Distributions
Kubuntu gets a new sponsor
Users of Kubuntu, the Ubuntu-based KDE distribution, underwent an anxious few months in early 2012 when Canonical announced its decision to pull paid employees off the project and reclassify it as a community-managed variant. Any concern over potential problems for the project subsided in late April, when not one but two developers announced that they had found full-time employment to continue working on the distribution. Exactly who they will be working for remains a bit more mysterious, since the company involved gives out little information about its make-up or its plans.
Canonical and Kubuntu
Kubuntu is one of the oldest variants of Ubuntu; it debuted with the second-ever Ubuntu release, Hoary Hedgehog, in 2005. It differed from the purely community-built derivatives in two respects, however: first, Canonical offered commercial support services for it (thus making it an "official" Canonical product), and second, a Canonical staffer was paid to work on it (as one might expect for a commercial product). That employee was Jonathan Riddell, who described his duties as:
Kubuntu was not Riddell's only responsibility while at Canonical, though,
and in February 2012 the company decided to stop offering Kubuntu support
services, and move Riddell to other projects. The Kubuntu community heard
the news through a message to the kubuntu-devel list by
Riddell. According to that message, the now-released 12.04 would be the
last Kubuntu version to receive support from Canonical. Riddell said that
he would
still be able to participate in Kubuntu-related projects on work time,
such as the Qt framework, but said that the community would need to pick
up slack in several areas, including the "long, slow, thankless
task
" of ISO testing. He also encouraged community members to apply
for support to attend the Ubuntu Developer Summits and continue to
participate.
Despite the cutback, the announcement did not signal the end of all investment in Kubuntu by Canonical. It moved the distribution to the ranks of "recognized Ubuntu flavors," a list of derivatives that also includes Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Mythbuntu, and several localized-language flavors. These projects all use Ubuntu's official infrastructure, including the package repositories, build system, ISO distribution, security updates, and various community tools. Furthermore, in spite of the source of Riddell's paychecks, Kubuntu had always been managed as a community project, with an annually-elected council leading the decision-making process.
Still, the announcement struck many in the Kubuntu community hard, to the point where some worried that it meant the end of the project. Harald Sitter (among others) posted a message in support of Kubuntu, noting that the other recognized flavors were doing just fine, and had done so for years without any paid developers.
The Return of the developer(s)
Had the story ended there, the distribution perhaps would have continued on its own as a purely community-developed offering. But on April 2, Riddell joined the Ubuntu Technical Board for one of its scheduled meetings, and inquired whether the board would object to another company financially supporting Kubuntu. The board ruled that it had no objection, and on April 10, Riddell announced that he had accepted a job offer to work full time on Kubuntu. The next day, Kubuntu contributor (and Canonical employee) Aurélien Gâteau announced that he, too, had been hired away for Kubuntu work.
The company that hired both Riddell and Gâteau was Blue Systems, and the news was well-received among Kubuntu fans, not just for the continuity of Riddell's continued participation, but for doubling the number of full-time developers.
But one piece of the puzzle was frustratingly absent: exactly who Blue Systems was, and what business it was in. The Blue Systems web site is spartan, containing only a list of other projects supported financially by the company, all of which are either KDE- or Qt-related. The H Online was one of the first to observe the mysterious lack of information when it reported Blue Systems' support of Linux Mint back in January 2012. The H article pointed to a Linux Mint blog post that said the company was based in Germany, but that was about it.
Kubuntu forum users dug around to
try and find more information, tracking the domain name registration to a
privately-owned German IT services company, but achieving little else. For
his part, Riddell said via email that Blue Systems was "best thought
of as a trust fund rather than a commercial company
" that simply
has an interest in KDE's continued success. He also told Muktware that Blue Systems' involvement would cause
"no changes
" in the way the Kubuntu project functions — in
particular, it will remain part of Ubuntu, rather than venturing off on
its own.
Blue Systems
David Wonderly from the Kubuntu Community Council also noticed the concern of Kubuntu users about the lack of information surrounding Blue Systems, and told the kubuntu-users mailing list that he would be meeting with Blue Systems near the end of April. On May 1, he posted a brief note to his blog providing some more information about the company. Somewhat disappointingly from a news standpoint, there is nothing exotic about Blue Systems (e.g., a front for organized crime, Dan Brown-style secret society, etc.). Instead, Blue Systems is simply the company name chosen by Netrunner founder Clemens Toennies.
Netrunner is based on Kubuntu, albeit with the added emphasis of
out-of-the-box GNOME and WINE functionality, so the Netrunner team has a
deep
stake in the continued health of Kubuntu as a whole. Toennies also
reiterated to Wonderly that he had no intention of changing the way the
Kubuntu project functions. Regarding the perhaps-unintentional air of
mystery about the company, Riddell said that he had met with Blue Systems
at CeBIT, and that although the founder was "a pretty reserved
chap
" he also met the "Kubuntu criteria
" of being friendly and
wanting to improve the world.
Understanding who Blue Systems is answers some other lingering questions about the present state and future of Kubuntu. For example, there was speculation in April that Canonical's trademark policy would result in difficulty for the new source of funding. The issue is that Canonical holds the trademark on the name "Kubuntu" (as it also does for Edubuntu and Xubuntu, but not for all of the official Ubuntu flavors). Muktware speculated in the previously linked article that the distribution might have to change its name now that a different company was financing development. But that reading of the policy does not gel with Blue Systems' involvement. Specifically it states that commercial use of the name requires getting a trademark license from Canonical. As the comments by Riddell and Toennies indicate, Blue Systems is only funding developer time, not basing a product or service around using the Kubuntu name.
But it's still an open question whether any other third-party will offer its own commercial support for Kubuntu, since Canonical's departure leaves a gap. After all, there are businesses who purchased support contracts from Canonical while Kubuntu was a product; presumably those contracts have a fixed end date. Even though non-commercial Kubuntu installations will continue to receive package updates (via the official Ubuntu repositories), a real support contract entails more: deployment assistance, incident response, legal aid, and so on. Whether Canonical decided that the support business was losing money or simply decided to focus on other areas is unknown. The Kubuntu project may not need such commercial support contracts to fund developer time, but there seems to be at least some demand for it. Blue Systems appears not to be chasing it — so perhaps someone else will seize the opportunity.
Brief items
Distribution quotes of the week
OpenBSD 5.1 released
OpenBSD 5.1 has been released. There are plenty of improvements and new features in this release. The announcement (click below) has some details. The song for this release is Bug Busters!Tails 0.11 : The Amnesic Incognito Live System
The Tails Project has announced the release of Tails 0.11, The Amnesic Incognito Live System. Tails is a live system (DVD or USB) aimed at preserving privacy and anonymity. "'The new 0.11 release is an important milestone in the Tails history, and a big step towards Tails 1.0, that is scheduled for release later this year,' said one Tails developer. 'No one should have to become computer experts to protect their privacy and online activities. Our recent focus on ‘persistent’ files and settings finally enables human rights workers and freedom activists, among others, to focus on important work instead of technical details.'"
Tizen 1.0 Larkspur SDK and Source Code Release
Tizen was formed from the MeeGo and LiMo projects to create mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. The project has announced the 1.0 release of its Software Development Kit (SDK) and the platform source code. The release notes for the SDK and the source code contain the details.Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" released
Ubuntu has announced the release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Long-Term Support), which is code named "Precise Pangolin". For desktop users, 12.04 introduces the "heads-up display" (HUD) in Unity, a switch to Rhythmbox as the default music player, a 3.2.14 kernel, LibreOffice 3.5.2, and lots more. The server release has the latest OpenStack release, updates to Java, an officially supported Xen, and more. The release notes page has links to information for other editions as well. "To be a bit more precise about what we're releasing today... There are 54 product images and 2 cloud images being shipped with this 12.04 LTS release, with translations available in 41 languages. The Ubuntu project's 12.04 archive currently has 39,226 binary packages in it, built from 19,179 source packages, so lots of good starting points for your imagination!"
Yocto Project 1.2 released
Version 1.2 of the Yocto Project embedded distribution builder is available. New features include a new version of the HOB tool (used to customize and build embedded Linux images), a 3.2.11 kernel, better license compliance tools, and this interesting addition: "Implementation of the MSG (Magic Smoke Generator) which enables the on board generation of 'magic smoke' to enhance the longevity of embedded device components."
Distribution News
Fedora
Fedora 18 release name
The votes are in. The Fedora 18 release name is Spherical Cow.Fedora Elections: General information, and questionnaire opening.
Fedora elections are coming up soon. People are currently invited to submit questions for the candidates. Questions must be in by May 8. Nominations begin May 9. There are three seats open on the advisory board, five seats on the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo), and all seven seats open on the Fedora Ambassadors Steering Committee (FAmSCo). FAmSCo has announced new election guidelines which have prompted the current vacancies on all seats.
Ubuntu family
Quantal open for development
Ubuntu's Quantal Quetzal (12.10) is open for development. "The development version starts with updated versions of GCC and OpenJDK, some soname changes (boost, hdf5), and some changes with setting the build flags for package builds. We are finally targeting Python3 as the only Python version on the ISO/installation images."
Newsletters and articles of interest
Distribution newsletters
- Debian Project News (April 30)
- DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 454 (April 30)
- Fedora Weekly News Issue 294 (end of April)
- Maemo Weekly News (April 30)
- Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 263 (April 29)
Two Years Fly By: Ubuntu Precise Pangolin Pads Into Production (Linux.com)
Plenty of reviews have followed last week's release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. In this one at Linux.com by Carla Schroder cuts through the debates to talk about what you actually get in this release. "So I am going to ignore Unity, and I am not tell you how to download, install, or upgrade Precise Pangolin. I'm not going to take a passionate stand on the default color scheme or string together random screenshots and call it a day. I'm not going to breathlessly adore/loathe Mark Shuttleworth. Instead, just to break tradition and be weird for the fun of it, let's talk about the myriad other aspects of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin, the many features that distinguish Ubuntu from the rest of the great thundering Linux distro herd."
Poettering: The Most Awesome, Least-Advertised Fedora 17 Feature
Lennart Poettering writes about the Fedora 17 multiseat feature. "With this code in Fedora 17 we cover the big use cases of multi-seat already: internet cafes, class rooms and similar installations can provide PC workplaces cheaply and easily without any manual configuration. Later on we want to build on this and make this useful for different uses too: for example, the ability to get a login screen as easily as plugging in a USB connector makes this not useful only for saving money in setups for many people, but also in embedded environments (consider monitoring/debugging screens made available via this hotplug logic) or servers (get trivially quick local access to your otherwise head-less server)."
The Dawn of Haiku OS (Spectrum)
IEEE Spectrum has a lengthy overview of the Haiku OS project which is working to create an open-source reimplementation of BeOS. "One of the first things people notice about it is that it doesn’t feel anything like Windows or OS X or Linux. It’s unique. Linux, for instance, is based around a core—called a kernel—that was originally designed for use in servers and only later modified for desktop systems. As a consequence, the kernel sometimes gives short shrift to the user interface, which Linux users experience as annoying delays when their computers are doing especially taxing things, like burning a DVD or compiling code. Haiku’s kernel has always been for a desktop system, and so it always gives priority to whatever is happening by way of its graphical user interface."
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