Shuttleworth: Reflections on Ubuntu, Canonical and the march to free software adoption

There have been a number of "user focused" distros over the past decade. Many of them are no longer around because they were commercial in nature and they couldn't turn a profit.

Corel became Xandros. Lindows became Linspire... that became Xandros. There are a few others. Take Mandrake... errr... Mandriva for another example.

How is Ubuntu / Canonical doing so much better than all of those? I think it has to do with timing and money.

I certainly wish Canonical well as they do offer up a bit of competition in the Linux marketplace... and if they are able to pull off profitability it would be another win for FOSS businesses... although there are those who wouldn't call them a purely FOSS business.

I think there are far too many plumbers and not enough painters in the Open Source community.

I like Ubuntu 10.04, it has a lot of defaults that average computer users prefer, even my girlfriend is now using it because she was sick of Windows.

Also, I think the competition has helped push other distros like Fedora to improve the desktop experience even though they make their money off server installs. Ubuntu made upstart, now Fedora is trying to one up Upstart. I do not think that would have happened if upstart was not first created. Boot time is something a server company really does not care about, until now.(Well, I doubt Red Hat really cares still as a whole, but someone in the company noticed and is trying to improve the situation)

Maybe all the people complaining should create a new license for there software GPL4 which requires all users of the code to work on the upstream project or else they cannot distribute it.

Well, many of these projects (e.g. GNOME, KDE) also have (and had before) "end user focus" as their goals and several companies, including Canonical's competitors, were contributing to that.

Canonical attempted to do the same from a side way instead of by contributing to the same project (in technical stuff, this is what we're calling "forking"). They're essentially trying to reach the end-user via their own means and on their own and differentiate themselves by their competitors. They may try to contribute back things to the rest of the community but it's usually an afterthought, rather than the initial goal.

Now, this may be sensible as a business model and it may make sense for Canonical to do that to position itself in the market. It's also perfectly fine in the sense that, as a community, we've always struggled to have the mechanisms in place (primarly licensing) for people to be able to do such things.

It's understandable, though, how members of the community may be annoyed by this and I don't think this will make them feel any better.

(to be clear, I am not one of them. I don't care where my work ends up, as long as users are ultimately benefited)

I don't see anybody buying a car because it just runs, no matter if it's not painted, if it's open air or even if it's only 1 seat inside.
Does 1 seat is just enough? Maybe it doesn't also needs a body. Providing that technologically it's a gem, any geek will always be able to attach a stool to it's chassis, with a few ropes, and go for a glorious drive in it.
My understanding about Shuttleworth's text, is that he's committed to provide the resources to put that technologically advanced car at a condition that will allow everybody to feel that's easy, comfortable and attractive to use it.
Why should he be contributing to technologically further develop the unfinished car, knowing in advance that nobody would want to use it?
Why does so many developers refuse to admit that Linux never took off of the ground because it has always been an unfinished product?
Does someone means that that is the way Linux has to remain? Then, let's admit it and explain why, to the world.
I believe that as of a starting point, Shuttleworth had to choose between two options, and many people today, all over the world, is very happy and grateful about his decision. Except, of course, a bunch of M$ fanboys.
Besides that, there are hundreds of distros based on Ubunto. Nobody has ever heard Shuttleworth complaining at those distros, for being not contributing back to Ubuntu.
Also, the major whiners out there, should be aware that Shuttleworth has been donating to various FLOSS projects and entities, since many years.

I don't really understand the antipathy towards Ubuntu. Are we worse off because of Ubuntu? If so, how?

Ubuntu wants to create the best possible Linux-distribution possible. Now, there's nothing wrong with that goal. So what IS the problem? The fact that they do not contribute as much back as some other distro does? But does that actively harm anyone? I mean, Ubuntu is not sabotaging SUSE or Fedora or Gentoo.

Or is that argument tied to the argument that "But Ubuntu is just too popular!". If that is the case.... why is Ubuntu so popular? Could it be because they focused their efforts on areas that other distros do not?

So what exactly is the worry here? That Ubuntu will cause people to stop improving Linux? How so? Even if Ubuntu was the biggest player around, there would still be people improving Linux. And if Ubuntu manages to increase the number of Linux-users, maybe the number of active contributors will also go up? If 10% of Linux-users are actively helping out Linux (I'm pulling these numbers from my butt), and Ubuntu causes the number of Linux-users to double, while the percentage of active participants drops to 5%, we still have same number of participants. If the percentange is 6% and not 5, then we would have MORE participants that we had in the beginning.

OR is this some kind of philosophical idea that "you are not worth anything if you do not write code"? Linux has been about code and patches fir the first 15 years of it's existence. And while it did bring it success, it also relegated it to niches. Maybe it's about time we brought in alternative viewpoints and approaches as well? Remember, Ubuntu is not stopping anyone from writing code and improving Linux.

While nothing is perfect I do feel Ubuntu is a blessing to me. I use it at home and work every day. I think they should provide a 'Donate' button on their homepage.

They deserve way more appreciation than criticize. It's free, if you don't like it, use something else.

"There were designers working in free software before we made this push. I hope they feel that Canonical’s emphasis on the design-lead approach has made their lives easier, and the community at large more appreciative of their efforts and receptive to their ideas."

It's a nice hope, yet in my experience the answer is no. I've been involved in the FLOSS community (GNOME, Fedora, and numerous smaller projects) in a design capacity since 2004, and I honestly cannot recall a single time I've had to make a sales pitch for design to a FLOSS developer or contributor. In fact, for me one of the big perks working as a designer in FLOSS has been avoiding that particular dog & pony show. Instead, I get to cut to the chase of actual design work with extremely talented and smart technical folks who I never have to defend my existence to and who are very clearly quite grateful for any design help they can get! If you're a designer in FLOSS you basically get your pick of projects and brilliant people to work with and that's a terribly exciting opportunity - one that exists because design is such a coveted skill in our community.

"But still, if you *really* care about design in free software, the Canonical design team is the place to be."

The very reason Mark's defensive blog post was written at all is the reason I believe Canonical's design team is *not* the place to be for a designer interested in making an impactful, positive difference in free & open source software. Would you, as a designer, want to limit the impact of your work on the FLOSS community by having it colored by the negative perceptions, well-deserved and not-deserved alike, that an organization like Canonical has in the greater community?

I enjoy designing. I hate spinning - that kind of stuff makes me miserable. I'd rather work with an organization that has a strong and widely-respected commitment to upstreaming, transparency, inclusiveness, and generally doing things the right way.

BTW if you are interested in any of the designers-for-FLOSS outreach projects I mentioned, I am happy to talk your ear off about them.

Ubuntu was a wonderful surprise when I tried it for the first time. I could not imagine that it was possible to exist anywhere in the world, an Operating System that was as good as the dominant existing one. In fact, in many key aspects, Ubuntu was still better for me, and I'm not even thinking about it's freedom, as cost and as usage.

Of course, at that time, it come to my mind that Ubuntu would pose a very serious threat to that O/S.

Today, after reading a few comments placed at Mark Shuttleworth's post, I'm almost in shock realising that at the end, it's inside the Linux / Open Source campus where people are coming to publicly state that Ubuntu does pose a real threat, but... to the FLOSS. And they react to this fact in a more virulent way than what I could expect from a well known micro software company. Strange position's....

The reason, they say, it's because Mark Shuthleworth does not contribute back with code, and is looking to make money with Ubuntu, at the cost of the work of the Open Source community of developers. I thought that the Open Source community did not include only developers, but... OK.

Going back to that micro software company. To face the threat and the big concern they felt about the growing Linux and Canonical's reach, at the beginning of this year they started hiring high profile employees directly from the Open Source communities (with no less than 10 years of experience inside them). Certainly, this happened because they thought that it was more easy to compete and win against Linux and the Open Source from the inside of it, than in the way it should be correct to be done: writing better code.

This issue was largely commented in the net, at the time, with some people predicting that someday we would face those boys around us. That makes each day more difficult to know who is who and what each one is up to.

For those who may be in doubt, just think about this: from whose pockets would Canonical find money enough to generate two or three of the most rich persons in the world, in the years to come?

To end with, I'd like to congratulate Mark for bringing choice and freedom to the PC market. And also, encourage him to keep his altruistic attitude among people, although it's assured that unexpected fights may come in the way, some of them, and may be the most difficult ones, from where no one would expect them to come.

To know more about the shameless job description of the boys hired by the micro software company, please follow this link, or google it and press "cached":

http://www.microsoft-careers.com/job/San-Salvador-Initiat...(717317-External)-Job-SV/864893/