Canonical will probably be more open when they see some money.
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 15, 2009 18:26 UTC (Thu) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link]
Please go away.
Sometimes context is more important than content Posted Jan 13, 2009 22:43 UTC (Tue) by oblio (guest, #33465) [Link]
"This story is in the New York Times. That's a mainstream publication primarily targeted at one of the most elitist subcultures in the country."
Sorry to be nitpicking, and the article is about the *New York* Times, but I still have to say something.
This an international website. I find it too often in American international shows/broadcasts/journals/whatever that they use "country". Well, it's not "country", it's "US" or "USA". There are other countries in this world (yeah, actually more than 1).
Thank you.
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 19:40 UTC (Mon) by lambda (subscriber, #40735) [Link] I must say that this opening sentence is rather offensive:THEYRE either hapless pests or the very people capable of overthrowing Windows. Take your pick.I wonder what other group of people the author could call "hapless pests" without generating an outrage. This article is littered with dismissive and outright offensive stereotypes and language: "mercenaries", "trying to undermine Microsoft..." (as opposed to working to a constructive goal), "zealots", "devotees", and on and on.
Bug number 1 Posted Jan 12, 2009 19:58 UTC (Mon) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Mark is the one who made "MSFT has a majority market share" his bug number 1 instead of something like "1 billion people have computers and 5 billion don't."
Bug number 1 Posted Jan 12, 2009 21:48 UTC (Mon) by grantingram (guest, #18390) [Link] 1 billion people have computers and 5 billion don't. I'm not sure what your point is: having that as Bug Number 1 suggests that your operating system development will eliminate world poverty. Which seems a stretch for any piece of software but having your aim as displacing the market share leader seems a little more down to earth.
Bug number 1 Posted Jan 12, 2009 22:14 UTC (Mon) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link]
Unless you believe that all of the computerless 4 billion people are in poverty (maybe they are, I don't know) and that they and their descendents will remain in poverty for the life of your project/company... then I guess there isn't any reason to go after them.
The 1 billion people that already have a computer are probably going to buy another one in a decade or less... maybe even a couple.
Bug number 1 Posted Jan 13, 2009 1:12 UTC (Tue) by leoc (subscriber, #39773) [Link]
On the other hand, getting Ubuntu into the hands of those billions of currently computer-less people would be a great way to "fix" bug #1, so it is not like those two goals are mutually exclusive.
Bug number 1 Posted Jan 14, 2009 10:02 UTC (Wed) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Poverty is relative. I can afford a computer for $2000 every few years (that was the usual price, now it's in decline). People in third world countries can afford a computer for maybe $100 to $200, and it has to last for years under tougher conditions (heat and humidity). It's going to be a small computer, they don't have the space for a 24" screen and a tower PC (I've seen an 8-beds-in-a-room student hostel room in Asia, I know what kind of space these people have - to do their homework, they flip a small table over the bed). These people can afford to eat (but maybe not to get fat - this is actually an advantage ;-). The netbooks were a good start. But as usual, the manufacturers decided to go for larger and more expensive netbooks targeting rich countries (as third or fourth computer), instead of going for cheaper netbooks and targeting a new audience. I can understand why: Profit is low if you target poor people. IMHO the OLPC project was right about how the system should look like and be priced, but wrong about the target audience. They forgot the young adults, which in most developing countries is a big part of the population, and one that actually can afford those computers themselves (at least at the target price).
A Software Populist Who Doesn't Do Windows (New York Times) Posted Jan 12, 2009 23:23 UTC (Mon) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link]
And this is different from any other group that has attempted to change the status quo, how?
When top hats were first introduced, the press contained just as vicious remarks. When the first cars capable of any speed were made, there was at least as much abuse hurled, along with dire warnings that the air would be sucked from people's lungs from the Bernouli Effect. The warning that television would cause people's minds to rot was closer to the mark, but still is a bit of an exaggeration. Allowing women the vote in the US was supposed to cause the end of civilization (which, of course, we all know ended much earlier, when non-landowners were allowed the vote).
Reactions have varied, over time. The successful ones have tended to assume the inevitability of their viewpoint. The unsuccessful ones have tended to try and make their viewpoint inevitable by imposing it. I have had my wrist slapped before for comparing this to the logic of the Nash Equilibrium, but to me the two are closely related. Fighting over the least-obtainable is inherently sub-optimal.
In this case, fighting over the popular press is pointless and wasted effort. They'll slag off whoever they think makes a good target at the time. It's wasted effort to attack them, because that'll "prove" they were right in thinking Linux and its users are a good target. About 10 years back, before it was big in industry, a "bad boy" image might have worked (revel in the press, a technocratic Sid Vicious) but that won't work either today because of the dependencies on big industry.
The more-elitist-than-thou approach has been tried by OpenBSD and BeOS and isn't working so well. I don't expect that to change, but a variant might. If Linux is portrayed as a more refined, gentrified OS, Windows' mass appeal gets converted into common-as-muck-and-about-as-worthwhile. It will still turn off Joe and Jane Average, but if you're not expecting the Year Of The Linux Desktop for a while yet, you really don't care. They weren't going to use Linux, they weren't going to contribute code or money to the community, so who cares?
The ones with the money and the prestige - they're a different matter. They might well be swayed by being seen to use something superior, as befits their status. And, of course, managers down the chain will always seek to copy their masters, like good puppies. It won't affect the rank-and-file, but the rank-and-file aren't going to pay large sums of money for features and capabilities. Those features will likely be what is needed to bring Linux to the desktop, executives being what they are, but they needn't know they're undermining their own eliteness. All they need to know is that Linux can provide where Microsoft cannot.
Linux is "small potatoes" compared to Windows, in terms of machines out there, but if skillfully played, that can be a strength. CEOs do not drive cheap mass-produced cars. CFOs do not go on fishing trips in a rubber dingy. VPs do not live in trailer parks. These are not necessarily elitist people, so being elitist won't help, but they are going to be drawn to those things that distinguish them, mark them as somehow different from the run-of-the-mill. Shuttleworth's voyage into space is no different. It's a mistake to call it eccentric, it is entirely normal behaviour for rich kids to want to stand out. Linux' very scarcity in the home market can do just that, and the Linux community is much more likely to respond to greased palms than Microsoft ever was.
After that, everything else will take care of itself.
Just untrue Posted Jan 12, 2009 23:20 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> The often quirky software remains in the realm of geeks, not grandmothers.
> While relatively easy to use for the technologically savvy, Ubuntu and all other versions of Linux can challenge the average user.
I find the above just plain untrue. Regular users can use many Linux distros just fine. Windows can be just as challenging when things go bad. I didn't dream helping many friends and relatives with their broken Windows machines.
So, sweeping statements like the above are over broad generalisations.
> And updates to Linux can send ripples of problems through the system, causing something as basic as a computers display or sound system to malfunction.
Oh, please! That's way better than still eating user files 8 years after a file system feature has been released:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point#Windows_...
Yes, there are many bugs in your average Linux distribution. So what? At least they are in a publicly available systems and you can tell if they are being addressed and how.
I have lost my Fedora workstation at work recently and am forced to use Windows 2008 via Citrix. Any company that ships a mail client (after many years of development) that cannot even give people an option to properly bottom post is a joke. Some of you may remember that I recently posted here that Evolution shipped with F-10 was in a pretty bad shape. You know what - it's _way_ better than any Outlook flavour I encountered. My sincerest apologies to Evo programmers.
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