
Ubuntu Philosophy - llambda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy
======
prmph
The meaning of Ubuntu all too often gets lost in vague translations such as
"bond of sharing", "unity", and "collective humanity". This is a bit
unfortunate, because Ubuntu expresses an interesting and specific concept.

Ubuntu can literally be translated as "I am what I am because of what we all
are", ie., that individual meaning is bound up with collective meaning. To
give some simple examples, a king is so because a kingdom with subjects
exists. Were he to diminish his subjects, he diminishes himself. An elected
politician draws power from the socially constructed collective rule of law
and norms. We he/she to attack these collective norms, his source of
legitimate power can crumble. As software engineers, our (admittedly
advantageous) socio-cultural position derives from unique place the tech
industry has carved out in society. If we act in ways inimical to the sharing
and openness that underpins the industry, we are attacking our own position in
the long-term.

These examples illustrate the spirit of Ubuntu, and it is not hard to see why
it implies values such as sharing, attention to collective interests, and the
like. But at its core, the philosophy is something quite specific.

~~~
lucian1900
So it’s a form of dialectics, very interesting indeed.

~~~
ngcc_hk
World spirit kind yes. But dialectics could emphasis the difference forever.
That is the bad part of Hegelian and later Marxism.

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CraigJPerry
This was front and centre of the press releases about the Linux distro at the
time, it’s the only reason i know what it means :-)

When warty or hoary were released, Shuttleworth was mentioned on BBC news for
his sponsorship efforts (although they spent as much time talking about his
outer space shennanigans as they did linux). I cant remember if theres a
connection between Mark Shuttleworth and Elon Musk (paypal - am i just making
that up?) but they always stick in my mind together for some reason.

Typing all this has triggered a memory i’d forgotten - a podcast series from
around this time. 4 British chaps, Jono Bacon was one of them. I can’t
remember the name but it was fantastic entertainment, lots of laughter but it
was a podcast about linux. Ubuntu featured heavily. They disbanded some years
later.

~~~
axaxs
> they always stick in my mind together for some reason

Same here. I don't remember them ever working together directly,
though...Shuttleworth made his fortune on Thawte, and Musk on Paypal. Probably
that they're both white tech entrepreneurs from South Africa with a side
interest in space, and about the same age, if I had to guess!

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O_H_E
For those who didn't check the link yet, this is not about Ubuntu the linux
distro, but an ideology that has its roots in mid and south Africa.

>[Ubuntu philosophy] is often used in a more philosophical sense to mean "the
belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity."

~~~
umvi
Right, but it's clear that this philosophy is the inspiration for the distro:

\- the ubuntu linux logo is 3 people holding hands

\- their homegrown desktop manager is/was called "unity"

\- GPL/FOSS sort of = 'a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity'

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Worth pointing out that the FSF have specifically called out Canonical/Ubuntu,
for failing to behave in keeping with Free Software values. [0]

Stallman has also mentioned Ubuntu in his talks, as a rare counterexample of
how Free software is generally free from functionality that acts against the
user's interests.

[0] [https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-
do](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do)

See also [https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-
distros.html#Ubuntu](https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html#Ubuntu)

~~~
Andrew_nenakhov
rms is a Saint, His virtue is unyielding to mortal pleasures. Such extreme
asceticism is certainly not for everyone, so you shouldn't hold it against
Canonical, for you are a sinner yourself.

~~~
teddyh
Even if I am a sinner, I only sin against myself. Canonical has no such
compunctions.

------
djsumdog
When reading Wikipedia, always check the talk page:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ubuntu_philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ubuntu_philosophy)

and always go back in time a decade:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ubuntu_philosophy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ubuntu_philosophy&oldid=66847698)

~~~
johnchristopher
I don't know what to make of that.

I remember the 10 year old Ubuntu page (I mean, the word and the concept) but
the current page seems more dense but fills with factoids, unstructured and
obviously missing some paragraphs (`:` without follow up).

~~~
djsumdog
There's not much with this particular page, but I just kinda meant in general;
read the page from a decade ago. You'll see how the page grew and you'll also
see any bias that creeps in over the years.

~~~
johnchristopher
I see it everywhere now:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan#HUAC's_Hollywood...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan#HUAC's_Hollywood_hearings)

> In October 1947 during HUAC's Hollywood hearings, Reagan (whose name also
> appears as "Regan" in text of the hearings printed by the US GPO testified
> as resident of the Screen Actors Guild:[55]) testified:

------
blindm
Wow TIL Nelson Mandela was used in a promotional video for Ubuntu, the
Operating System we all know and love. You can watch the video here:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Experien...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Experience_ubuntu.ogv)

~~~
renewiltord
I have this vague memory of this video being on the Ubuntu CD or something. It
was an example video you could play to see that you could play videos or
whatever.

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Kattywumpus
This should be horrifying to any sane human, but we live in a time of great
insanity, and much of what ought to be criticized passes by unremarked in
plain sight.

> Ubuntu asserts that society, not a transcendent being, gives human beings
> their humanity.

Let's be clear on what we're talking about here: _Your humanity._ Are you a
human being, or aren't you? Are you a moral entity or not?

In the West, we say your humanity is intrinsically, unalienably situated in
your person, bestowed upon you by a higher authority even than society itself.
It may at times be recognized or unrecognized by the crooked timber of human
institutions, but with or without them, it exists. You are a human being even
if society doesn't want you to be, for whatever reason.

Compare and contrast with Ubuntu:

> According to Michael Onyebuchi Eze, the core of ubuntu can best be
> summarised as follows:

> _' A person is a person through other people'_ strikes an affirmation of
> one’s humanity through recognition of an ‘other’ in his or her uniqueness
> and difference. It is a demand for a creative intersubjective formation in
> which the ‘other’ becomes a mirror (but only a mirror) for my subjectivity.
> This idealism suggests to us that _humanity is not embedded in my person
> solely as an individual; my humanity is co-substantively bestowed upon the
> other and me._

Again, cutting through the obstructive bafflegab:

 _' A person is a person through other people'_

 _humanity is not embedded in my person solely as an individual_

The examples given are even more grotesque.

> When someone behaves according to custom, a Sotho-speaking person would say
> “ke motho,” which means "he/she is a human."

> The aspect of this that would be exemplified by a tale told (often, in
> private quarters) in Nguni “kushone abantu ababili ne Shangaan,” in Sepedi
> “go tlhokofetje batho ba babedi le leShangane,” in English _(two people died
> and one Shangaan)._ In each of these examples, humanity comes from
> conforming to or being part of the tribe.

In other words, three people died, but only one "human". Think deeply on the
implications of that.

Growing beyond this kind of tribal denial of humanity has always been one of
the proudest achievements of the West. It's a shame to see us sinking back
into it, endorsing it, even celebrating it again. See this kind of literal
dehumanization pass by without much notice at all.

~~~
whatshisface
> _See this kind of literal dehumanization pass by without much notice at
> all._

Look, nobody actually reads this stuff, and if anyone reads it, they don't
think about it. It's filler meant to contain words like "community,"
"society," and "humanity."

------
setgree
FWIW, Ubuntu is a 'core value' of City Year, an Americorps organization:

[https://www.cityyear.org/about/history-
values/values/](https://www.cityyear.org/about/history-values/values/)

And CY is the type of organization to trumpet its values early and often to
its own participants (which I was in 2010-11).

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igitur
Maybe this is a good place to mention that the correct pronunciation of Ubuntu
(both the philosophy and the Linux distro) is "ooBOONtoo", not "you-bun-too",
which I often hear.

IPA pronunciation: ùɓúntʼù

------
ngcc_hk
Quite a horrible philosophy. It is really totalitarian in nature. Marxism and
nazi going together. Obviously it seems ok to unify and pardon. But read this.
Horror. Individual can opt in but not mold like a clay. Whilst we should
interact but not find ourselves in the group only. Individual is the base. Or
at least some of us trying and should not be joined only pray of a group even
though you label the group as humanity.

What if my minority group is a different kind. What is I want myself, my
family and my county only. Yes we can have a country or a culture and there is
an us. But that us should not forced upon me, my family or my town to conform.
Or my little race my little county ... another china just too small currently
but another china. That might be a link between Africa and

“ "Ubuntu" as political philosophy encourages community equality, propagating
the distribution of wealth. This socialisation is a vestige of agrarian
peoples as a hedge against the crop failures of individuals. Socialisation
presupposes a community population with which individuals empathise and
concomitantly, have a vested interest in its collective prosperity.
Urbanisation and the aggregation of people into an abstract and bureaucratic
state undermines this empathy. African Intellectual historians like Michael
Onyebuchi Eze have argued however that this ideal of "collective
responsibility" must not be understood as absolute in which the community's
good is prior to the individual's good. On this view, ubuntu it is argued, is
a communitarian philosophy that is widely differentiated from the Western
notion of communitarian socialism. In fact, ubuntu induces an ideal of shared
human subjectivity that promotes a community's good through an unconditional
recognition and appreciation of individual uniqueness and difference.[12]
Audrey Tang has suggested that Ubuntu "implies that everyone has different
skills and strengths; people are not isolated, and through mutual support they
can help each other to complete themselves."[13]

"Redemption" relates to how people deal with errant, deviant, and dissident
members of the community. The belief is that man is born formless like a lump
of clay. It is up to the community, as a whole, to use the fire of experience
and the wheel of social control to mould him into a pot that may contribute to
society. Any imperfections should be borne by the community and the community
should always seek to redeem man. ...”

------
op03
more grist - [https://riskmagazine.nl/article/2018-09-30-ubuntu-vague-
phil...](https://riskmagazine.nl/article/2018-09-30-ubuntu-vague-philosophy-
or-valuable-concept)

------
omginternets
>Ubuntu can literally be translated as "I am what I am because of what we all
are", ie., that individual meaning is bound up with collective meaning.

In philosophical terms, Gilbert Ryle would argue that "Self" and "Other" are
in the same _category_ , just as up/down, anxiety/contentment, life/death,
black/white are are different instances of the same stuff.

If you're a zen Buddhist (or a fan of Alan Watts), you're already familiar
with this idea as well. Self can only be understood in opposition to non-self,
life in opposition to death, light in opposition to dark, etc.

A corollary: there isn't really an ontological difference between self and
other (or life and death for that matter).

Historical Note / Tangent: Ryle uses the notion of category to do away with
Cartesian dualism. It is very much the reason the mind/body problem is largely
considered to be a pseudoproblem these days: mind and body, by virtue of the
fact that they are defined in opposition to one another, are ontologically the
same stuff -- they're in the same category.

~~~
bigdict
Categories are created to distinguish between their members. If two things are
in the same category, then they are by definition not the "same stuff".
Otherwise they would be one thing.

~~~
omginternets
By "same stuff" I mean, "related by some essence". This is why they were
grouped in the same set to begin with.

Red and black are different, but they are of the stuff of color.

