Thanks for making my argument [LWN.net]

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 15:51 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Untrue, affiliations, including corporate alliances, can easily bias us and subconsciously at that. To scoff at that is to deny provable human nature.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 16:04 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Oh, and if some free software programmer's view of something *were* biased because, e.g. that something was the product of a competitor of their employer or their employer's corporate allies, that does NOT make them a bad person. Indeed, I would *expect* a person to be biased toward acting in the interests of their employer - that would make them a *good employee*.

Such biases do exist, at various levels of consciousness. That is not to condemn them. However, we should be aware of them, and take care to note affiliations.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 16:16 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

While at some level what you say is true I'm not sure it applies strongly in this case. Linux developers come from a wide range of companies and while they may be directed to work on a particular part of the system which is strategically important to their employer, they generally show more loyalty to Linux itself than to whichever company is currently paying them.

As far as I can tell, dissing Canonical provides no tactical or strategic benefit to any particular vendor who is involved in this discussion

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 16:28 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Perhaps in this case, not strongly, sure.

However, there's been a number of times over the last few years where from several rouge capped free software people have snipped at Canonical, with a common theme that Canonical is somehow free-riding. The sub-text seems to be that Canonical gets more of the user-base with Ubuntu and recognition than their share of the work deserves. Guess who employees a lot of the people doing the work?

To think there is absolutely no element of corporate competition to this story seems, I'm sorry, a little naïve. Both in terms of Canonical choosing not to hitch their wagon to Wayland, and in the (predominantly) RedHat and Intel employees' reactions to that. There are pure, technical elements too, of course...

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 19:34 UTC (Wed) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link]

> There are pure, technical elements too, of course...
Like what? So far, every technical reason named by Canonical either has been disproven or is phrased too vaguely to ever be.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 15:56 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

[counter-sarcasm]
I am sure David calmly and dispassionately reviewed once more the payroll list of Canonical, and checked the LinkedIn skillsets of all employees. Then ignoring all subconscious biases he might once have possessed, decided that they didn't have anyone competent enough to write a display server.
[/counter-sarcasm]

Your naïveness would be somewhat refreshing, I have to admit, were it not so biased at heart. Reinforced prejudices are very dangerous.

Thanks for making my argument

Posted Mar 6, 2013 16:11 UTC (Wed) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

You are just so adorable! 8-)

In any event pointing out the clear lack of familiarity with the technologies they are (not) using is not pre-judice, it's post-judice. I don't think it's unfair to also say that they have not demonstrated technical leadership very often in the underlying infrastructure technologies they depend on, bzr and upstart being two examples. They need not just the cojones but the talent to pull this all off.

I should also point out that I wish nothing but the best for Ubuntu, which is why I'm talking about this in the first place, if I didn't care I wouldn't comment.