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Asay: Leaving CanonicalAsay: Leaving CanonicalPosted Dec 8, 2010 19:50 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510)Parent article: Asay: Leaving Canonical Matt's hostile attitude toward the Free Software community, clearly spelled out in some of his editorials on CNET, probably doomed him at Ubuntu. I can't be the only one who was really disquieted by his presence there.
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Asay: Leaving Canonical Posted Dec 8, 2010 20:04 UTC (Wed) by SEJeff (subscriber, #51588) [Link]
Why do you say that Bruce? Canonical is all about using free software sure, but their idea of giving back or credit where it is due tends to be very controversial. In fact, their moves more recently hello U1, partners repository, allowing non-free software to be installed directly from the installer, etc is not pro-free software.
It could be said that some of their actions might even be hostile. Take for instance their relationship with the GNOME or Debian upstream. It isn't always pretty. I'm interested in understanding it, but do not see your point.
Asay: Leaving Canonical Posted Dec 8, 2010 20:25 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] I am reluctant to spend time today digging through his editorials, but the degree of hostility toward Free software evangelists was really plain. Perhaps someone else will point out an example.
Asay: Leaving Canonical Posted Dec 8, 2010 20:30 UTC (Wed) by SEJeff (subscriber, #51588) [Link]
Oh I wasn't disagreeing with you on Matt, I was saying why would he not fit in with Canonical due to that trait? They are not exactly FSF poster children.
Asay: Leaving Canonical Posted Dec 8, 2010 20:34 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] Yes, they weren't poster children, but they weren't hostile.
Asay: Leaving Canonical Posted Dec 8, 2010 20:42 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
> I am reluctant to spend time today digging through his editorials
I happen to have one at hand from earlier this week:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/03/mozilla_freedom/
In it, Matt claims that FSF left "the ASP loophole" open in GPLv3 in response to pressure from Google. A baseless attack on FSF.
I posted a reply when this was on Slashdot:
Asay: Leaving Canonical Posted Dec 9, 2010 0:13 UTC (Thu) by ldarby (subscriber, #41318) [Link]
I was reading that article earlier without checking who the author was, and was wondering why they had such a negative stance towards the FSF and free software in general, then I saw who the author was and thought "ohh.. that's why..."
Asay: Leaving Canonical Posted Dec 9, 2010 3:23 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link]
It's funny or sad how nobody seems to want to defend him.
Asay: Leaving Canonical Posted Dec 10, 2010 10:38 UTC (Fri) by kragil (guest, #34373) [Link]
IMO he was a poor choice to begin with, in hindsight he was terrible choice.
I don't blame Matt for that, I would ask the people who made that choice why they made it.
Asay: Leaving Canonical Posted Dec 10, 2010 18:23 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
How was the decision made?
1) He skied with Shuttleworth which means he had a reasonable amount of face-time with Shuttleworth for Shuttleworth to form an opinion of him as a person prior to there being an opening for COO.
2) He wrote glowingly about the potential of Ubuntu prior to coming onboard. Probably influenced to some degree by that aforementioned face-time with Shuttleworth.
3) He was working at an exec in a technology startup that was successfully leveraging a mix of open and closed source into a workable business model which was generating self-sustaining revenue on a timescale of under 10 years.
Having someone inside Canonical who actually has experience making that mixed development model work to generate customer value and self-sustaining revenue is something Canonical really really needs if they want to sharpen their business side operations into something coherent. If Matt was a poor fit, I have to wonder if they'll have any better luck recruiting execs with business experience from other _successful_ companies. It could very well be they'll have similar square peg in a round hole sort of problems with anyone who wants to come in who has the desire, the credentials and the experience necessary to make Canonical an effective and focused business entity. Canonical continues to bleed money.
-jef
Ubuntu:Chrome OS::Fedora:RHEL? Posted Dec 10, 2010 18:43 UTC (Fri) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Yes, but the ubiquitous open source sugar daddy, Google, may be willing to throw money at Chrome OS for a long time, and Canonical has a piece of that business: (Google Chrome OS and Canonical).
Ubuntu:Chrome OS::Fedora:RHEL? Posted Dec 10, 2010 19:26 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
You need to be very careful to make sure historic press releases such as this are still relevant. Canonical didn't go out of their way to inform people when their partner relationships implode. When Google moved over to using emerge for their build system the involvement of Canonical as an engineering partner forwith ChromeOS was greatly reduced to...nothing.
I want to be clear about this. According to the latest statements from Canonical execs from the last 6 months... at this point in time Canonical is no longer involved with ChromeOS in a revenue generating contractual relationship.
Shuttleworth flatly stated that Canonical is not involved in ChromeOS development in the Q/A of his debconf keynote from this year. Feel free to watch the whole video of that including the Q and A. It's a long video.
www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/mark-shuttleworth-talks-unity-at-debconf-10/
Additionally Matt Asay confirmed that Canonical no longer involved with ChromeOS in a contractual relationship with Google via his twitter feed in response to a direct question to me. Sadly twitter's internal archive doesn't go that far back so I can pull up a reference so you'll have to take my word on it. I think Shuttleworth's response in the Debconf Q and A stands on its on as a public archived statement on Canonical's invovlement with ChromeOS without needing the Matt Asay statement.
I have no reason to believe either of these people were making a misstatement with regard to the _current_ state of Canonical's involvement with ChromeOS. Feel free to find a newer statement from a Canonical exec or a Google exec which will contradict Shuttleworth's answer in that Q/A and will go on record saying that Canonical has a contractual relationship with Google to work on ChromeOS at this point in time. Please find that public statement that is dated later than Aug 2010.
As of now, based on the most current public statements I can find. ChromeOS is not a revenue generator for Canonical. ChromeOS is a direct and very significant competitor for OEM mindshare that will be competing with Canonical's own offerings in the upcoming year.
-jef
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