6 ms·

Mark Shuttleworth's big mistake

29 points by ayi 14y ago

acabal 14y ago
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.
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  Windows does have milestone based releases - 2K, XP, Vista, 7, 8 etc. What Microsoft has done has been to put considerable effort into backwards compatibility which is why you can just install most software (but not for example device drivers). This effort is extremely costly but is a necessity in the Windows world. If you upgrade Windows and apps stop working, do you blame Windows or the apps? Contrast with MacOS. The developers of many Linux apps do not themselves ensure compatibility with older versions of various libraries - step 1 in reporting bugs tends to be reproduce with the latest version of everything. Having the distro engineers do this work would be hard. Just having multiple versions of the libraries isn't sufficent - for example it would be necessary to ensure they use the same settings - and when libraries use other libraries the version combinations get extreme. Some examples of just how far Microsoft goes: * http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/12/23/45481.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/12/23/45481... * http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2010/01/21/9951193.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2010/01/21/99511... The Apple model of requiring app developers to keep pace requires a lot less effort from the distro vendor.
  - acabal 14y ago
    Yeah but Windows releases are years apart, not 6 months apart. With Windows a big help towards easing the backwards-compatibility burden is having DLLs shipped with the program. That way a program knows it can depend on whatever specific version of the library it needs, and thus can be decoupled from the system-wide update process. This shifts responsibility for stuff like security, but it's a tradeoff. Gobo Linux has taken some good steps towards doing something like this; as I understand it, apps are installed without any system-wide dependencies, so you can have different versions of the same app at the same time, regardless of the overall system configuration. Sadly I think Gobo Linux is abandoned, but the concept was a great step forward. Regardless of how hard it is to accomplish what Windows has done, I think it's essential for an OS if it truly wants to be in the big leagues. (OSX gets a special pass because they control their own hardware, which moots almost the entire point I'm making.) The concept of "upgrade one thing, upgrade everything" is a relic and pretty much the shot in the head for a distro that wants to usable by humans without crazy regressions every 6 months.
    - meaty 14y ago
      +1. In these modern days of huge amounts of memory, this is exactly what we should be doing: static linking everything.
      - rogerbinns 14y ago
        Static linking still doesn't help that much with version issues. For example how do you deal with other changes? One example is the Gnome world has gone from gconf to dconf. If you have private library versions then you'll get apps randomly picking settings in random ways, system files (eg nsswitch, trusted ssl cas), clipboard formats etc. (Arguably this does still happen to some degree but at least attempts are made to curtail it.) The one other approach which works for some is not using milestones at all - just keep everything rolling. This is actually a far better match for how much of the upstream software actually works, and some distros have had some success (eg gentoo). You see rolling releases proposed every now and then (eg for Suse).
- fafner 14y ago
  > 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.
  - AnthonBerg 14y ago
    "Use LTS" is fine in theory, but doesn't work in practice. The 2010 LTS has ceased to be useful (for me), and the 2012 LTS is buggy and unpolished. I see a false dichotomy - the normal releases could simply be more stable. Quite easily too, e.g. by not messing up the Debian way of doing things in many places.
  - acabal 14y ago
    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!
- meaty 14y ago
  I agree absolutely 100%. However that "pretty tall order" is Debian stable. I've been using it since 1998 (hamm) and it hits the nail on the head every time. I have a machine which has had the same install for nearly 10 years and has survived many a dist-upgrade. What pisses me off about Ubuntu: Absolutely no input allowed from the community - suck it up and piss off. Launchpad which is basically a desert of no action. All the cloud upselling. Amazon integration. Fracturing the entire ecosystem by forcing stuff on people which is ubuntu specific (unity, upstart, bazaar etc). LTS releases which are flakier than a ZX81. Slooooooow (everything happens on glacial timescales). I could go on for a week but I can't be bothered.
- SeppoErviala 14y ago
  The real problem with Amazon-lense is that it provides lots of irrelevant search results. I cannot remember the last time I paid for single album. It's all about subscription services now. I do like that they are experimenting with integrating the desktop to internet services. The only thing that keeps me from disabling web services is the integration with google docs and ability to open them from Dash. The sad part is that there is no obvious way to only disable Amazon, you also lose the docs.
rogerbinns 14y ago
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 14y ago
  I've been hearing good things about Elementary: http://elementaryos.org/discover http://elementaryos.org/discover
  - levesque 14y ago
    Interesting design decisions although a lot seem to be simply based on OSX. However the user experience is lacking - it is very buggy.
  - elteto 14y ago
    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.
- sek 14y ago
  Ubuntu is since almost 8 years the only relevant third option for operating systems for PC's. That is huge and more and more software is written for Windows, OSX and Linux (Chrome/Spotify/Steam). They are pretty persistent in my opinion. Windows 8 will also alienate a lot of users, even if it is going to be a success. Shuttleworth has always the chance to go public and raise a lot of money, but he didn't so far. He will when there is a opportunity window in the enterprise or consumer space. It's not incredible right now, but they are doing fine i guess.
powertower 14y ago
Years ago I used to blog about Ubuntu (http://www.devside.net/blog/category/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_think_anyone_can_make_money_from_the_linux_desktop http://blogs.computerworld.com/ubuntus_shuttleworth_i_dont_t...
- mseepgood 14y ago
  So by "selling sevices" he meant selling his community to Amazon.
  - powertower 14y ago
    That's an intersting way of looking at it.
  - elteto 14y ago
    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 14y ago
      I think you misunderstood. Anyone who sells advertising space sells their audience to the advertiser. Simple as that.
skriticos2 14y ago
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 14y ago
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.

29 points by ayi 14y ago

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.

rogerbinns 14y ago
Windows does have milestone based releases - 2K, XP, Vista, 7, 8 etc. What Microsoft has done has been to put considerable effort into backwards compatibility which is why you can just install most software (but not for example device drivers). This effort is extremely costly but is a necessity in the Windows world. If you upgrade Windows and apps stop working, do you blame Windows or the apps? Contrast with MacOS. The developers of many Linux apps do not themselves ensure compatibility with older versions of various libraries - step 1 in reporting bugs tends to be reproduce with the latest version of everything. Having the distro engineers do this work would be hard. Just having multiple versions of the libraries isn't sufficent - for example it would be necessary to ensure they use the same settings - and when libraries use other libraries the version combinations get extreme. Some examples of just how far Microsoft goes: * http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/12/23/45481.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/12/23/45481... * http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2010/01/21/9951193.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2010/01/21/99511... The Apple model of requiring app developers to keep pace requires a lot less effort from the distro vendor.
- acabal 14y ago
  Yeah but Windows releases are years apart, not 6 months apart. With Windows a big help towards easing the backwards-compatibility burden is having DLLs shipped with the program. That way a program knows it can depend on whatever specific version of the library it needs, and thus can be decoupled from the system-wide update process. This shifts responsibility for stuff like security, but it's a tradeoff. Gobo Linux has taken some good steps towards doing something like this; as I understand it, apps are installed without any system-wide dependencies, so you can have different versions of the same app at the same time, regardless of the overall system configuration. Sadly I think Gobo Linux is abandoned, but the concept was a great step forward. Regardless of how hard it is to accomplish what Windows has done, I think it's essential for an OS if it truly wants to be in the big leagues. (OSX gets a special pass because they control their own hardware, which moots almost the entire point I'm making.) The concept of "upgrade one thing, upgrade everything" is a relic and pretty much the shot in the head for a distro that wants to usable by humans without crazy regressions every 6 months.
  - meaty 14y ago
    +1. In these modern days of huge amounts of memory, this is exactly what we should be doing: static linking everything.
    - rogerbinns 14y ago
      Static linking still doesn't help that much with version issues. For example how do you deal with other changes? One example is the Gnome world has gone from gconf to dconf. If you have private library versions then you'll get apps randomly picking settings in random ways, system files (eg nsswitch, trusted ssl cas), clipboard formats etc. (Arguably this does still happen to some degree but at least attempts are made to curtail it.) The one other approach which works for some is not using milestones at all - just keep everything rolling. This is actually a far better match for how much of the upstream software actually works, and some distros have had some success (eg gentoo). You see rolling releases proposed every now and then (eg for Suse).
fafner 14y ago
> 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.
- AnthonBerg 14y ago
  "Use LTS" is fine in theory, but doesn't work in practice. The 2010 LTS has ceased to be useful (for me), and the 2012 LTS is buggy and unpolished. I see a false dichotomy - the normal releases could simply be more stable. Quite easily too, e.g. by not messing up the Debian way of doing things in many places.
- acabal 14y ago
  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!
meaty 14y ago
I agree absolutely 100%. However that "pretty tall order" is Debian stable. I've been using it since 1998 (hamm) and it hits the nail on the head every time. I have a machine which has had the same install for nearly 10 years and has survived many a dist-upgrade. What pisses me off about Ubuntu: Absolutely no input allowed from the community - suck it up and piss off. Launchpad which is basically a desert of no action. All the cloud upselling. Amazon integration. Fracturing the entire ecosystem by forcing stuff on people which is ubuntu specific (unity, upstart, bazaar etc). LTS releases which are flakier than a ZX81. Slooooooow (everything happens on glacial timescales). I could go on for a week but I can't be bothered.
SeppoErviala 14y ago
The real problem with Amazon-lense is that it provides lots of irrelevant search results. I cannot remember the last time I paid for single album. It's all about subscription services now. I do like that they are experimenting with integrating the desktop to internet services. The only thing that keeps me from disabling web services is the integration with google docs and ability to open them from Dash. The sad part is that there is no obvious way to only disable Amazon, you also lose the docs.

rogerbinns 14y ago

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 14y ago
I've been hearing good things about Elementary: http://elementaryos.org/discover http://elementaryos.org/discover
- levesque 14y ago
  Interesting design decisions although a lot seem to be simply based on OSX. However the user experience is lacking - it is very buggy.
- elteto 14y ago
  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.
sek 14y ago
Ubuntu is since almost 8 years the only relevant third option for operating systems for PC's. That is huge and more and more software is written for Windows, OSX and Linux (Chrome/Spotify/Steam). They are pretty persistent in my opinion. Windows 8 will also alienate a lot of users, even if it is going to be a success. Shuttleworth has always the chance to go public and raise a lot of money, but he didn't so far. He will when there is a opportunity window in the enterprise or consumer space. It's not incredible right now, but they are doing fine i guess.

powertower 14y ago

Years ago I used to blog about Ubuntu (http://www.devside.net/blog/category/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_think_anyone_can_make_money_from_the_linux_desktop http://blogs.computerworld.com/ubuntus_shuttleworth_i_dont_t...

mseepgood 14y ago
So by "selling sevices" he meant selling his community to Amazon.
- powertower 14y ago
  That's an intersting way of looking at it.
- elteto 14y ago
  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 14y ago
    I think you misunderstood. Anyone who sells advertising space sells their audience to the advertiser. Simple as that.

skriticos2 14y ago

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 14y ago

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.