Canonical Reportedly Slashing Jobs, Seeking Outside Investment

[Delgarde]

If Microsoft ends up buying Canonical the first thing they will do is shut down Ubuntu desktop and keep only cloud and server stuff. It's in Microsoft's best interest that the most popular Linux desktop dies.

Hardly. Microsoft knows full well that desktop is largely irrelevant these days... there's no value in them throwing money around to shut down competing desktop projects, when attention has long-since moved to mobile devices. And the most popular Linux desktop is still a drop in the bucket next to Windows desktop numbers...

[Geopirate]

I'm surprised no one brought up Amazon.

They have already shown interest in selling ads and they are making a killing off of EC2 and whatever else they are running off of Ubuntu server. They can bring them in house and control that directly. It would also allow them to move their Fire stuff off of Android if they desired or making a competing product with Chromebooks.

[ldo17]

The only thing I don't like about systemd is how bloated it is.

Really?? Just had a look at top on my system, and systemd (pid 1) is showing “0.0%” for both CPU and memory usage. I.e. it’s getting lost in the rounding error.

[ldo17]

If Microsoft ends up buying Canonical the first thing they will do is shut down Ubuntu desktop and keep only cloud and server stuff. It's in Microsoft's best interest that the most popular Linux desktop dies.

Then what would be the point of adding that Ubuntu compatibility layer to Windows?

If anything happens to Ubuntu, it would be Microsoft that ends up getting shafted.

[mike44]

better than filing bankrupcy. Please keep Unity7 at least updated if not default anymore. That's what I use everyday.

Sorry about the phone, personally I would have preferred a Ubuntu phone over android with same specs/price.

[nanonyme]

I'm surprised no one brought up Amazon.

They have already shown interest in selling ads and they are making a killing off of EC2 and whatever else they are running off of Ubuntu server. They can bring them in house and control that directly. It would also allow them to move their Fire stuff off of Android if they desired or making a competing product with Chromebooks.

That's... scary. Oh well, I guess then we'd know just how far the CLA will bend and twist

[newwen]

I'm surprised no one brought up Amazon.

They have already shown interest in selling ads and they are making a killing off of EC2 and whatever else they are running off of Ubuntu server. They can bring them in house and control that directly. It would also allow them to move their Fire stuff off of Android if they desired or making a competing product with Chromebooks.

Indeed. If Canonical focus is Cloud and IoT, Amazon as the main investor comes as the first logical choice. IBM could also be potentially interested for the internet of things business. However, I really hope that neither Oracle nor Microsoft put their hands on Canonical.

[killyou]

IMHO Ubuntu will become Microsoft Linux. They will run Azure Cloud Switch and other network appliances on top of it while the bash shell is already integrated with Windows 10. Time will tell, but that's my bet.

[wagaf]

Yes they did well in their will to compete Gnome/KDE. Not a valid point as it is your personal opinion only.

Unity 7 basically didn't changed/improved in the last decade. All the good parts and improvements came from GTK and GNOME Apps improvements.

Unity 8 is now officially a vaporware - that was honestly predictable, I stopped believing in Unity 8 when Ubuntu 16.04 was released and it was clear at that point that Unity 8 wasn't ready at all after years of development.

[ldo17]

IMHO Ubuntu will become Microsoft Linux.

Or perhaps more like Microsoft Linux is becoming Ubuntu...