

Novell Engineer Blasts Ubuntu for not Helping Linux - qhoxie
http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Nerd_Fight!_Novell_Engineer_Blasts_Ubuntu_for_not_Helping_Linux

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wheels
When I was at the last Ubuntu Developer Sprint I was at first a bit surprised
that there weren't more prominent OSS people around. Comparatively, Canonical
doesn't employ a lot of core developers for OSS projects.

I got the feeling that it was a mix of: that not being part of their core
strategy and them being honestly hard to hire. Most core OSS developers aren't
out looking for jobs.

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halo
Canonical is a small loss-making company which has managed to expand their
user-base and mind-share at a dramatic rate.

Is it fair to compare directly their contributions with larger long-standing
profitable companies like Red Hat or Novell? And is it fair to measure their
community involvement on kernel contributions alone when they primarily focus
on consumer-facing elements of their distribution?

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michaelneale
Its not fair when you put it like that, but then canonical are pushing ubuntu
as being more important to linux then it currently is. That is fine if it
raises the profile and helps linux on the user facing side (a rising tide
lifts all ships) but they seem to want to rubbish all the others who are
actually doing the work that they use.

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Herring
Crux of the article:

 _If Kroah-Hartman is unhappy that Novell and Red Hat are doing the bulk of
the work and Ubuntu is reaping the benefit...._

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davidw
Crux of the problem: "free riding" is part and parcel of open source. And
Ubuntu isn't really that bad - they do good work and promote software that's
almost entirely free.

~~~
Herring
Ubuntu is by far the best thing to happen to desktop linux. Them & their free
cds. Novell has no one to blame but themselves. They should have been paying
close attention to Apple all those years.

~~~
davidw
I'm a very happy Ubuntu user, but I can sort of understand the frustration. If
everyone did what Canonical did, who would do the work? That's not an entirely
solved problem with open source.

~~~
Herring
I'd just leave it to the market. Clearly ubuntu's popularity proves that
hacking the kernel is less valuable than cleaning up the UI & novell should
have seen this. They're quite free to start selling ubuntu support contracts.

~~~
rcoder
I actually think this is a key point: the Linux kernel only provides a small
fraction of the utility a Linux user derives from the system as a whole. The
work that Canonical does to insure that Ubuntu releases are stable, supported,
and documented pays much higher dividends to most users, and does more to
attract new users.

Attacking Canonical for not contributing enough to the kernel sounds to me a
lot like attacking the members of local Linux user groups for not including
enough core kernel hackers in their membership.

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rgrieselhuber
In my opinion, Ubuntu is doing a much better job of "helping linux" than any
of the other vendors because they've managed to attract something approaching
"mainstream" users.

