Mark Shuttleworth Talks About What Ubuntu Contributes

[pingufunkybeat]

You'd think Canonical must have unlimited resources going by the way some people talk.

I think that they have far more resources, both in terms of cash and in terms of users and paid developers, than either Debian or Gentoo.

Or slackware.

[next9]

It is worth to say, Ubuntu is NOT a community distro. Community does not manage the way Ubuntu goes. It is commercial distro developed by commercial company which build commercial services upon it. It is good to realize this fact first.

So. If they use code, developed somewhere else, and sell support and services upon it, i think it is quite logical request Canonical to contribute back. But Canonical does not contribute or contribute marginally. All their effort is targeted at self propagation and in addition they claim, that this propagation of their product helps linux in general. No matter how crazy it sounds, it is disgusting. The biggest Canonical engineering inovations where move of the buttons to the left and creation of violet wallpaper.

[Panix]

Doesn't Ubuntu also do things different than the rest of the Linux community? Ubuntu was a fork of Debian but I don't think you can describe it that way anymore. Ubuntu is said not to be very thorough in bug followups and fixes. Then there's the sudo/su thing. It was just my impression that Ubuntu has a lot of fans based on a lot of polishing but I was wondering about the claims they do a lot of 'changes.' The most mentioned complaint is the lack of contribution to the kernel or upstream but I thought there's other concerns as well.

I use Ubuntu, though and between Debian Testing, the two are my main distros. I use Ubuntu based on the popularity and thus, for practical reasons. I'm neutral on the assessment of it, though. I bring up the concerns for some feedback so maybe receive more understanding what these complaints are about and whether they're valid or not.

[BlackStar]

They are - in the minds of trolls who hear "Ubuntu" and goes into trollrage overload. They seem to think that Ubuntu aims only to leech on the work of others and force them into oblivion. Or something.

Ubuntu follows Debian unstable very closely, ships a few (freely available) custom themes, adds a few (freely available) patches and does some custom UI work (freely available, too).

They don't employ many kernel hackers, like Red Hat, and some think this is a sin against god. Whatever.

They design and implement UI concepts that do not exist in Gnome/KDE. They test the results and give them back with the hope they will be accepted upstream. Some think this is evil, others understand this is how progress is achieved.

Seriously, would you like your distro to avoid modifying upstream software? Think before you answer. Would you like to use Epiphany instead of Firefox/Chrome?

[monraaf]

They are - in the minds of trolls who hear "Ubuntu" and goes into trollrage overload. They seem to think that Ubuntu aims only to leech on the work of others and force them into oblivion. Or something.

Ubuntu follows Debian unstable very closely, ships a few (freely available) custom themes, adds a few (freely available) patches and does some custom UI work (freely available, too).

I think it's good practice in the open source community that if you have patches for open source software you are using and did not develop yourself, you do your best to try to get them integrated upstream. Not doing so is IMHO not only not being a good community member but it also often tends to break things.

Also a lot of their development seems to be focused on Ubuntu One, which relies on closed source Canonical server side software, so it's not very useful for others. If they spend time and development resources on the Ubuntu Music Store and Ubuntu One integration in Nautilus (both of which depend on proprietary server side software) but do not on Rhythmbox and Nautilus itself, how is that not leeching?

[BlackStar]

I think it's good practice in the open source community that if you have patches for open source software you are using and did not develop yourself, you do your best to try to get them integrated upstream. Not doing so is IMHO not only not being a good community member but it also often tends to break things.

Which is why they follow Debian closely and contribute their patches back upstream.

Also a lot of their development seems to be focused on Ubuntu One, which relies on closed source Canonical server side software, so it's not very useful for others. If they spend time and development resources on the Ubuntu Music Store and Ubuntu One integration in Nautilus (both of which depend on proprietary server side software) but do not on Rhythmbox and Nautilus itself, how is that not leeching?

But much more of their development seems to be focused on the new notification system, indicator applets, themes, fonts, Launchpad, Bazaar, the Unity desktop and the Ayatana project, all of which are freely available and coordinated with upstream.

As far as I can tell, Canonical has a single proprietary project (the backend to Ubuntu One). Big deal.

Besides, how is that different from other Linux vendors with proprietary/closed-source projects, such as Novell?

[monraaf]

Which is why they follow Debian closely and contribute their patches back upstream.

When I was talking about upstream I meant about where the code originates, not some other distro who's also mostly in the 'packaging business'. Do an apt-get source on any package and you are almost guaranteed to find that they have added their own patches. Sometimes those are cherry picked bug fixes, sometimes they just develop code of their own on top of the software and add it as patches without communicating with upstream. Then when the software with their patches breaks and a user files a bug report, then they just forward the bug upstream, and expect them to fix it! This is really terrible.

But much more of their development seems to be focused on the new notification system, indicator applets, themes, fonts, Launchpad, Bazaar, the Unity desktop and the Ayatana project, all of which are freely available and coordinated with upstream.

That's easy because they are upstream there, and since Canonical requires copyright assignment it's basically just a Canonical show without much outside contributors. Not at all comparable with projects such GNOME and KDE who are not only open source, but also follow the open source development model, but more in the style of Sun now Oracle.

[mugginz]

I think that they have far more resources, both in terms of cash and in terms of users and paid developers, than either Debian or Gentoo.

Or slackware.

And you assume that what resources they have isn't already deployed.

If you can point to an employee of Canonical that's sitting on their hands and not pulling their weight, then perhaps you should.

If you think they're all pulling their weight and it's simply a case that you don't think Canonical have enough employees perhaps you could donate the wages of another programmer to the cause yourself.

Tell us in what ways your contribution to the Linux desktop is out-doing the benefit that Canonical provides.

[mugginz]

It is worth to say, Ubuntu is NOT a community distro. Community does not manage the way Ubuntu goes. It is commercial distro developed by commercial company which build commercial services upon it. It is good to realize this fact first.

I'm not so sure they're completely unique in this regard.

So. If they use code, developed somewhere else, and sell support and services upon it, i think it is quite logical request Canonical to contribute back. But Canonical does not contribute or contribute marginally. All their effort is targeted at self propagation and in addition they claim, that this propagation of their product helps linux in general. No matter how crazy it sounds, it is disgusting. The biggest Canonical engineering inovations where move of the buttons to the left and creation of violet wallpaper.

If they write new parts which provide what they consider better functionality for the desktop but upstream doesn't want those changes and ideas, and instead want to plot a different course then surely that leaves Canonical in one of about two places.

1) Take on-board upstreams perspective on what the Linux desktop should look like, behave and function like and simply throw away any of their research and vision that points the way forward to a better desktop experience and be happy with that,

or

2) They can accept that upstream is entitled to their view of what the desktop should be and at the same time trust in their own view of a better, more functional and smoother working desktop and deploy that while at the same time still leaving the code there for upstream, or for that matter, anyone else to adopt if they so wish.

If upstream doesn't like Canonical's vision for the Gnome desktop should Canonical stop "wasting" resources on that and only allow themselves to move in Gnomes particular sanctioned blueprint.

Don't things move forward when different ideas can be deployed to see which ones people prefer?

[Wingfeather]

Mugginz - nicely put!