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Most of it made sense until: But if we want to get beyond being a platform for hobbyists, we need to accelerate the work on Unity to keep up with

Most of it made sense until: But if we want to get beyond being a platform for hobbyists, we need to accelerate the work on Unity to keep up with Android, Chrome, Windows and Apple. And that’s more important than taking care of the needs of those who don’t share our goal of a free software norm. Who is he talking about there? Aren't many of the complaints coming from people who are thinking that Ubuntu's heading towards a less free(dom) direction?

zalew 14y ago
Probably about those dissatisfied that Canonical develops its own DE (and now its own X replacement) instead of developing on top of what's out there and with the rest of the community. They just don't wait for the rest and do what they feel is appropriate for the popularity of Ubuntu (and therefore Linux). If one likes it or not basically depends on one's political stance on this issue.
- mich41 14y ago
  > They just don't wait for the rest and do what they feel is appropriate for the popularity of Ubuntu (and therefore Linux) The word "Linux" doesn't even appear anywhere on their home page [1] or "About Ubuntu" page [2]. "GNU" probably never did and "free" appears only in the "cheaper than Windows" context. Nowadays Canonical basically takes a bunch of community and FSF projects, patches them internally to their liking and ships with custom frontend without giving much credit to the original authors. "Developed by the amazing Ubuntu community of open source experts". They are as much about promotion of Linux and FOSS as Apple is about promotion of BSD Unix. Please stop spreading disinformation. [1] http://www.ubuntu.com/ http://www.ubuntu.com/ [2] http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
  - zalew 14y ago
    > They are as much about promotion of Linux and FOSS as Apple is about promotion of BSD Unix. strawman. I said popularity, not promotion. > Canonical basically takes a bunch of community and FSF projects, patches them internally to their liking and ships with custom just like most devs take a bunch of opensource projects, customize them, and ship them to their customers, only for money? that's the nature of the license - other people can use it these ways. it's annoying when bypassers are more concerned and noisy about this than said parties. > Please stop spreading disinformation. as I said, it's political. let's agree to disagree. sent from my debian.
wmf 14y ago
I think he's talking about the "I have Ubuntu set up in some obscure configuration exactly the way I like it, now please never break anything" people. The "leet" users. For every leet hacker he sacrifices, Shuttleworth is expecting to gain 10 normal users.
- gph 14y ago
  Heh, I fall somewhere into that group in that I think Unity is terrible. That said, I do basically agree with most everything that he says in the article. No one is ever going to get exactly what they want in a project as large as Ubuntu. That's why there's Mint :D Time will tell whether the Unity gamble was worth it. Personally I don't think they will be able to keep up with Apple/Android/Microsoft in Mobile, but I thought those companies were leaving a bit of a void in the PC power user field that Ubuntu could have run wild in. We'll see if he's right, but I think ubuntu will only ever grab the 'hobbyists' in the mobile market, his dreams of major market-share across PC/mobile/tablet are pipe-dreams IMO. And for each person like me that moves on, I just don't see there being 10 others that will now fill in behind me.

zalew 14y ago

Probably about those dissatisfied that Canonical develops its own DE (and now its own X replacement) instead of developing on top of what's out there and with the rest of the community. They just don't wait for the rest and do what they feel is appropriate for the popularity of Ubuntu (and therefore Linux). If one likes it or not basically depends on one's political stance on this issue.

mich41 14y ago
> They just don't wait for the rest and do what they feel is appropriate for the popularity of Ubuntu (and therefore Linux) The word "Linux" doesn't even appear anywhere on their home page [1] or "About Ubuntu" page [2]. "GNU" probably never did and "free" appears only in the "cheaper than Windows" context. Nowadays Canonical basically takes a bunch of community and FSF projects, patches them internally to their liking and ships with custom frontend without giving much credit to the original authors. "Developed by the amazing Ubuntu community of open source experts". They are as much about promotion of Linux and FOSS as Apple is about promotion of BSD Unix. Please stop spreading disinformation. [1] http://www.ubuntu.com/ http://www.ubuntu.com/ [2] http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
- zalew 14y ago
  > They are as much about promotion of Linux and FOSS as Apple is about promotion of BSD Unix. strawman. I said popularity, not promotion. > Canonical basically takes a bunch of community and FSF projects, patches them internally to their liking and ships with custom just like most devs take a bunch of opensource projects, customize them, and ship them to their customers, only for money? that's the nature of the license - other people can use it these ways. it's annoying when bypassers are more concerned and noisy about this than said parties. > Please stop spreading disinformation. as I said, it's political. let's agree to disagree. sent from my debian.

wmf 14y ago

I think he's talking about the "I have Ubuntu set up in some obscure configuration exactly the way I like it, now please never break anything" people. The "leet" users. For every leet hacker he sacrifices, Shuttleworth is expecting to gain 10 normal users.

gph 14y ago
Heh, I fall somewhere into that group in that I think Unity is terrible. That said, I do basically agree with most everything that he says in the article. No one is ever going to get exactly what they want in a project as large as Ubuntu. That's why there's Mint :D Time will tell whether the Unity gamble was worth it. Personally I don't think they will be able to keep up with Apple/Android/Microsoft in Mobile, but I thought those companies were leaving a bit of a void in the PC power user field that Ubuntu could have run wild in. We'll see if he's right, but I think ubuntu will only ever grab the 'hobbyists' in the mobile market, his dreams of major market-share across PC/mobile/tablet are pipe-dreams IMO. And for each person like me that moves on, I just don't see there being 10 others that will now fill in behind me.