Mark Shuttleworth Talks About What Ubuntu Contributes

[next9]

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

Yes they are. Other commercial distributors contribute much more, even if you count it relatively. And you should realize they contribute to upstream projects controlled by someone else.

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?

Most of the Ubuntu contributions are to the Canonicals own projects, usually used only by Canonical, because nobody else wants this code. For example command-not-found was written so ugly, that other distributions rather wrote it from scratch instead of adopting original ubuntu version.

When you look at Ubuntu packages, they are quite usual patched. Do you think upstream ever seen these patches? No. Because Ubuntu does not even recognize it is good idea to send those patches. They usually say, "look, this code is GPL, you can take it, so what is the problem?". Problem is, any upstream developer does not search patches across the repositories of zillions of existing distributions. If they does not cooperate with upstream actively, it is the same as not developing any code at all.

It is easy to find upstream developers today, who accidentally find out, that their software was patched in Ubuntu, but no one let them know about it, no one sent this patch to them.... This is the exactly the point, where Ubuntu sucks the most.

[mugginz]

Just to be clear, you said:

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.

To which I said

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

And you now say

Yes they are. Other commercial distributors contribute much more, even if you count it relatively. And you should realize they contribute to upstream projects controlled by someone else.

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Firstly, you are wrong to say that Canonical are unique with regard to your original statement.

But now to try to sure up your position you now want to move it into an argument about who contributes more upstream.

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If you are going to even attempt to rate companies in this way I would expect you to do your research and find out how much money each company has, how long they've been in business, what their current work loads are, etc. before attempting to determine what one should consider a fair effort.

May I ask, what are your contributions to the Linux desktop?

If you are seriously going to publicly state that in your view they don't do enough, and at the same time you haven't contributed as much as they have, then that must make you even worse then they are. What are you going to do about your level of upstreamed code?

Most of the Ubuntu contributions are to the Canonicals own projects, usually used only by Canonical, because nobody else wants this code. For example command-not-found was written so ugly, that other distributions rather wrote it from scratch instead of adopting original ubuntu version.

If other projects don't want their code Canonical can not force them to take it!

The code is there for whoever wants it, whether that be you, me, Gnome or whoever.

When you look at Ubuntu packages, they are quite usual patched. Do you think upstream ever seen these patches? No. Because Ubuntu does not even recognize it is good idea to send those patches.

And here you demonstrate clear ignorance.

They usually say, "look, this code is GPL, you can take it, so what is the problem?". Problem is, any upstream developer does not search patches across the repositories of zillions of existing distributions. If they does not cooperate with upstream actively, it is the same as not developing any code at all.

If Canonical and upstream have different views as to what should be the official code set then tell us what you think Canonical should do in this situation. Let me guess. You think that they shouldn't innovate or have any say at all. They should simply ask upstream "What do you want written?" and Canonical should simply do this, no more and no less.

It is easy to find upstream developers today, who accidentally find out, that their software was patched in Ubuntu, but no one let them know about it, no one sent this patch to them.... This is the exactly the point, where Ubuntu sucks the most.

And you are a troll and that's where you suck the most.

To say you're trying to over simplify the argument would be an understatement. What are you 5 years old? The situation is a bit more complex and nuanced than what you try to make it out to be and you demonstrate to the greater public who read these forums how simple minded you are.

[BlackStar]

When you look at Ubuntu packages, they are quite usual patched. Do you think upstream ever seen these patches? No.

Oh look! More FUD!

I dare you to search Launchpad for patches that have not been upstreamed. Go on, I'm waiting.

[pingufunkybeat]

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.

First you tell me how anything in this post has anything to do with anything I've posted.

You said that Canonical does not have infinite resources. I simply pointed out that there are distributions with far less. Not having infinite resources is not much of an argument, really.

Personally, I don't mind Ubuntu, nor do I care much for it. It's a distro not meant for me, and it doesn't hurt me in any way. As long as it does not interfere with other Linux-using folk, I don't particularly care. I don't even care if they leech, as leeching has never worked for a distro in the past.

[next9]

Just to be clear, you said... blah blah blah...

You completely misinterpreted this discussion. This thread is full of statements how poor Canonical without resources can not contribute more compared to RedHat or Novell. This is fact,... long before I came here.

So let me clear how RedHat, Novell and Canonicals contributions work:

RedHat use Linux kernel, gcc, GNOME, etc... to sell his commercial product (support, services etc...)

Novell use Linux kernel, gcc, GNOME, etc... to sell his commercial product (support, services etc...)

Canonical use Linux kernel, gcc, GNOME, etc... to sell his commercial product (support, services etc...)

It seems they should contribute the same way. But, the most important catch is - THE DONT. There are many of important projects, all these distributors critically need for their commercial products. So both RedHat and Novell recognize their commitment to support them. Canonical does not. If RedHat would not contribute expecting Novell to do RedHat?s work, and Novell would not contribute expecting RedHat to do Novell?s work (which is exactly what Canonical does all the time), then there would probably be no kernel, no gcc, no GNOME and no Ubuntu at all.

As You can see neither Novell or RedHat does not support only their distro-specific or even proprietary software, they invest great part of their resources to contribute into these distro agnostic part of Linux ecosystem. They do not expect others to create this code for them.

So lets have a look at Canonical. What does this company do? They take others work, build Ubuntu upon it, without participate in this process everybody benefit from! Instead, they put their resources into Ubuntu popularization, Ubuntu usability, Ubuntu look and feel etc...

So. If RedHat and Novell invest lets say 50% (exact percent number is not important for our discussion) of their resources into these important part of the Linux ecosystem everybody use, I think it it fair suppose Canonical to do the same. But reality is, Canonical does not. Their invest 1% to the common work, and 99% into Ubuntu, that definitely can not exist without that "common work". Oh, look at Mandriva how they contribute with less money than Canonical!

In addition, I read official statements of Mark Shuttleworth or Canonicals representatives claimed Ubuntu does not need to contribute to kernel, GCC, GNOME, because they take this code as is.... What ugly demagogy! If they sell commercial products upon them, they should contribute. That is how it works. Imagine that RedHat would say their are satisfied with Linux kernel and they stop to contribute into it!


That why Ubuntu is ugly parasite, nothing more!

If Canonical and upstream have different views as to what should be the official code set then tell us what you think Canonical should do in this situation. Let me guess. You think that they shouldn't innovate or have any say at all. They should simply ask upstream "What do you want written?" and Canonical should simply do this, no more and no less.

Nobody criticize Canonical their patch was not accepted. Everybody criticize Canonical, their patch was not sent! I know that from upstream developers, kid.

And. Launchpad? Let me laugh at you. Launchpad is Canonicals own playground. Yes. There are some universal project, but if you think, that posting patches on Launchpad solve anything in this situation you are Idiot. Most of the Ubuntu components have upstream somewhere else and don't use Canonicals launchpad for their development!

[mugginz]

First you tell me how anything in this post has anything to do with anything I've posted.

You said that Canonical does not have infinite resources. I simply pointed out that there are distributions with far less. Not having infinite resources is not much of an argument, really.

Personally, I don't mind Ubuntu, nor do I care much for it. It's a distro not meant for me, and it doesn't hurt me in any way. As long as it does not interfere with other Linux-using folk, I don't particularly care. I don't even care if they leech, as leeching has never worked for a distro in the past.

So when I said

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

and you responded with

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.

To me it sounded like you supported at least somewhat the position being put forward that Canonical don't do enough for the community.

Given what you now say, I see you don't feel that way even though it sounds inconsistent to me.

Where you say "I don't even care if they leech, as leeching has never worked for a distro in the past.", given that what I said isn't relevant to you, I'll assume that's not what you think Canonical are doing and you are simply commenting on the position of others.

"Not having infinite resources is not much of an argument, really."

No it's not and it's not what I'm saying.

They have some resources.
They have been deployed in certain areas.
Those resources will be somewhat busy.
People are calling for them to do more.
That requires more resources.

Simple.

If someone wants to take the simplistic view that "Canonical have some money therefore they can spend some over here where it's important to me" then that can only be a fair position to take if they do have infinite resources.

The fact that all of us here can be typing on a computer that costs money suggests that we all here have some money. Why haven't we all paid for someone to do some development? It's not as simple as "hey, they have money so they can spend it"

[mugginz]

So let me clear how RedHat, Novell and Canonicals contributions work:

RedHat use Linux kernel, gcc, GNOME, etc... to sell his commercial product (support, services etc...)

Novell use Linux kernel, gcc, GNOME, etc... to sell his commercial product (support, services etc...)

Canonical use Linux kernel, gcc, GNOME, etc... to sell his commercial product (support, services etc...)

It seems they should contribute the same way. But, the most important catch is - THE DONT. blaa, blaa, blaa...

They haven't all made the same commits, that would be wasteful.

So they each address areas they each deem important.

The founder of Canonical felt that while there was a lot of excellent software in the Linux ecosystem with much of it being server orientated the desktop side of things needed some help.

That's why it's not surprising that this is where they spend a deal of time.

You of course have previous form here trying to assert that because Canonical don't address the kernel development in that same way as others do you feel that they are leeches. All it took was some statements from Greg Kroah-Hartman to set you off.

For those who might like a long read,
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showt...buntu+upstream

[next9]

They haven't all made the same commits, that would be wasteful.

So they each address areas they each deem important.

The founder of Canonical felt that while there was a lot of excellent software in the Linux ecosystem with much of it being server orientated the desktop side of things needed some help.

Yes. That?s why they contribute to GNOME so marginally

The reality is, they take others work, without contributing into it, and build their own doodads upon it. If you are not able to understand "what is wrong about it", i think additional discussion is useless

[Wingfeather]

Yes. That?s why they contribute to GNOME so marginally

The reality is, they take others work, without contributing into it, and build their own doodads upon it. If you are not able to understand "what is wrong about it", i think additional discussion is useless

What on Earth? NOTHING is wrong about it, it's the very point of open-source. There is absolutely no implicit requirement that a user of free software needs to help maintain it, contribute to it, or do anything to it. If there were, you couldn't really call it free, could you?

Canonical makes money on what it adds to existing software, yes? It adds to software, and gets paid for what it adds. If it added nothing useful, it would get no money, because the existing software is just as good and free for the taking.

In short, being a commercial enterprise, Canonical does work and monetizes that work. Even if they contributed precisely nothing to their upstream projects (which isn't remotely the case), there is nothing wrong, morally, technically or existentially, with that.

The only case you could potentially make against a company like Canonical would be if they somehow managed to have an overall negative effect on upstream. Ask yourself this: would Gnome (et al) be better off if Canonical just vanished right now? No? Then shut up. You can't demand anything more of anyone.

[mirv]

Before I write anything else: I don't use Ubuntu, and for the most part I have only news stories, forum comments, talk videos and blog posts, and my own judgement to go by.

Ubuntu has helped reach a larger audience for linux in general, and that's likely a good thing. Ease of use, again probably something good to have for some people - a distro that focuses on ease of use is definitely required in many markets.

The blog post mentioned that Canonical (though Ubuntu) deliver the software to others help increase the number of those sharing. The people behind that software (let's take Gnome as an example) might even welcome it - but last time I tried Ubuntu there wasn't much to indicate that it relied upon the great work of people creating things such as Gnome, KDE, the kernel, gcc, etc. It's all about Ubuntu, which alone I don't have a problem with, but pretending anything else is wrong. Especially when the only "contribution" is to market Ubuntu (_not_ Gnome). That's how I see it anyway.

Another problem I personally have with Canonical is that I've seen some vocal comments about how various things should be changed within the Linux community as a whole (which is always for the benefit of Ubuntu). It makes Canonical seem a little pushy to me, and a little big for its boots. If they don't contribute much code or money back to those whose work they use, then they'll have to stick with what they're given.