
Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims' - copyninja
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/07/shuttleworth_ubuntu_leadership/
======
philipn
Complete linkbait title, a HN mod should change this. Typical of the Register.

It's worthwhile to read the actual post:

<http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1228>

On the subject, I started to hear a lot of criticism of Canonical's Ubuntu
efforts right around when Unity was first released. I just updated to 12.10 on
my laptop a couple of weeks ago, and as one of the 31337 d00ds Mark speaks of,
I was pretty confused -- everything was different! I didn't quite understand
the point of the whole thing.

But I run a tiling window manager on a years-old Thinkpad without even a
trackpad (trackpoint!). I'm a freak. And most of us here are.

Then the other day I picked up a new Macbook Air for some Mac-centric
development work. And Unity completely clicked for me. If you look at the
direction of OS X it's clearly converging with iOS. I right-swipe to get
notifications! There's all these awesome gestures! My IM client shows my
_phone's_ text messages, for god's sake!

This is the kind computing experience normal people are expecting over the
next several years, and in order for Ubuntu to fully realize its mission it
needs to adapt. And it looks like they're doing a really good job. I mean,
have you seen the Ubuntu phone videos? It looks really slick.

------
monkeyfacebag
I found myself agreeing with a lot of the sentiment expressed in Mark's post
but ultimately, I lack faith that Shuttleworth and Canonical have what it
takes to pull off the stated goal of creating "an experience that could
challenge the existing proprietary leaders." For example, I don't find Unity
to be better in any meaningful sense than the "community-driven" GNOME 3.
Canonical has come up with some interesting ideas, especially with the HUD
menu system, but I just haven't seen real progress towards building the kind
of consistent user experience I can find on Android, Windows and OS X.

I'd love for them to succeed, but every passing day I'm looking more to
Android as the future of quasi-open Linuxes.

~~~
fakeer
>> _I don't find Unity to be better in any meaningful sense than the
"community-driven" GNOME 3_

It's not better even in a meaningless sense. I just not that good.

There are times when you stick to your idea long enough because you are
passionately convinced about it and there are times when you stick to that
idea because others said it was a bad idea, somehow they were true and now you
do not want to accept it. Well, Canonical is Mark's and Ubuntu belongs to
Canonical. They must have a plan. I hope.

As per whining about it and whims. That was normal reaction and Mark should
have accepted it, if not as feedback.

After trying all the Linux distros I settled with Ubuntu, then it was ruined.
Moving to OSX was painful. Moving to an (very) expansive and very very closed
ecosystem.

~~~
lennel
The HUD makes no sense on a desktop environment and since I have not tried it
on a mobile device I cannot make a final judgement. My gut instinct is that
the HUD will work on a mobile device and as the platform matures it will
become better. Most people prefer Gnome3, let them use it with other distros.

I feel the true battle for Canonical lies in mobile devices and being an
entity which can stand up against all the other closed eco-systems and
manufacturers in this space. If they can keep it open for everybody so much
the better for us all.

I have nothing but respect for shuttleworth, he is an extremely smart bloke
who has invested a lot of his money in this, this obviously does not make
Canonical exempt from criticism.

~~~
radio4fan
"My gut instinct is that the HUD will work on a mobile device and as the
platform matures it will become better."

I think you're right. Unity works great on a netbook, purely for consuming.
Fine for a mobile device.

There used to be a Ubuntu 'netbook remix' which came with Unity (before it was
the default), and it fitted there perfectly.

Canonical are hardly alone in betting the farm on mobile-like interfaces. MS
are doing it with Windows 8, and some of OS X >= Lion's interface is only
usable with a multitouch trackpad.

Whether they're right or not is open to discussion, but it's clearly
happening.

------
aroman
As someone who has been an active contributor to desktop Linux in the past,
and particularly very close to Ubuntu (I was sponsored to attend UDS-O), I
have to say that I am happy Shuttleworth is finally taking this much needed
stand.

I can absolutely understand the blowback to his sentiments, because really,
the diversity of use and mindset in the Linux community is one of its defining
characteristics. But frankly, he's right -- if Ubuntu isn't the platform
you're looking for, either go find the one that is, or start it.

I don't see Shuttleworth's stance, or indeed the negative feedback from a
vocally inflamed (though not majority) userbase, as a sign of Ubuntu's
decline. I see it as Ubuntu finally having the balls to do what no other
desktop Linux platform has done before -- move ahead with their grand vision
on bringing free software to the masses, not just the ones that demand it the
most.

~~~
ihsw
The problem is secrecy and authoritarianism run directly contrary to the
spirit of open source software, and if we're going to go down that road then
we need to stop calling it a community-driven Linux distribution.

Where will we be when Amazon et al start leaning more heavily on Canonical for
more invasive features? What recourse will the existing user-base have other
than being callously told to "fuck off if you don't like it, or buy some lube
and start grabbing your ankles"?

~~~
mikevm
>Where will we be when Amazon et al start leaning more heavily on Canonical
for more invasive features?

You'll be on a different Linux distro.

------
ameen
While the community is ready to dismiss anything Canonical does, they also
seem to overlook the work Canonical has done. Unity is far from perfect, but
it _is_ functional.

Also, the whole issue of inclusion of Amazon links could be solved with a
single command, "sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping".

And it's ridiculous that Canonical gets flak for trying out a new revenue
stream (one that can easily be removed if its bothersome), while ChromeOS is
championed (which essentially makes revenue off of your web usage, targeting
ads, etc.)

If the community tried to be a little less abrasive and actually held
reasonable level-headed discussions instead of being dismissive we could
actually get somewhere.

Infact I'd argue that it's Canonical's leadership is helping since it has
succeeded in bringing generally non-Linux businesses over to Ubuntu - Valve
bringing over Steam, Spotify alpha, Rdio, etc.

~~~
macspoofing
>Unity is far from perfect, but it is functional.

If that's the best you can say about it, then Canonical failed.

~~~
JasonFruit
Unity _is_ functional — you can use it. Its problem is that it's designed to
meet the needs of a mostly hypothetical group of people that Canonical _hopes_
will want to use it someday. That's a long-term proposition, and a valid
gamble to take — but I don't think it's going to succeed. More importantly for
me, I don't care whether it does or not, because I'm neither Unity's nor
Ubuntu's target market any more.

~~~
Lashawndazqd
One of the things I have tried to do the last decade or so is set up Linux for
the "non leets" like my mom, girlfriends, friends / family etc. This is
Canonical's target audience and not a single one of them likes the Unity
interface. While not a scientific study I just don't think it's hitting the
mark.

Lately, I've been putting MINT on a few people's machines, and the love the
"windows like" feel (necessary for the transition) and it's still based on
Debian and very solid.

~~~
gnuvince
Mint Cinamon or Mate?

------
neya

        "By 2009 I was convinced that none of the existing free software communities could create an experience that could challenge the existing proprietary leaders," Shuttleworth wrote, "and so, if we were serious about the dream of a free software norm, we would have to lead."
    

If Unity is the outcome of Canonical's lead, then I'm sorry to say that
they're doing it wrong. I want you to download Ubuntu 10.04/10.10 and compare
it with Ubuntu 12.04/12.10. You will be nothing short of _terrified_ of the
experience - They just destroyed every single advantage of Ubuntu - For
example:

Unity creates a terrible confusion on what is where and how you access or
close an open window.

Shutdown speed is slower than windows 8 sometimes! (And Windows 8 isn't slow,
it's really fast, but Ubuntu 10.x used to be faster)

The OS itself feels sluggish at times.

I sincerely feel someone should take the 10.04 and spin it off into a new
better OS, polish it and give it back to the community - If it's good enough,
I won't even mind paying for it!!

~~~
icelancer
Ubuntu 10.04 is infinitely better than 12.x and Unity. It blows my mind that
anyone could think otherwise.

>I sincerely feel someone should take the 10.04 and spin it off into a new
better OS, polish it and give it back to the community - If it's good enough,
I won't even mind paying for it!!

Yes, 100 times yes. If I could get that OS with the 12.x patches and updates,
I would do it in a heartbeat.

~~~
neya
agreed!

------
JasonFruit
This bit annoys me:

    
    
      "There are lots of pure community distro's. And wow, they are full of politics, spite, 
       frustration, venality and disappointment," he wrote.
    

They may be full of those things, sure, but at their best they also have
quality, usability, flexibility, power, and beauty. I hope Canonical succeeds
in making Ubuntu useful to people who would never have used it before, but I'm
sad that that success — if it ever comes — requires abandoning and insulting
people who helped make Ubuntu as prominent as it has been.

~~~
jff
And without one of those spite-filled, frustrated, venal, political
distributions, Debian, they could never have created Ubuntu.

~~~
res0nat0r
And because of some of those verbs above is why Ubuntu exists in the first
place. A distro that isn't paralyzed by too many cooks in the kitchen and that
can be nimble.

------
JeremyMorgan
Yeah yeah, we get it. Canonical: "You guys hate Unity but we're really
stubborn about it".

Keep trumpeting your crap then. Thankfully it's pretty easy for just about
anyone to switch window managers (or Distro for that matter)

~~~
DrZen
Nice attitude to legitimate criticism (Unity kills productivity for many). I
guess thats why all the 'l33ts' and everyone else is running to OSX. Thanks
for the motivation.

~~~
JeremyMorgan
Perhaps I wasn't clear. I'm paraphrasing what they're saying to people. I
agree with you completely, Unity is garbage and thankfully we can still switch
it if we need to, or switch distros altogether.

My comment is disparaging the arrogant attitude of Canonical on this subject.

~~~
DrZen
My apologies, I missed the sarcasm. The scary thing is I think I missed it
because its exactly how the Canonical Ubuntu zealots have responded to valid
criticism to date.

------
JeremyMorgan
I think we should take his advice. He says he doesn't want "leet" Linux users
and we should go use something else, and many of us have been taking that
advice all along.

Personally, I'm a Gentoo guy and have been for a while. Here are some great
hacker distros that I love to use and contribute to:

Gentoo

Arch

Slackware

Debian

And for those who want a "user friendly" distro for their mom to try out:

Linux Mint

Yeah, I said it, I know it's not exactly popular but if you want to convert
someone to a Linux user I think Mint is your best bet.

In the end, we still have a choice. Thanks Canonical/Ubuntu for bringing more
users and development to the community, we'll just steer them towards
something better when they're ready.

~~~
nonamegiven
Linux Mint: it's an Ubuntu derivative, and I suspect that Ubuntu/Canonical
will one day either be hostile or at least actively unhelpful to derivatives.

Downloads: <http://www.linuxmint.com/oldreleases.php>

Everything there is an ubuntu derivative, except in the middle there's a
debian rolling release edition.

I suppose the mainstream ubuntu derivative will be great for stereotypical
"mom's", as long as Ubuntu's eye doesn't turn in that direction.

For more hacker types that want some creature comforts, are the debian
versions a good choice? I would expect/hope that some of the multimedia "just
works" benefits would be in there.
<http://www.linuxmint.com/release.php?id=14>

Or would I be better off on debian/LXDE, and manage the few packages that I
most care about on my own?

------
nilved
Just in case anybody was still on the fence, Ubuntu has now officially jumped
the shark.

~~~
JeremyMorgan
Said it before, I'll say it again. They jumped it at 10.04. That was their
last best, and the version I still often use if I do use Ubuntu.

------
charonn0
>Just roll your eyeballs at the 1337 crowd

This is not leadership. If Mr. Shuttleworth truly wants to provide leadership
for the FOSS community, then blaming people for disagreeing with him is not a
good start and "my way or the highway" is not a sustainable model.

~~~
JeremyMorgan
That's been the attitude at Canonical since they got into the game. Definitely
not sustainable.

~~~
res0nat0r
Why is that? I don't see any evidence of mass users leaving Ubuntu anytime
lately. Only minor whining on nerd forums about the default desktop and other
quibbles.

~~~
JeremyMorgan
It's not sustainable because the type of people who are generally attracted to
something like Linux are the very people Mark just insulted. The facts are
clear: the average computer user doesn't care about an operating system that
much. It's a means to an end. Most people are just using their OS as a portal
to access media anyway so they really don't care.

Yes Canonical/Ubuntu has brought in a lot of new users but the simple fact is
if you want the platform to keep advancing you need geeks. Suzy soccer mom and
Bob the casual user are a great audience to attract but they aren't going to
writing the next breakthrough software or fixing major bugs. They might bring
money to fund the development and that's great, but once you shut us out we'll
go to another distro and make that one better.

If he was a true leader he would diplomatically find a way to attract the
widest audience possible. By intentionally provoking the same people who built
Linux he's just ensuring that someday they'll move to something else that will
blow them out of the water.

~~~
res0nat0r
He is searching for the widest audience possible...and that is the soccer moms
like you mention, not the nerds that care about the 1% of features 99% of
their target audience had no need for. He is basically saying that it doesn't
work to have 100k people's input from all backgrounds and opinions on a
project like Ubuntu because nothing will ever get accomplished.

Which is a perfectly reasonable assumption in my view if you want to put out a
polished product, which Linux has had a very hard time doing since inception.
No one complains that Apple didnt have a committee of 10k Apple users vote on
how the latest version of OSX should have been implemented. Shuttleworth is
trying to do the same.

I'm not sure why everyone is so upset by this. I think people just believe if
anything involves Linux they think they should have an opinion in the matter
no matter what the project is, which for Ubuntu isn't the most efficient way
of moving the project forward.

~~~
JeremyMorgan
You make a good point, but the OSX comparison doesn't work. Apple practically
invented the smooth user experience and they design based on feedback and
studies, not being arrogant and forcing change for the sake of change.

When you boil it down, it's pretty simple. Unity sucks, taking away the users
ability to configure sucks, but they've made the stand and don't want to back
down because it's the only way they can differentiate themselves from other
distributions. Why? Because different, not because better.

~~~
res0nat0r
Apple not arrogant and not forcing users to do things the "Apple way"? This is
exactly what they do.

Also what is the big deal about the Unity hate? It is simple to install
another window manager and replace it. Problem solved.

------
raldi
Then I suppose my whims are leading me away from Ubuntu.

~~~
Lashawndazqd
That's ok, apparently they have all the developers they need. That must be why
the bug list is empty now.

------
Skoofoo
Mark Shuttleworth is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. The square
peg being Steve Jobs' style, the round hole being open source/free software.

------
Lashawndazqd
Yes, widespread adoption is important, but don't insult the giants whose
shoulders you're standing on Mark.

------
phaus
>>There are lots of pure community distro's. And wow, they are full of
politics, spite, frustration, venality and disappointment.

Soo... It is a community distro? Because Ubuntu sure has plenty of that.

>>To Shuttleworth, Ubuntu isn't about catering to hobbyists, but about
building an open source OS that is so compelling that free software becomes
the norm, rather than the exception.

There's nothing compelling about implementing advertising directly into the
operating system. I was just starting get used to Unity, and then Canonical
did something that makes it impossible to trust them about anything.

------
anoncow
What I undestand is that he wants people to rise above petty politics and work
at making Ubuntu better. Imo he could have just said the latter and let the
former lie. Sometimes it is better to do that. A substantial chunk of the
community does not like unity and even more hate the amazon integration.
Telling them to shut up is not a great idea. You cannot keep everyone happy,
not in a project of this scale. Mark is doing this to keep the people at
canonical happy and driven. I hope he succeeds, because I would like ubuntu to
be better.

------
nonamegiven
Ubuntu used to be one thing, and it was exactly what I wanted.

Now they're something else, and that's OK, but it's not what I want, and
that's OK too.

At the moment I'm hanging on to the parts I want by my fingernails, running
the nicely minimal Lubuntu. But I think the writing's on the wall that
eventually Ubuntu/Canonical will have no interest in supporting the various
Ubuntu derivatives, and I'll need to fall back to something like LXDE on
Debian. And that's OK too.

Ubuntu used to be one thing. Now they're something else. That's OK. So long,
and thanks for all the updates.

------
mtgx
I'm not sure what it means for the Linux community that Canonical is doing
this, but I do think they are doing the right thing for "Ubuntu" if they want
to make it a more mainstream OS, and also an OS that works on mobile hardware,
and it's fast and smooth.

If that means they have to break clean from a lot of legacy stuff, then so be
it. Ultimately, I want a strong mainstream OS alternative to Windows - one
that is popular enough and gets support from all major software vendors for
apps. If Ubuntu got at least as popular as Mac OS, it would be amazing, and I
don't really care what they have to do to get there.

I also hope this means they will make it dead-easy for developers, whether
paid ones or open source volunteers, to make _beautiful_ apps for
Ubuntu/Linux. I _hate_ how ugly and old Linux apps look. Absolutely hate them.
And if that's happenig to me, then I can only imagine the reaction of "normal"
PC users and how much of a turn off that must be for them, especially now when
we're living in a time of iOS, Holo and Metro apps. Most of them would find
the majority of Linux apps unacceptable.

If Canonical gives developers easy to use set of design resources and tools,
then even open source apps for Linux or cross-platform won't have an excuse to
not look beautiful anymore.

If Canonical manages to get chip makers to make unified drivers for
Ubuntu/Linux/Android that would be an amazing feat as well, and something I
wish Google tried from the beginning or was already working on. But I haven't
seen any hints of that happening, unfortunately. So Canonical might be
Android's last hope for that.

~~~
mich41
> I want a strong mainstream OS alternative to Windows - one that is popular
> enough and gets support from all major software vendors for apps. If Ubuntu
> got at least as popular as Mac OS, it would be amazing, and I don't really
> care what they have to do to get there.

I can understand that Canonical wants to become a "mainstream alternative to
Windows" because this means money for them. But why do _you_ care how many
buggy Windows or OSX clones are out there if you can just pay few bucks and
get the real thing?

~~~
pekk
It's pretty ridiculous to call Ubuntu a "buggy Windows or OSX clone".

------
auggierose
Lol. Ubuntu is obviously doomed to fail. What technical genius would want to
follow UNPAID another persons "Grand Vision" if that other person isn't an
even greater technical genius?

------
cmccabe
It makes me sad that Canonical is doing so many things to split the community.
First they stuck to upstart, after everyone else moved over to systemd. Then,
they decided to snub GNOME3 in order to create a new windowing environment
called Unity. Now, they're trying to build their own copy of Wayland,
codenamed Mir. Ubuntu still uses bzr, when most of the rest of the world uses
git.

I guess maybe this was inevitable. They wanted to differentiate themselves
from Red Hat and similar distros that were using the "normal" stack. But do we
really need so many duplicate projects, so many of which seem to be duds?

Ultimately, Ubuntu wants to be Android. And it never will be, because
Canonical doesn't have Google's engineering or financial resources, or a
business model that would support such an undertaking. I understand the
idealism, but as they say, "hope is a good breakfast, but a poor supper."

I feel like Ubuntu's decision to include adware like the Amazon toolbar is the
first of many such decisions. Ultimately, they have to make a profit, and
they're going to have to turn to "traditional methods." The traditional method
for PC OEMs to make a profit is-- let's be honest here-- crapware. I fear that
this is going to blacken the name of Linux for a lot of people. Already a lot
of people think that "Linux" can't do suspend or hibernate properly, because
Ubuntu often can't. Soon people are going to think that "Linux" is full of
adware and spyware, simply because Ubuntu is. Sigh.

------
eriksank
Mark Shuttleworth may have good intentions at the basis, but he may also be
overly ambitious. From there he may indeed be misguided in his daring and
rather rash decisions. Mark may also be incapable of assessing first-hand what
it all means in technical terms. Mark also seems to overestimate the real
level of insight of his close technical advisers; who are the guys doing the
real thinking for him. Mark also seems to substantially overestimate the true
ability and aggregate capacity of his rather small team; which is supposed to
make all of it happen. Mediocre results after mediocre results, we can indeed
clearly discern in Mark a pattern of over-promising and under-delivering.

