[Bradford] Ubuntu

Sun Jul 28 10:27:56 UTC 2013

There's an argument to be made that Ubuntu is successful because it is
*not* Linux (same with ChromeOS).  They've made a deliberate move to not
market Ubuntu as being a Linux product because Linux can be seen as all
command-line and scary.  In 9.10 they went from describing themselves as a
community-driven Linux distro to an operating system built by a worldwide
team of developers.  There was even talk of Canonical switching to an
alternative non-Linux kernel at one point.

Unity and Mir are developed under the Canonical Contributer License
Agreement (CLA) which means the next version of Ubuntu could hypothetically
be released under a very restrictive EULA; like MacOSX - free software
under the hood but a highly restrictive license for the software built on
top of that.  How open the Ubuntu Edge hardware will be is questionable,
and if we don't own the hardware then what use is having open software?

>From a marketing point of view this all makes a lot of sense, but it does
make Canonical seem like one of the scary corporations.  And this generates
a lot of ill feelings from the Linux community.  I asked Mark Shuttleworth
in a forum about why he never uses the word Linux any more, I got downvoted
to hell by the Ubuntu fans.

Regards
Alice

On 28 July 2013 09:49, John R. Hudson <j.r.hudson at virginmedia.com> wrote:

> HI Mohammed
>
> Welcome to the forum.
>
> Mark Shuttleworth must be doing something right as Ubuntu is the most
> successful distribution and, in spite of the popularity of Centos in the
> enterprise, is getting support in enterprises.
>
> Arguments about desktops have been around for 15 years ever since KDE
> was launched; so I don't expect them to disappear. People will always
> have different views about what they need from a desktop.
>
> However, the desktop is no longer the defining factor in choice;
> smartphones and tablets are increasingly likely to take over in the
> personal market - Windows wants to be in on it - hence RT and the
> surface tablets and the tie up with Nokia. It is understandable that
> Mark  Shuttleworth doesn't want to be left behind in that market.
>
> The question with market share is what you want to gain from it. Windows
> has always gone for volume, Apple has gone for what it sees as quality.
> Ubuntu is closer to Windows in the Linux context; so Mark Shuttleworth
> may see failure to gain significant market share as a failure. However,
> both RedHat and SUSE have built around quality in the enterprise and
> server markets and both are very profitable in their markets without any
> need to enter to tablet or smartphone markets.
>
> I am not sure that convergence is the panacea that people think it is -
> or even means the same thing to everyone; KDE, which spotted the way
> things were going long before anyone else, has focused on making it
> easier to use the same underlying software to build a range of different
> interfaces for the different form factors rather than making the visible
> interface the same.
>
> John
> --
> On Sun, 2013-07-28 at 09:09 +0100, Mohammed Djavanroodi wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I'm new here and this is my first submission so please be gentle!
> >
> > Now a little background. I work as a web developer and while at work I
> > have to use Windows, at home I solely use Ubuntu and have done for a
> > while, although I've only recently started using it exclusively. I've
> > been playing around with Linux on and off for the past 10 or so years
> > but I'm by no means l33t!
> >
> > What I really wanted to do was guage people's feelings towards Ubuntu
> > and Canonical.
> >
> > In the community there seems to be a lot of mixed feelings towards the
> > approach and decisions that Canonical are making, from setting unity
> > as their default desktop environment in 11.04 to plans to use mir as
> > their display server in 13.10 onwards to their smart scopes and Amazon
> > search results.
> >
> > And then there's Ubuntu Touch and Ubuntu Edge as well. Basically it
> > would seems Mark Shuttleworth has had a plan all along and now we're
> > starting to see the plan which is convergence.
> >
> > My own personal opinions are mixed. I like Unity now, but that's not
> > always been the case. The Amazon search results was just a complete
> > mistake, and I think IF done right the whole convergence thing looks
> > like it shows promise, although as a traditional laptop users I hope
> > they don't make any compromises!
> >
> > So here are my questions for discussion:
> >
> > 1. What are people's thoughts on Ubuntu?
> >
> > 2. Do you think using Mir will cause fragmentation in Linux?
> >
> > 3. Can Ubuntu touch gain any traction in a market dominated by Android
> > and iOS?
> >
> > 4. Can Ubuntu succeed in convergence where others have compromised too
> > much?
> >
> > I appreciate that this is quite a wide range of different discussions.
> > I also want to open the floor to more general discussions about Ubuntu
> > as well. Some in the Linux community have said that Mark Shuttleworth
> > wants to be the next Steve Jobs... Is that ridiculous?
> >
> > Also Ubuntu is the distro that Steam recommends, with Ubuntu changing
> > to Mir which distro will steam suggest for it's Linux gamers?
> >
> > Apologies this submission is a bit of a brain splurge!
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mo
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Bradford at mailman.lug.org.uk
> > https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/bradford
>
>
>
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