

Mark Shuttleworth's big mistake - ayi
http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/57178-mark-shuttleworths-big-mistake

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acabal
I don't think people are mad because Ubuntu wants to make money. (Witness the
relatively well-received "donate" link on the Ubuntu download page.)

They're mad at the Amazon search results because 1) Ads are now intruding in
what's been an ad-free space since pretty much the dawn of the OS. 2) Assumed-
private input into your OS is now being sent to a 3rd party, and you have to
opt-out instead of opt-in.

Definitely a bad move by Shuttleworth; it was a fundamental paradigm shift in
what people expect from an OS, crammed in half-baked, without the fanfare or
discussion that was due.

 _That_ is Shuttleworth's big mistake: consistently releasing alpha-quality
software in an environment where eventually upgrading is mandatory. (Because
with all milestone-based distros, if you need an update to a single program,
the entire system must be updated along with it.)

He's burned a lot of community karma by doing this. Witness Pulseaudio, or
Unity, or now this. Day-to-day users don't want to be beta testers, they want
a stable (i.e. bug-free and polished) experience, and Ubuntu doesn't deliver
that.

Shuttleworth, Ubuntu, and its users would be better served by focusing on
polish and regression- and bug-fixes instead of trying to turn the industry
upside-down every six months. Spend time fixing bugs so I can recommend Linux
to mere mortals, set up a testing lab with a wide array of real-life hardware
to track and prevent regressions, and don't release something unless you'd be
happy releasing it in a world where you can never update it again.

Alternatively, figure out a way to change Linux from milestone-based releases
to what Windows has accomplished: A platform where the core is tested and
stable, and the user can install whatever version of whatever program they
like. DLL hell is a thing of the past, storage space is practically free, and
Linux should be able to update, say, GIMP, without requiring an update to my
graphics drivers at the same time. That way we can enjoy a stable system and
opt-out of Shuttleworth's half-baked experiments.

But that's a pretty tall order.

~~~
fafner
> Day-to-day users don't want to be beta testers, they want a stable (i.e.
> bug-free and polished) experience, and Ubuntu doesn't deliver that.

Use LTS if you want that.

I don't think Pulseaudio or Unity is comparable to the Amazon-Lense. PA is
mostly a technical decision. It caused some problems initially. But now it's
fine and dislike of PA seems to be mostly a bandwagon thing. Unity was a
drastic change and that certainly annoys users. But it's mostly about your
design preference whether you like it or not. Although some (very loud) users
seem to hate it with a passion.

But the Amazon-Lense is on a different level because it is not on a technical
or design level but rather on a philosophical or ideological level (I seem to
lack a proper word here. But I hope you understand what I mean). And I agree
with your criticism. Users dislike ads in a former ad-free space and users
hate when people mingle with their privacy.

~~~
acabal
I often make this point and people often tell me "just use an LTS". But that's
not my point; my point is, if I use an LTS, I can't (easily) get new versions
of software I need. Upgrading one piece of software necessitates upgrading the
entire system. Because of this, it's impossible to live in a stable and bug-
free OS, because the core is always shifting underfoot. On a Windows system,
does upgrading Photoshop also upgrade your network drivers? Of course not, but
it does in Ubuntu (and most Linuxes).

Shuttleworth's mistake is his intent on releasing alpha- and beta-quality
software every 6 months, but without giving the community the easy and
foolproof ability to pin certain software at certain versions, so they can get
updates to some things but not others.

That's why people got mad at Pulseaudio, at Unity, and (partly) at the half-
baked Amazon stuff: because the very structure of Ubuntu and Linux forces
these things on them, and they didn't have a choice if they also want the
other shiny features of release X.

Edit: Also, I was personally mad at Pulseaudio because when it was included in
Ubuntu, it was so broken on my laptop that I literally had to hotkey `killall
pulseaudio` to a keyboard shortcut. That's how bad it got, and it was like
that for 2 releases!

~~~
fafner
I agree that they should provide optionally new versions of LibreOffice, Gimp,
and similar software for LTS releases. But I think it's highly unrealistic
that this will include more than a few selected software packages. It takes
probably quite some effort because Linux software is not only constantly
changing but so are the dependencies. At some point it simply is not possible
to use new software with an old plumbing. E.g. some package might depend on a
newer version of gnome-libs which depend on a new version of something in the
plumbing layer.

As far as I see it the non-LTS releases are just the beta tests for the next
LTS release. But somehow Canonical does not seem to fully agree with that. If
I remember correctly the biggest issue with PA was that it was introduced in
an LTS release. They should have probably waited one release and use the 4
releases to get it right.

btw. PPAs and backports can help you if you want new versions in older
releases.

~~~
takluyver
Actually, they're moving towards having many more applications updated and
added for stable releases. Ubuntu's developer portal now has a system where
developers can upload their own apps to the software centre, separately from
the Ubuntu release cycle. It's still a work in progress, though - they've had
some trouble scaling it up.

Traditionally, distributions have been responsible for packaging 'upstream'
software, which quickly becomes a bottleneck as more software is created. The
key is getting developers to do the packaging themselves, aided by automated
systems.

------
rogerbinns
Canonical have never made their financial structure public so we can't judge
what is actually going on with revenues and expenditures. It is certainly the
case that they have a large staff (there are _six_ members of the community
team alone) and I recall past claims that half of Canonical employees were
working on Launchpad!

What is happening is that Ubuntu is going through the normal lifecycle of
Linux distributions. They all start out because existing distributions are not
paying attention to detail, and have a close focus. Then success broadens
scope and spreads people out thinner and thinner. This inevitably means paying
less attention to detail and leads the formation of new distributions, and a
repeat of the cycle.

A sample of one (myself) is eagerly awaiting a distribution paying attention
to detail to replace Ubuntu on my systems.

~~~
graue
I've been hearing good things about Elementary:
<http://elementaryos.org/discover>

~~~
elteto
Never heard of it before yet it looks really good!! One thing though, I would
really like distro's to distance themselves from the Apple look-n-feel. I
think UI innovation only happens if people is willing to try different
approaches. But at the same time I realize am not the normal user, I guess
that if it brings more novice users to Linux is a good thing in the end.

------
powertower
_Years ago_ I used to blog about Ubuntu
(<http://www.devside.net/blog/category/ubuntu>) and got some good traffic. But
it never made sense to me, commercializing the Desktop had been shown to be a
failure.

But take it from 2008 for yourself -

 _Ubuntu's Shuttleworth: "I don't think anyone can make money from the Linux
desktop."_

[http://blogs.computerworld.com/ubuntus_shuttleworth_i_dont_t...](http://blogs.computerworld.com/ubuntus_shuttleworth_i_dont_think_anyone_can_make_money_from_the_linux_desktop)

~~~
mseepgood
So by "selling sevices" he meant selling his community to Amazon.

~~~
elteto
That is an inflammatory comment without any real basis. Nobody is selling any
community to Amazon, that is plain and simple bullshit.

Let's call things by their real name. Was the move to add the Amazon powered
search a mistake? Totally, especially since most of the Ubuntu community are
tech folks like us who are specially averse to this sort of things. However
the _actual_ effect is almost zero, since it is very easy to disable. How is
this, once again, selling the community?

~~~
comice
I think you misunderstood. Anyone who sells advertising space sells their
audience to the advertiser. Simple as that.

------
skriticos2
I'm an Ubuntu user since a few years. I made Canonical some money by buying
some software in the software center (games actually). And I don't think that
I'm alone with this.

But they are not only desktop. Juju (deployment) and Landscape (like Active
Directory, but different) are products that certainly make them some big
business income. And there is the support. It's not like they would avoid the
Red Hat / SuSE revenue model.

Then there are things like the Steam beta, that's upcoming on Linux (and Steam
folks having a session at Ubuntu developer summit).

Point is, there are always very vocal people that don't like something. It's
human. I don't buy it.

My view: Mark Shuttleworth created the most popular desktop Linux. And I see
it around. And I have shown it to people and they have started to use it.

I don't worry about Ubuntu. And if it is a mistake, I'd like to do one like
this all the time.

ps. I'm over 30 now, and I see people blowing off a lot of steam all the time.
Specially in the press. Every one has an opinion. I don't buy it. Show me an
article from someone who managed to achieve similar, you get more credible in
my eyes.

pps. Off topic, but I think South Africa is curious. I don't know it close up,
but Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu) and Elon Musk (SpaceX, Tesla). I really think
these people have a vision, and not only 'how to make the most money'. More
like, 'how to make money and move things forward'. I like that.

------
macspoofing
There's nothing wrong with Ubuntu making money or wanting to make money. I
haven't seen anyone have a problem with that. The Amazon search result
addition, however, was just a bad feature. It was reminiscent of windows
software installing ie toolbars or other adware.

