9 ms·

I agree: Canonical should make it easier for developers to strip the company's trademarks when forking their applications. Canonical's relationship with the re

by pnt12 11y ago

I agree: Canonical should make it easier for developers to strip the company's trademarks when forking their applications. Canonical's relationship with the rest of the FOSS community always seemed a bit screwed up to me. They try to make Ubuntu the best Linux distro while ignoring what all the other ones are doing. All other distros seem much more friendly towards integration between projects, to benefit from the shared work, while Ubuntu most of the time paves its own way - there's a lot of Ubuntu only software, such as Unity, Mir, etc. that you just dont see in other distros.

netheril96 11y ago
Correct me if I am wrong, but to my understanding, both Unity and Mir are open source, and nothing stops other distros from adopting it.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  They are open-source, but they only really work on Ubuntu. Upstart is another example, and it's part of why other Ubuntu-specific things won't work on other distros. Other distros could try to port Ubuntu projects, but why would Canonical accept their patches upstream?
  - rmc 11y ago
    I believe ubuntu is going to change from upstart to systemd soon?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - reddotX 11y ago
      ubuntu is using systemd since 15.04
  - spaceSub 11y ago
    Actually the systemd guys looked at upstart for redhat in the beginning, but choose to rewrite it anyway. That had nothing to do with the Canonical entanglement though. Though I dislike Unity and Mir, I think RedHats understanding of "Open" Source is a lot more disturbing.. https://lwn.net/Articles/432012 https://lwn.net/Articles/432012
    - swills 11y ago
      RHEL 6 (and CentOS 6 by extension) use Upstart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart#Adoption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart#Adoption Not that I disagree with your comments on Red Hat, but let's get our facts right.
      - bkor 11y ago
        RHEL6 starts upstarts, but doesn't make use of any of the functionality. Everything is sysvinit scripts and zero (upstart) jobs. I was administrating a few RHEL6 machines and had to read elsewhere about the change to even notice it. The person you responded to is correct though; a large factor in starting systemd was the CLA of Upstart. Above even highlights this; you cannot really say that RHEL6 used upstart in any way.
        swills 11y ago
        I guess it depends on how you look at it. It uses upstart to start all the sysvinit scripts, no? I know you can create upstart jobs and they'll get started, I've done that. But you're right, it doesn't make "real" use of upstart, in a sense.
    - jerven 11y ago
      That had everything to do with Canonical entanglement. Canonical would only accept patches to upstart with a contributor agreement allowing Canonical relicensing rights. This made it very difficult for outside contributors to work on upstart (especially redhat funded ones) and that led to resources being made available for investigating what would become systemd and friends.
    - deleted 11y ago
- thiagoharry 11y ago
  Unity for example, needs a forked glib to be compiled and work. And only Ubuntu uses this forked glib. I don't know about Mir.
  - mdeslaur 11y ago
    I don't see any Unity-specific patches in the glib package in Ubuntu. What are you referring to?
- creshal 11y ago
  They're open source, but they rely on so much ubuntu-specific infrastructure and patches that it's infeasible to get them running anywhere else. Cf. the effort necessary to get Unity running on Arch: https://github.com/chenxiaolong/Unity-for-Arch https://github.com/chenxiaolong/Unity-for-Arch You have to rip out and replace a lot of software, all the way down to GTK itself, just to make it work.
  - vacri 11y ago
    Sounds like Redhat's systemd: "if you want to run it, you have to replace most everything."
    - creshal 11y ago
      Init systems are, by nature, highly invasive. Systemd's requirements don't fundamentally differ from modern sysvinit derivatives or upstart or whatnot in that regard. Unity, on the other hand, is a bloody desktop environment. You can install dozens of those (or could, if there were that many) in parallel without any modifications… with the sole exception of Unity.
      - vacri 11y ago
        Systemd replaces a lot more of the system than other init systems - for example, it has it's own journal format, and also has it's own time tools. Other init systems don't. You can't just drop systemd in and get by just with learning it's config language - you have to change the way you do a number of other things, too. But then again, you don't think that there are dozens of desktop environments. Arch supports nearly two dozen by itself (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Desktop_environment https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Desktop_environment), and that list doesn't include things like fvwm, or tiling desktops like xmonad or i3. Edit: To clarify, the point being made is "if you have to modify a bunch of stuff, then the software is not free". Systemd requires a lot of modifications - it's not a 'drop in' replacement. Using the same argument, systemd is 'not free'. It doesn't matter how 'invasive' the component is, the argument is about modification effort. I think the argument is wrong - Canonical patches a lot of things for Unity, but those patches are publicly available and are not done to obfuscate the code. Basically the argument here is that no-one should be allowed to publish free software if it can't be simply dropped into $RANDOM_YAHOO's system.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Too many horizontal dependencies on other Ubuntu stuff. Ubuntu should learn how to properly define interfaces and stack stuff vertically rather than to make ties willy-nilly with other Ubuntu specific stuff.
- rms_returns 11y ago
  The spirit of free-software has died now, it no longer has the spark that did during the time of Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds. As a result, rather than working towards a united goal of empowering users with the power of FOSS tools, we started having these ego battles of "mine vs your distro", "gnome vs unity", "systemd vs upstart", etc. Its true that Linux has choice and FOSS is all about having choice. But that has gained quite a negative reputation now. Earlier, choice meant: "If you need more features, use X package instead of Y". Now it means: "Since I have got choice, I'll keep switching my distro every couple years, and since I'm a unity fanatic, why should I keep it compatible with other distros? Everyone should use unity and ubuntu." Unity and Mir are no doubt open-source, but if you build a automobile engine that fits ONLY to your car and call that engine open-source, what use is it!
  - kspaans 11y ago
    You mean GNU/Linux. Where is RMS and what have you done with him!?
delonia 11y ago
That's repeated all too often and it gets stuck into the mind of people. But is it actually true? Ubuntu is still heavily based on Debian and still reuses most of the packages. There has been a gradual move towards systemd and systemd is default in Ubuntu 15.10. To me, mjg59 comes out as a bitter person. He used to work for Canonical in the early days of Ubuntu. He shared the vision for a usable open-source desktop. Then came the new GNOME 3 and the particular way that GNOME development works. It was not workable to offer to the users a stable and distinct user experience. So, Unity was created and all hell broke loose. Now, when Mark farts, they scream "Terrorist gas attack!". A couple of days ago there was some open-source appreciation day by the Ubuntu community and it looks very suspicious that mjg95 coincided his rant with this. I think the previous rant was also coinciding with some similar positive Ubuntu announcement. It looks even more difficult to get an open-source desktop. mjg59's attitude is like "if it is not ours, let's f* their efforts anyway".
- greyman 11y ago
  I don't see it as a rant. He criticized Ubuntu for unwillingness to clarify the trademark issue. Correct me if I am wrong, but how I understood the article, what Canonical did was to take Debian sources licensed under GPL, created a product based on it, but now if anyone wants to do binary redistribution of their product [the right GPL license assures], they could be sued for trademark infringement. So in practice they made it non-free software [free as in Stallman definition of free].
  - delonia 11y ago
    The GPL says that the software is "as is", no warranty of any kind. Similarly, I could scream to have the developers to perform some testing and provide a bit of warranty. With Ubuntu and any other software, you get the source and it is up to you to deal with the replacement of any trademark strings. What packages are included in Ubuntu, changes all the time and the code changes as well. How can a policy document be explicit when there is no infrastructure yet in place to deal with those code changes? CentOS was in this same position and they did the work without bitching to Redhat.
pjmlp 11y ago
My first GNU/Linux experience was with Slackware 2.0 and I already knew Xenix, DG/UX and Aix by then. Since then I have tried all major distributions. SuSE before it went enterprise, Mandrake before it lost support were the only real alternatives to Ubuntu in terms of consumer desktop experience. Nowadays I only care it works as it is supposed to be, as I don't have the patience any longer to fiddle with configurations, and even Ubuntu has its own quirks that lead to weekend projects. EDIT: Extra words due to copy-paste.
- baldfat 11y ago
  When I read this it actually screamed OpenSUSE is a great alternative. I seriously can't see any other Distro going out of its way to be easily distributed OS with the https://susestudio.com/ https://susestudio.com/ and https://build.opensuse.org https://build.opensuse.org for packages for SUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc...
  - akerro 11y ago
    oS is really good, I think it gets too little attention and upvotes than it should. Their YaST system is really good and completely replaces Windows control panel, they provide support for old-packages, openSUSE search panel is something what most distributions need, so far I saw it deployed only for ArchLinux successfully.
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    My last SuSE was 6.3. How is the overall OpenSuSE experience nowadays? Since I spend most of my time on Windows anyway, I ended up settling with Ubuntu for my netbook and VMs.
    - baldfat 11y ago
      I really couldn't be happier with a Distro. It is super stable and easy to upgrade. This computer at work has been over 5 years of just sudo zypper dup after a one line command to rename the repos. The ability to install packages with https://build.opensuse.org https://build.opensuse.org is such a better system than ppa. For the last three years I use i3 (Tiled Window Manager) and works great on in VM at my Windows machines. Still sad to see so many people left due to the Microsoft deal and haven't come back to give it a try again. EDIT: If you use a command line package manager zypper is best in class. Fedora actually incorporated zypper features and code into its yum replacement.
Arnt 11y ago
Could Canonical do that, realistically? Canonical's primary goal is to produce Ubuntu distributions. Given that, even if Canonical were to try and collect their trademarks into one, three or nine packages, _their_ distribution will not break when there's a bug. And bugs do happen. IMO, the best that Canonical can _realistically_ do is to provide a list of trademarks and to not obfuscate trademarks. No funny escaping just to evade grep. Doing more would be nice, but anyone who forks has to search-and-replace anyway.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
I'm not sure why you think this is a bad thing. Canonical is a corollary to Apple in the Linux world. They set their own agenda with limited cooperation. The FOSS obsession with "community" and "integration" is myopic and abhorrent. As if everyone must converge on one approach, one vanguard. There are scantly any problem domains where only one solution applies. Now, Canonical keeping to themselves has a very crucial advantage: they leave everyone else alone. They stay in their corner, they don't bother, they don't intervene. They don't start a massive integration effort to drag everyone else in every time they devise something new. We should be commending Canonical for this.
- mannykannot 11y ago
  >I'm not sure why you think this is a bad thing. Canonical is a corollary to Apple in the Linux world. That is why I watch its progress with a certain degree of suspicion (disclaimer: I am a user of Apple and Canonical products.)
- hohenheim 11y ago
  Canonical's contribution is welcomed as long as people could continue it without getting blocked by their IP. There is no obsession over "community" or "integration" as you stated. It is a valid concern that if others can not contribute freely, we are killing the essential of what made Ubuntu possible.
- weland 11y ago
  > Now, Canonical keeping to themselves has a very crucial advantage: they leave everyone else alone. They stay in their corner, they don't bother, they don't intervene I certainly get why it would be in their interest to not have much collaboration. But if that's a problem for them, they should not have based their business around GPLd products. All these problems could very easily go away if Ubuntu were a FreeBSD distribution, not a Linux one. This "stay in their corner, don't bother, don't intervene" does bother developers who increasingly have to code for Windows, OS X, Linux and, separately, Ubuntu. It's very unpleasant, and they're getting a lot of hate because users are suffering just because Canonical's business plan was shit.
- 11y ago

by pnt12 11y ago

netheril96 11y ago

Correct me if I am wrong, but to my understanding, both Unity and Mir are open source, and nothing stops other distros from adopting it.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
They are open-source, but they only really work on Ubuntu. Upstart is another example, and it's part of why other Ubuntu-specific things won't work on other distros. Other distros could try to port Ubuntu projects, but why would Canonical accept their patches upstream?
- rmc 11y ago
  I believe ubuntu is going to change from upstart to systemd soon?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - reddotX 11y ago
    ubuntu is using systemd since 15.04
- spaceSub 11y ago
  Actually the systemd guys looked at upstart for redhat in the beginning, but choose to rewrite it anyway. That had nothing to do with the Canonical entanglement though. Though I dislike Unity and Mir, I think RedHats understanding of "Open" Source is a lot more disturbing.. https://lwn.net/Articles/432012 https://lwn.net/Articles/432012
  - swills 11y ago
    RHEL 6 (and CentOS 6 by extension) use Upstart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart#Adoption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart#Adoption Not that I disagree with your comments on Red Hat, but let's get our facts right.
    - bkor 11y ago
      RHEL6 starts upstarts, but doesn't make use of any of the functionality. Everything is sysvinit scripts and zero (upstart) jobs. I was administrating a few RHEL6 machines and had to read elsewhere about the change to even notice it. The person you responded to is correct though; a large factor in starting systemd was the CLA of Upstart. Above even highlights this; you cannot really say that RHEL6 used upstart in any way.
      - swills 11y ago
        I guess it depends on how you look at it. It uses upstart to start all the sysvinit scripts, no? I know you can create upstart jobs and they'll get started, I've done that. But you're right, it doesn't make "real" use of upstart, in a sense.
  - jerven 11y ago
    That had everything to do with Canonical entanglement. Canonical would only accept patches to upstart with a contributor agreement allowing Canonical relicensing rights. This made it very difficult for outside contributors to work on upstart (especially redhat funded ones) and that led to resources being made available for investigating what would become systemd and friends.
  - deleted 11y ago
thiagoharry 11y ago
Unity for example, needs a forked glib to be compiled and work. And only Ubuntu uses this forked glib. I don't know about Mir.
- mdeslaur 11y ago
  I don't see any Unity-specific patches in the glib package in Ubuntu. What are you referring to?
creshal 11y ago
They're open source, but they rely on so much ubuntu-specific infrastructure and patches that it's infeasible to get them running anywhere else. Cf. the effort necessary to get Unity running on Arch: https://github.com/chenxiaolong/Unity-for-Arch https://github.com/chenxiaolong/Unity-for-Arch You have to rip out and replace a lot of software, all the way down to GTK itself, just to make it work.
- vacri 11y ago
  Sounds like Redhat's systemd: "if you want to run it, you have to replace most everything."
  - creshal 11y ago
    Init systems are, by nature, highly invasive. Systemd's requirements don't fundamentally differ from modern sysvinit derivatives or upstart or whatnot in that regard. Unity, on the other hand, is a bloody desktop environment. You can install dozens of those (or could, if there were that many) in parallel without any modifications… with the sole exception of Unity.
    - vacri 11y ago
      Systemd replaces a lot more of the system than other init systems - for example, it has it's own journal format, and also has it's own time tools. Other init systems don't. You can't just drop systemd in and get by just with learning it's config language - you have to change the way you do a number of other things, too. But then again, you don't think that there are dozens of desktop environments. Arch supports nearly two dozen by itself (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Desktop_environment https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Desktop_environment), and that list doesn't include things like fvwm, or tiling desktops like xmonad or i3. Edit: To clarify, the point being made is "if you have to modify a bunch of stuff, then the software is not free". Systemd requires a lot of modifications - it's not a 'drop in' replacement. Using the same argument, systemd is 'not free'. It doesn't matter how 'invasive' the component is, the argument is about modification effort. I think the argument is wrong - Canonical patches a lot of things for Unity, but those patches are publicly available and are not done to obfuscate the code. Basically the argument here is that no-one should be allowed to publish free software if it can't be simply dropped into $RANDOM_YAHOO's system.
jacquesm 11y ago
Too many horizontal dependencies on other Ubuntu stuff. Ubuntu should learn how to properly define interfaces and stack stuff vertically rather than to make ties willy-nilly with other Ubuntu specific stuff.
rms_returns 11y ago
The spirit of free-software has died now, it no longer has the spark that did during the time of Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds. As a result, rather than working towards a united goal of empowering users with the power of FOSS tools, we started having these ego battles of "mine vs your distro", "gnome vs unity", "systemd vs upstart", etc. Its true that Linux has choice and FOSS is all about having choice. But that has gained quite a negative reputation now. Earlier, choice meant: "If you need more features, use X package instead of Y". Now it means: "Since I have got choice, I'll keep switching my distro every couple years, and since I'm a unity fanatic, why should I keep it compatible with other distros? Everyone should use unity and ubuntu." Unity and Mir are no doubt open-source, but if you build a automobile engine that fits ONLY to your car and call that engine open-source, what use is it!
- kspaans 11y ago
  You mean GNU/Linux. Where is RMS and what have you done with him!?

delonia 11y ago

That's repeated all too often and it gets stuck into the mind of people. But is it actually true? Ubuntu is still heavily based on Debian and still reuses most of the packages. There has been a gradual move towards systemd and systemd is default in Ubuntu 15.10. To me, mjg59 comes out as a bitter person. He used to work for Canonical in the early days of Ubuntu. He shared the vision for a usable open-source desktop. Then came the new GNOME 3 and the particular way that GNOME development works. It was not workable to offer to the users a stable and distinct user experience. So, Unity was created and all hell broke loose. Now, when Mark farts, they scream "Terrorist gas attack!". A couple of days ago there was some open-source appreciation day by the Ubuntu community and it looks very suspicious that mjg95 coincided his rant with this. I think the previous rant was also coinciding with some similar positive Ubuntu announcement. It looks even more difficult to get an open-source desktop. mjg59's attitude is like "if it is not ours, let's f* their efforts anyway".

greyman 11y ago
I don't see it as a rant. He criticized Ubuntu for unwillingness to clarify the trademark issue. Correct me if I am wrong, but how I understood the article, what Canonical did was to take Debian sources licensed under GPL, created a product based on it, but now if anyone wants to do binary redistribution of their product [the right GPL license assures], they could be sued for trademark infringement. So in practice they made it non-free software [free as in Stallman definition of free].
- delonia 11y ago
  The GPL says that the software is "as is", no warranty of any kind. Similarly, I could scream to have the developers to perform some testing and provide a bit of warranty. With Ubuntu and any other software, you get the source and it is up to you to deal with the replacement of any trademark strings. What packages are included in Ubuntu, changes all the time and the code changes as well. How can a policy document be explicit when there is no infrastructure yet in place to deal with those code changes? CentOS was in this same position and they did the work without bitching to Redhat.

pjmlp 11y ago

My first GNU/Linux experience was with Slackware 2.0 and I already knew Xenix, DG/UX and Aix by then. Since then I have tried all major distributions. SuSE before it went enterprise, Mandrake before it lost support were the only real alternatives to Ubuntu in terms of consumer desktop experience. Nowadays I only care it works as it is supposed to be, as I don't have the patience any longer to fiddle with configurations, and even Ubuntu has its own quirks that lead to weekend projects. EDIT: Extra words due to copy-paste.

baldfat 11y ago
When I read this it actually screamed OpenSUSE is a great alternative. I seriously can't see any other Distro going out of its way to be easily distributed OS with the https://susestudio.com/ https://susestudio.com/ and https://build.opensuse.org https://build.opensuse.org for packages for SUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc...
- akerro 11y ago
  oS is really good, I think it gets too little attention and upvotes than it should. Their YaST system is really good and completely replaces Windows control panel, they provide support for old-packages, openSUSE search panel is something what most distributions need, so far I saw it deployed only for ArchLinux successfully.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  My last SuSE was 6.3. How is the overall OpenSuSE experience nowadays? Since I spend most of my time on Windows anyway, I ended up settling with Ubuntu for my netbook and VMs.
  - baldfat 11y ago
    I really couldn't be happier with a Distro. It is super stable and easy to upgrade. This computer at work has been over 5 years of just sudo zypper dup after a one line command to rename the repos. The ability to install packages with https://build.opensuse.org https://build.opensuse.org is such a better system than ppa. For the last three years I use i3 (Tiled Window Manager) and works great on in VM at my Windows machines. Still sad to see so many people left due to the Microsoft deal and haven't come back to give it a try again. EDIT: If you use a command line package manager zypper is best in class. Fedora actually incorporated zypper features and code into its yum replacement.

Arnt 11y ago

Could Canonical do that, realistically? Canonical's primary goal is to produce Ubuntu distributions. Given that, even if Canonical were to try and collect their trademarks into one, three or nine packages, _their_ distribution will not break when there's a bug. And bugs do happen. IMO, the best that Canonical can _realistically_ do is to provide a list of trademarks and to not obfuscate trademarks. No funny escaping just to evade grep. Doing more would be nice, but anyone who forks has to search-and-replace anyway.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

I'm not sure why you think this is a bad thing. Canonical is a corollary to Apple in the Linux world. They set their own agenda with limited cooperation. The FOSS obsession with "community" and "integration" is myopic and abhorrent. As if everyone must converge on one approach, one vanguard. There are scantly any problem domains where only one solution applies. Now, Canonical keeping to themselves has a very crucial advantage: they leave everyone else alone. They stay in their corner, they don't bother, they don't intervene. They don't start a massive integration effort to drag everyone else in every time they devise something new. We should be commending Canonical for this.

mannykannot 11y ago
>I'm not sure why you think this is a bad thing. Canonical is a corollary to Apple in the Linux world. That is why I watch its progress with a certain degree of suspicion (disclaimer: I am a user of Apple and Canonical products.)
hohenheim 11y ago
Canonical's contribution is welcomed as long as people could continue it without getting blocked by their IP. There is no obsession over "community" or "integration" as you stated. It is a valid concern that if others can not contribute freely, we are killing the essential of what made Ubuntu possible.
weland 11y ago
> Now, Canonical keeping to themselves has a very crucial advantage: they leave everyone else alone. They stay in their corner, they don't bother, they don't intervene I certainly get why it would be in their interest to not have much collaboration. But if that's a problem for them, they should not have based their business around GPLd products. All these problems could very easily go away if Ubuntu were a FreeBSD distribution, not a Linux one. This "stay in their corner, don't bother, don't intervene" does bother developers who increasingly have to code for Windows, OS X, Linux and, separately, Ubuntu. It's very unpleasant, and they're getting a lot of hate because users are suffering just because Canonical's business plan was shit.
11y ago