Something to think about before your next post.

[mugginz]

I'll just leave this here.


Tribalism is the enemy within by Mark Shuttleworth.
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/439

[pingufunkybeat]

Don't mistake a healtly flamewar for tribalism

Often a good shitfests will bring strong arguments from both sides (and many terrible arguments from both sides), and if you sift through them afterwards, you will generally understand the issue better.

The problem is that people skip the last step and do not try to learn from a flamewar. That's tribalism.

[monraaf]

I'll just leave this here.


Tribalism is the enemy within by Mark Shuttleworth.
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/439

Well his company Canonical is under fire again for lack of upstream contributions. In this case regarding GNOME, where Canonical's upstream contributions account for just 1%.

http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2010/07/28/gnome-census/

So of course he's going to say "can't we all be nice and get along". I'm sure everybody would be a nicer to them if Canonical just did their part and started contributing upstream a lot more. In the meantime they are going to be called out for it, rightfully so.

[d2kx]

Well his company Canonical is under fire again for lack of upstream contributions. In this case regarding GNOME, where Canonical's upstream contributions account for just 1%.

http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2010/07/28/gnome-census/

So of course he's going to say "can't we all be nice and get along". I'm sure everybody would be a nicer to them if Canonical just did their part and started contributing upstream a lot more. In the meantime they are going to be called out for it, rightfully so.

There is discussion about whether the 1% mean anything. A lot of developers said they have been ranked high in the contribution list even though they have not committed anything to Gnome for 5 years, and then all of the stuff Canonical do has not been accpeted by upstream Gnome (which does not mean Canonical don't do anything). That lead to a discussion whether Gnome should be seen as a platform only, so that Canonical's stuff which is not upstream Gnome is just as good as Gnome itself, because after all, everyone could use it.

Or screw that and use KDE.

[mugginz]

I'm sure everybody would be a nicer to them if Canonical just did their part and started contributing upstream a lot more.

So what should Canonical do when they submit code to the Gnome project and they refuse to adopt it? I'm not aware of any way that they can force the Gnome leaders to take their code on board.

Canonical came along and made the type of distro that a lot of users were asking for that no one else seemed to be providing. That made their distro popular with those said people. They also made those changes available to anybody who wanted to use them. When others don't want to use them then they shouldn't winge.

On some fronts the Gnome guys want to disregard changes to the desktop that others would love to have. So should Canonical stop developing any additions that some believe improves the desktop experience that aren't blessed by the Gnome project leaders? I certainly hope not. Canonical can't force code into the core of Gnome but they can adopt that code themselves while also making it available to everyone else.

If Ubuntu wan't so popular I don't think you'd be hearing those wingers piping up. Users are liking what Canonical are doing and it looks like others are looking on with envy and instead of integrating the new stuff they want to try to force others to stop distributing it and using it or at least bad mouthing it. That's not very open and free in my eyes.

I don't see any indications of Ubuntu's popularity diminishing to any great degree until those other distros start producing stuff that uses want to use. While they sit in their ivory towers wanting to dictate Canonical are getting on with steering things in a direction that it would seem more users prefer.

[pingufunkybeat]

Freeloading has never worked for a Linux distro for a long time.

All the players who have remained relevant have been contributing back to the community.

[krazy]

Well his company Canonical is under fire again for lack of upstream contributions. In this case regarding GNOME, where Canonical's upstream contributions account for just 1%.

http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2010/07/28/gnome-census/

So of course he's going to say "can't we all be nice and get along". I'm sure everybody would be a nicer to them if Canonical just did their part and started contributing upstream a lot more. In the meantime they are going to be called out for it, rightfully so.

I think this is a storm in a very small teacup - one guy who used to work at Red Hat having a rant. The plain fact is that there is no clause in the GPL specifying the amount of code you have to contribute back upstream.

Besides, Ubuntu has done a great job of raising the profile and popularity of linux. This has undoubtedly led to more people interested in developing for the entire Free Software ecosystem (not just gnome).

Seeing that over 90% of contributions came from volunteers (including volunteer/professionals), I think a more interesting stat would be:

"How many of the volunteer contributers run Ubuntu?"

I am certain that number would be greater than 16%.

[yotambien]

Freeloading has never worked for a Linux distro for a long time.

All the players who have remained relevant have been contributing back to the community.

Why do you consider Canonical a bunch of freeloaders? Let's see, on the one hand, it is undeniable that Ubuntu is more popular among desktop users than any other distribution, and actually possibly more than all the other distributions combined together. Now, either Canonical adds something of value to Debian or it doesn't. Leaving cynical, ill-informed 'theories' (a more honest word would be prejudices) about marketing and the general stupidity of the populace aside, you can be sure users have their preferences for solid reasons. So however small an amount of work Canonical is putting on their distribution, it's having a positive impact in its success. Given this, unless you are ready to claim that Ubuntu developers violate the license of the code they package--mostly free licenses, one would imagine--I don't see how they can be called freeloaders.

And all this focusing only on the possible contributions that could be fed back upstream and apparently are not. On the bigger picture, the success of Ubuntu--which I don't use--is positive for all of us, for reasons that should be obvious to understand.

If we were to discuss how much Ubuntu sucks, you'd find me at the forefront ranting as usual. But when it comes to questions such as to their legitimate use of the sources they work with or the goodness of their success I have no doubts to side with Canonical.

[pingufunkybeat]

It was a general comment, not an indictment of Ubuntu, though I can't see how anyone can deny that they contribute far less in terms of upstream contributions than any major distribution.

Packaging Linux an making it pretty is completely fine and legitimate, I was just pointing out that it has never worked for anybody for a long time.

The reason for this, IMHO, is that people will happily switch from such distros as soon as the next shinier thing comes along. People stay with SuSE or RedHat or Debian for more reason, and the contributions to the kernel, KDE, GNOME, GCC, drivers and other technologies is one of the important reasons.

[monraaf]

I think this is a storm in a very small teacup - one guy who used to work at Red Hat having a rant.

It was a storm alright, all over the blogosphere and Linux related news sites. I'm surprised phoronix didn't report on it. Throw in a juicy headline and scoop up the ad dollars

The plain fact is that there is no clause in the GPL specifying the amount of code you have to contribute back upstream.

I don't think anyone is questioning the legality of what Canonical is doing. The thing is behavior that can be perfectly within the bounds of the law can be socially frowned upon. While you won't get sued for engaging in such behavior you may get called out for it or risk being ostracized. This is exactly what's happening to Canonical. And this is not something that's going to go away, unless they address the problem.

Besides, Ubuntu has done a great job of raising the profile and popularity of linux. This has undoubtedly led to more people interested in developing for the entire Free Software ecosystem (not just gnome).

Seeing that over 90% of contributions came from volunteers (including volunteer/professionals), I think a more interesting stat would be:

"How many of the volunteer contributers run Ubuntu?"

I am certain that number would be greater than 16%.

Perhaps, but that's hard to quantify. In any case if Canonical thinks it's already contributing enough to the overall Linxu ecosystem then it should make a case for it, with some quantifiable numbers. And not resort to playing the victim that gets beat up by their 'bully' competitors.