Ubuntu Set To Terminate Its Brainstorm Project

[madjr]

Inter-corporation conseus takes too much time. If you want to stand a chance against Microsoft you need to move fast. Waiting for everyone to agree with your moves will kill you before you will become a viable competitor.

Yes, msft (and most proprietary vendors) have had it quite easy because all this time we've usually just shot ourselves on the foot.

We spend more time fighting ourselves (and filling up forum after forum and mailing-lists with nonsense), instead of Getting things done and leading in contrast to always trying to catch up.

We have always done too little too late. That's our story, but there seems to be some light.

[moilami]

Ubuntu is the best Linux distro out there and by far. I found it funny the sado masochism syndrome of some linux geek users just to please their own ego.

To quote someone in Google+ "Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning I am too dumb to use Debian GNU/Linux"

[Kivada]

No, no, no people. This isn't about keeping Linux small or being 1337 or hating common folks. The Linux distro model works and it gives its users ample protection against distributors going rogue. Hypothetically, Fedora loses it? Go OpenSUSE and know you'll find the same programs and nearly the same environment there that you did on Fedora. The diversity is also a protection against large scale, automated malware infections. It fosters improvements and cross-polination.

One can say "To hell with ideology" but it is the FOSS ethos that kept Linux going against a slew of vicious attacks from the CSS world over the years. Ramming Ubuntu as the "One and Only" distro choice in place of Windows will land you in the same frying pan that you just escaped from by leaving Windows. Canonical going it alone is good for Canonical. Short term it might deliver some users some benefit, but long term you'll be just as locked in with Ubuntu as you were with Windows or Mac OS X.

As Canonical makes their system increasingly a thing of its own, you slowly lose the benefits of using a Linux distro, which is a diverse family of operating systems, where gained knowledge is largely transferable from one distro to another. That probably isn't a horror story to someone who doesn't give a fuck about what makes his/her computer run or to people still mired in Windows think. It's just ashame that you are unable to see the walls that Canonical is erecting in the name of "user friendliness".

It doesn't matter if Ubuntu is released under a collection of FOSS licenses, if Canonical is the only one providing it, you are locked in to their specific creation. It's the same as Android, Windows or Mac OS X. It lets you do computing and most of it works, but what your master says goes. But if sustained computing freedom under a commonly developed (by hobbyists and corporations alike) platform isn't hot anymore, I'd say more power to Canonical.

No, Canonical isn't evil, but they are a business manoeuvring their software offering in ways to exploit uncritical thinking and cement themselves as the only option. It is up to the user to keep a distributor honest.

Also, this myth that only Ubuntu can be used without a CLI and the rest of the non-buntu desktop distro's need to be bootstrapped by the users themselves and then you need a big book of black magic CLI spells to get it running poorly on your hardware is ridiculous. Anno 2013 all Linux desktop distro's are, bluntly put, point and drool. Which is something I enjoy immensely. Maybe Arch is the exception, but they do go out of their way to cater to the hardcore, 1337 Linux geek.

Put down the meth pipe man. The distro situation is what held Linux back for all those years, it's the problem of too much choice. 99% of the distros out there could close shop tomorrow and their tiny handful of users could move to the big distros, which would give Linux a much larger tangible surface area for companies to look at and see a reason to support it instead of looking at the convoluted mess that is a million and one distros all trying to do the same thing, but all doing it badly.

[Kivada]

that ubuntu is percieved as THE linux distro, and that's dangerous for all of us FOSS enthusiasts.
Just look at steam for linux. Using ubuntu specific APIs. That's how it begins.

And it's still all open source, theres not a damn thing preventing your distro from implementing it. But if it weren't for Ubuntu there wouldn't BE a Steam for Linux. They would have just gone straight to the SteamBox on a closed up version of BSD.

Face it, the only reason that there is any consumer and prosumer commercial software for Linux outside of the now dead effort by Id is entirely due to Ubuntu. The only other commercial software market for Linux is for enterprise class software that runs on big iron, not on desktops and laptops.

The same goes for hardware with Linux pre installed, there wouldn't be any, your only option to not have a sale count towards Windows would be DIY or buying one of the very few Dell boxes with FreeDOS.

All of these anti-ubuntu are short sighted nerd rage that would leave us in a worse situation over all. Without Ubuntu would Intel and AMD put as much effort into their hardware drivers? Without Ubuntu being popular for people to give it a try how many TV tuners would work on Linux these days?

[Kivada]

Hear, hear. But that is counter to finally having one OS, any OS other than MS in the mainstream, consequences be damned. No one thinks further than two, three years. Or past their own cushy setup they have right now.

A setup that would not exist without Ubuntu. No Ubuntu = no support = Linux sitting at 0.1% of the market share and more then likely having to reverse engineer all of it's drivers forever forward. I tried Linux several times in the late 90's-early 2K's and it sucked, Ubuntu 5.04 finally made Linux usable and popular. Popular enough to start getting actual people using Linux instead of only encountering LAMP server setups from their Windows or Mac box.

[Kivada]

To quote someone in Google+ "Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning I am too dumb to use Debian GNU/Linux"

"GNU/Linux" - A term signifying a self important nerd is still a virgin living in his mother's basement.

[moilami]

"GNU/Linux" - A term signifying a self important nerd is still a virgin living in his mother's basement.

A large part of the basic tools that fill out the operating system come from the GNU project; hence the names: GNU/Linux, GNU/kFreeBSD and GNU/Hurd. These tools are also free.

http://www.debian.org/intro/about.en.html

I am very sorry if your "Ubuntu" is only available on GNU/Linux system

[mrugiero]

This is not about your own personal tastes , you can make your own distro if you want. This is about how ubuntu stands right now, and right now is the best distro

The thing pointed out by Serafean is that it doesn't just affect at the distro level, but at the packages level. An extra platform to support means less time to actually maintain the software. It doesn't matter if you use Linux from scratch, Debian, Ubuntu or even some FreeBSD; if the specific software you want to use is supposed to support Mir, X, Wayland, FreeBSD, Linux, the eye of Sauron, then it means the LIMITED NUMBER OF DEVS will have less time for YOUR particular setup. And they usually give priority based on how many users the setup have (which I don't disagree, but I disagree in arbitrarily increasing the number of different setups just because), meaning that as you go far from Ubuntu or Red Hat, your platform gets less support. Mir, in case it succeeds, will affect almost every open source graphical app in that way.

And "the best distro" thing, it doesn't exist one "best distro". The distro depends on the user. It's MAYBE the best general use, general user distro, but there are areas where it's not. At the customizing level, for instance, is actually one of the worst ones. Of course, customizing is mostly for embeded and hobbyists that like to toy with the system. Regular users will probably tweak the looks, install the software they need, and that's it. And it's alright. That doesn't mean they're dumb, like some stupid zealots (intolerance is stupid IMO, is not about how much do you know about computers), that means the distro suits you, and that's it.

Ubuntu is the best Linux distro out there and by far. I found it funny the sado masochism syndrome of some linux geek users just to please their own ego.

Let's put it this way. Have you ever played with Legos? Do you feel like it's masochist to play with Legos? Well, for hobbyists and geeks, using harder distros like Arch or Gentoo is just like playing with Legos. And for some specific uses, software must be tweaked a lot, so it makes sense to tweak it since the beginning and avoid having to guess what Ubuntu devs did and why. For general, out of the box usage, you can use your regular distro, being Ubuntu, Red Hat and Fedora the most succesful ones. For embeded and servers it might make sense to go with something a little more customized, like the OS skeleton Arch and Gentoo provide out of the box.

Just look at steam for linux. Using ubuntu specific APIs. That's how it begins.

The fact is, Ubuntu is opensource. You can still build what you need without few or none reverse engineering. Also, AFAIK Wayland uses Linux specific APIs. They can be ported to BSD and others, yes, but then you come to the conclusion it's the same as it's in Ubuntu.
There is also the fact Ubuntu is the most used distro on the desktop, and Steam will ship to platforms that represent a market share, because supporting a platform costs money. Using platform specific APIs is usually a way to keep things optimized for that platform, thus, giving a better performance for that market share.

To quote someone in Google+ "Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning I am too dumb to use Debian GNU/Linux"

Moilami is an ancient African word meaning "I am to dumb to admit I need to use a harder OS to feel smarter than you and to respect other people's opinions".

Also, if you really want to show how smart you are, you could use something like Arch or Gentoo...

Put down the meth pipe man. The distro situation is what held Linux back for all those years, it's the problem of too much choice. 99% of the distros out there could close shop tomorrow and their tiny handful of users could move to the big distros, which would give Linux a much larger tangible surface area for companies to look at and see a reason to support it instead of looking at the convoluted mess that is a million and one distros all trying to do the same thing, but all doing it badly.

A sad truth.

[moilami]

Moilami is an ancient African word meaning "I am to dumb to admit I need to use a harder OS to feel smarter than you and to respect other people's opinions".

Also, if you really want to show how smart you are, you could use something like Arch or Gentoo...



A sad truth.

I used Gentoo when Arch was not even born. May I ask where you were in the beginning of 2000

Gentoo was great for learning but not so great when emerge world broke something you had no time to fix. So, back to Debian GNU/Linux.

When Ubuntu came I saw no need to use it. It took several versions of Ubuntu before I tried it first time. At times Ubuntu almost got behind Debian GNU/Linux. I wondered if Ubuntu would eventually reach Debian GNU/Linux. But no, doesn't seem to happen for it has fell far behind again. Software Shit (center) is a freaking fail, and if you want to do something else than browse web you will always find things broken in Ubuntu.

Today Ubuntu is like a test bed of how shit derivate you can make.

[moilami]

Software center works. I know you are in love with CLI but most people can't be bothered to fire up the terminal. Also you cand find broken things with other distros also. Also gentoo is shit for a sane user that just wants something that just works. Stop with the air of superiority. Nobody in their fucking right mind would recommend either gentoo or arch when selling linux to other people

Depends on to whom. If someone would want to learn something else of the system than howto click stuff, then I would definetly recommend Gentoo, maybe. It used to have very good documentation and a lot of stuff to study, configure, and adjust. But if one would not want to learn, then I would just install Debian GNU/Linux (with default desktop) and say have fun clicking stuff

And yeah, everything have stuff broken, even Debian. I have two accounts configured in Empathy in Wheezy, Jabber and gtalk, and when I try to disable gtalk from accounts the window just crashes

But at least it used to be very hard to find broken stuff in Debian.