LWN.net Logo

Shuttleworth: Unity shell will be default desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 (ars technica)

Shuttleworth: Unity shell will be default desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 (ars technica)

Posted Oct 26, 2010 0:11 UTC (Tue) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266)
In reply to: Shuttleworth: Unity shell will be default desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 (ars technica) by jspaleta
Parent article: Shuttleworth: Unity shell will be default desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 (ars technica)

> Are you suggesting that Canonical is managed by a collection of incompetents?

"Just that they are like everyone else."

I believe here "incompetence" is most likely just a hyperbole to the fact that they are fallible like every other human in this planet. Thus, you should not attribute it to malice, just to fallibility.


(Log in to post comments)

Shuttleworth: Unity shell will be default desktop in Ubuntu 11.04 (ars technica)

Posted Oct 26, 2010 0:40 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

Oh absolutely...fallible. People make mistakes..the malicious and incompetent, the philanthropist and the miser, the pure of heart and the cynical. We all make mistakes and I have no intention of stating that Canonical is acting either maliciously or incompetently when I talk about the mistakes they are making as I see them.

So with that little semantic sidebar in mind. I'll reiterate my point.

Canonical has been making a huge mistake with its half-hearted appeasement messaging aimed at GNOME developers and GNOME supporters. They are misrepresenting their own business interests and sowing additional discord over a much longer time period.

It's a hell of a lot easier on everyone when a business entity stops pretending they are interested in open collaboration and just do their own differentiated in-house development without trying to manage perception in the community about how externals feel about that work.

The mistake Canonical continually makes is prioritizing perception over reality. Yes some people are going to be miffed at seeing yet another corporate entity doing differentiated development. That will cause unavoidable injured feelings. But its insult on top of injury when employees of that company bend over backwards to avoid saying that is what they are doing and try to put some backspin on the situation.

-jef

Copyright © 2013, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds