Submitted by “Linux vendor Canonical said it has ‘no interest’ in Linux kernel development. Two weeks ago a Linux Foundation report showed that since version 2.6.32, Microsoft had committed more code to the Linux kernel than Canonical. Since then, Canonical has faced claims from rivals that it does not contribute to Linux as much as it should given its popularity. Recently Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth told The Inquirer that his company has no interest in contributing to the Linux kernel.” Why is this such a bad thing? You can contribute more to open source than code alone. Like, I don’t know, users?
Since I would suspect Canonical is competing against other linux distributions and vendors more than against non-Linux, and most of its wins in users will be from the former and not the latter, its not really a valid argument.
They are not contributing users, they are taking users from other sources that may contribute more and may end up contributing less due to not having the same resources due to the loss of those users.
Awww. I dont think so.
Ubuntu brought users to the linux world wheras other distributions rather shooed them off.
I know people that switched to other distributions and started only because of Ubuntu.
You might not understand it but sometimes people need an “attractor”. There are other good examples as well with other software.
Honestly, its a great starter distro that helps to dive in the world of linux (Well.. im not talking about 11 or 12…).
Ubuntu brought me back to linux, and when I was ready, I moved to Debian proper. So in some cases, they do contribute users. Before that it was Windows and FreeBSD for me.
100 paper cuts project says it all.
After what they pulled or trying to pull with unity im kinda relived hearing this.
Ah well on the other hand: I think its okay. They do contribute in other ways. Not everyone has to fiddle with the kernel. Ubuntu made Linux every day usable to me and to a lot of other people by providing a good software base and a bit GUI stuff (and certainly a lot of other things).
And yes, it brought me to the Linux world. Before Ubuntu i was fiddling from time to time with other distros and wasn^A't too happy with them. Ubuntu was the first distro that made me a long term linux user and im thankful for that.
So do your stuff but hands off the kernel for all i care.
Leeches of open source as usual.
This is not surprising.
He is right in saying so, and it is the right way to do for a company that focuses on UI and user-friendly operating system development.
Linux is just one piece of Ubuntu operating system. Very important, just it is not the focus at Cannonical.
Development of Unity, X.org, related tools – that is more important now for them.
You cannot call Cannonical leech by any measure. They DO contribute, just not in kernel level.
Such damn lies usually come from those companies that left linux desktop for dead – Red Hat, I am looking at you.
Edited 2012-04-20 22:14 UTC
Red had did not leave the desktop for dead. What ever makes you think that it did?
a) They spun off Red Hat (the free, desktop version) to Fedora project. That is user-based testing platform, not for serious use. They don’t do much customization there, just stabilize during the (short) support period and then release that later as commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux product.
b) Everything they do, they do on the server side. Focus on server, on cloud – related tech. Nothing on desktop, nada.
They go where the money is, good for them. Good for us – we get stabilized software downstream, in ubuntu and such. But I wouldn’t touch Fedora on a desktop with a ten yard pole – the first and only Linux distro that went kernel-panic on my hardware was Fedora release.
Actually they do a ton of desktop development. Network manager came out of them, they were one of the ones who were pushing for Pulse audio so much (though I don’t think they originally developed it, I’m sure they started sponsoring the team that did.)
While Red Hat certainly doesn’t show that they’re doing all this desktop work, more of it is infrastructure things. And look at all the virtual machine work they’re doing with Spice and KVM, which quite frankly is the only reason to be getting more than a dual core for your desktop.
Red Hat gets a bad rap for once upon a time saying that the Linux Desktop just isn’t there and that they wanted to concentrate on building a solid foundation for a server operating system. Take a look at how snappy and quick CentOS 6.2 is for a good reference on what Red Hat’s ‘dead’ desktop looks like.
Lennart Poettering is the developer that started the Avahi, PulseAudio, systemd projects I believe and he is employed by RedHat. He also used to be one of the developers of ConsoleKit.
And what about Richard Hughsie (packagekit, colord), or Jon McCann (gnome shell) or Owen Taylor (gnome shell). I could go on and on and on… Redhat has done *more* for the Linux desktop than Canonical has or every will do from a strictly _engineering / code_ standpoint.
No one will disagree with the amount of hype and marketing that Canonical has put into Linux desktops however.
As pulse audio was mentioned I just mentioned that one person because this is all I knew.
I was trying to avoid drawing any comparisons. I’m specifically not saying anything about how much Canonical does or does not contribute, just correcting a statement about RH’s relationship to ‘the desktop’.
I might have agreed with you when that change from RHL to Fedora was happening, but not now. I do use Fedora for serious Desktop use. Its my primary OS at work. I greatly prefer it to any alternative OS past or present.
RHEL is also a desktop product, albeit, non-free, but then you can get it for free with CentOS or Scientific Linux. Also most of the work of FC goes to serve as based of future version of RHEL, meaning that a lot of FC packages are maintained by Red-Hat employees. And finally, Red Hat is the largest corporate contributor to the Gnome project (a desktop project).
Red Hat has not given up the linux desktop, they have given up the linux desktop for consumers, there is little to no money to make in that area.
Cannonical is still barely profitable, and they only managed to reach that point after years of sponsorship by Shuttleworth, which has basically kills all the existing competition on the consumer market (ie Mandriva, SuSE…).
No-one outside of Canonical actually knows if they’re profitable or not, as it’s a private company and doesn’t have to report financials. I don’t believe anyone there has said that they’re profitable yet; but it’s been a while since the last time anyone said definitely that they weren’t. So right now we just don’t know whether they are.
How can ANYONE mod this down? Is it the Red Hat comment? Granted that may be a little over the top, but the rest of this comment is spot damn on…Linux NEEDS companies like Canical, unfortunately there aren’t really any others to speak of that have been nearly as successful.
Canical “gets” what they do. They are in the business of molding Linux into something usable by the consumers. I’m not saying they are completely successfully at it, but that is their MO. They don’t need to muck about with the kernel to do this – what they need to do is listen to their users and package the product in a way that appeals to their sensibilities. The Red Hats and Debians of the world are absolutely horrible at this.
The world needs Red Hats and Debians too – don’t get me wrong… But if you Canical gave up tomorrow desktop linux would lose at least half of its already small userbase.
Ask yourself what is more important to the success of Linux in the long run – widespread adoption by non-technical users or having it work and look the way you want it to? How does Canical using Linux (or open source in general) somehow take something away from you? You don’t use Ubuntu – why do you even care?
I really don’t get this selfish viewpoint some people in the OSS world have – why the f*ck do you want to license software so liberally but at the same time piss on how it is being used – just because it doesn’t suit you? There is nothing in the GPL about having to be a prolific contributor.
I say that anyone using Linux for any reason short of violating the license is a good thing for Linux.
ps. I’m not directing my angst against the poster – my comments where motivated by the post being modded down…
Edited 2012-04-20 23:54 UTC
The GPL clearly states that if you use something that is GPL’ed and develop for it, you MUST give back those changes.
If you don’t, then you are a leech and you deserve to get your ass beaten in court. Plain and simple.
Edited 2012-04-21 10:44 UTC
Actually the GPL states, give forward. Not give back.
It states that if you give someone the binaries of a program you made or modified you should give that user the source.
It also is clear that you can ask money for the changes/code you made.
I believe the GPL also states it should be ‘buildable’ or have instructions.
It does not state anything about giving your modifications to the original developers.
All the GPL does is garantee that the user of the software is free to do with it what he/she wants (while complying to the GPL ofcourse).
So if you sell your modifications to some company, you’ll have to give them the source. It does not mean that anyone else will get the source.
Obviously your or the company that you sold it to can give the binaries/source to the original developers if they want to. But there is nothing which demands that.
And exactly what is it that Canonical does not give back?
Contributing code to the kernel is not a requirement for making a Linux distro and it’s not a requirement for using the Linux kernel.
In fact, I doubt most Linux distros contribute any code to the kernel at all.
Being easy to operate on the front end and highly configurable on the backend.
As much as I like creating software, spending X hours changing parameters on my system is not something I want to do. A Linux distribution is not 1 package with 1 config file, unfortunately.
That is their contribution – making a sane distribution and forcing others to do something similar.
A lot of Gnome 3 and Gtk+ 3 was developed by Red Hat. Not only Gnome Shell but desktop infrastructure that Canonical profits heavily from.
Red Hat pays Linux devs to work on projects full time. Canonical doesn’t.
Canonical is a leech of our community, plain and simple.
Most of the developers working at Canonical probably work on packaging for Ubuntu and Debian and things like Unity.
I wouldn’t say they leech, they have a different focus.
Canonical is only a 30 million dollar revenue company, comparing it to the amount of people RedHat can employ is just silly. RedHat is a billion dollar annual revenue company.
RedHat is a much larger company than Canonical.
And you know, at least Canonical’s doesn’t have any core products that rely on Windows Server.
Red Hat fixed that in the last release.
RHEV3 still requires Windows for the administrator console.
Ironically enough the RH page I got this info from prominently displays “Don’t get locked in” in the header.
Edited 2012-04-22 07:07 UTC
Fixed in the last release, he said. Redhat 3 is *not* the last release…. must be about 7-8 years old now…
Who’s talking about RedHat3? I’m talking about RHEV3. RHEV3 was released on January 18 2012.
I’m going to take RH’s word for it, straight from the official site, and that is that RHEV3 requires Windows for the admin console.
http://www.redhat.com/promo/rhev3/sysreq.html
You’re right about the admin console. I saw that they removed the Windows Server dependency, but not the IE dependency.
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Red-Hat-releases-third-versi…
It’s really pretty crappy to keep bashing us for that. We *bought out* Qumranet, who had *already developed* the product that formed the basis of RHEV-M as a Windows-only app. Since there were already people depending on that app, it would have been pretty crappy of us to say ‘oh, we’re going to take it away until we’ve re-written it, just so no-one can say HA HA Red Hat has a product that only works on Windows HA HA. So sorry about your mission-critical workload, but preserving our reputation against clueless internet commenters comes first”.
As soon as we bought it out we started re-developing it as a cross-platform open source application, and as soon as that was done, we released it. It’s now written in Java and cross-platform. So your snark is now outdated.
(edit: oh, according to the specs, some small bit still needs Windows; okay. I’m not hugely familiar with the product in detail. The point still stands: would you prefer we just take the thing out until the rewrite is done? Who does that help?)
What, exactly, are you suggesting would have been better? To not buy Qumranet, thus resulting in the app being proprietary and Windows-only forever? To buy Qumranet, but bury the app and leave our customers with absolutely no management solution _at all_ for years while we rewrote the whole thing?
I mean, it’s just silly.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/17/redhat_rhev_3_beta/ has a pretty good explanation of the backstory.
Edited 2012-04-23 15:53 UTC
The stats on kernel contribution are not produced by someone from Red Hat; they’re produced by the Linux Foundation. The article under discussion in this thread is written by a journalist and quotes Mark Shuttleworth. It’s worth pointing out that the journalist in question appears to be on a one-man mission to provoke discord between RH and Canonical by throwing incendiary quotes from people at RH and Canonical at each other, and those on both sides have now resolved to stop letting him do it.
As for Red Hat ‘leaving the desktop for dead’, that’s highly inaccurate. As I pointed out in the comments on the original article, Red Hat pays at least seven GNOME developers (I think there’s more but couldn’t remember them all), three X.org developers, a LibreOffice developer, an ALSA developer, the NetworkManager developer, and the PulseAudio developer (Lennart). And those are just the examples that sprang to my mind. RH sponsors an awful lot of F/OSS desktop development.
Like, I don’t know, packaging, testing, user-space code, support… Provide support and polish in the only area everyone else ignores and isn’t really lucrative, the desktop.
They’ve been operating on loss for years, giving everything back to the Linux community. And now they are compared to MS, that made large commits of self-serving low quality code.
And quantity doesn’t mean anything. A fix, to the Linux kernel may take 50 lines of code and one commit, but dozens of hours to develop and test. Is it the same as a crappy driver code dump?
Call me crazy, but all the packaging, testing, infrastructure was already there with Debian. Really the only thing that Ubuntu brought to the table over Debian is scheduled releases, and releases based on the latest gnome, which I guess would be where the ‘testing and packaging’ would come from. Though honestly I think that’s where they should have stayed. A Fresher Debian. Kept more compatible to Debian, and just stayed with whatever direction Debian went. That was the original goal of Ubuntu, and why I used it during the first few releases, but then they would break so bad, I’d just go back to proper Debian.
They don’t even ‘support’ as many packages as Debian does.
My PC at work is powered by a polished Ubuntu Linux that runs fast enough and flawlessly. Most of my workmates work with PCs running a version of MS Windows, and all of them are fed up of their sluggish, daily user experience. An old PC running Windows XP is by far more wanted than another one with better hardware running Windows Vista.
Many of them do not switch to Ubuntu – or whatever Linux distro – because the software they work with is only available for MS Windows; should not be the case and they would make the required effort.
So if we talk about contributions, it is not only the code given to other important FOSS projects: Ubuntu, like other distros targeted to the average, no computer-savvy user, has also made a big contribution by showing with facts that there are alternatives to Apple and the MS Windows de facto monopoly on desktop.
Who says you have to contribute to the kernel if you want to use free software?
I rag on canonical a lot but they don’t need to do anything just because the internet says so. They’re a layer on top of debian adding their own custom software and ideals. Debian didn’t work for mark’s vision and that’s okay.
Debian and derivatives have been working together a lot more to move derivative patches back to debian. Ideally leaving Ubuntu development to focus on experience while Debian continues to be Debian and all distros grow faster because of the added dev help and a sharper focus.
ubuntu is an os distribution not a kernel distribution so this seems reasonable
on the topic of focus. focus is good. more distros should have more focus.
totally agree, linux kernel is only once piece of the puzzle. Im really not sure why there is this big deal made of them not contributing so much to linux.
One of the freedoms of opensource is _NOT_ to contribute back, no obligations, no strings attached – as long as you meet the license, I really don’t like that there is a notion of moral obligation to give back to a project that by the looks of things is already doing rather well.
Much rather Ubuntu focus on user level issues and making a good user experience.
You are a leech just like Canonical then.
sheesh, I spent most of my working life creating/improving free software.
Even spent almost a year unpaid (living off savings). I write GPL software, people use it and don’t have to contribute back – its fine by me
http://www.ohloh.net/p/blender/contributors/274877909577
OK sorry about that, I regret what I said.
The thing is, even if I wasnt, my point still stands…
The way I see it, free software is not a social contract, as with some cases where there its not a rule to give, but frowned not to.
– By releasing free software, I want my users to use it guilt free without some implied understanding they should give _anything_ back.
– If you are given dirty looks for not giving-back, some people would probably prefer to pay and be done with it.
If someone makes money with free software which is doing poorly, then they may help fund it – let peoples & companies self-interest direct which projects are contributed back to.
I respect your opinion and point of view.
But think about this: most of us use free and open source software to build the stuff we create for our work. We use tools that other people have created or contributed back. We are basically standing on the shoulders of giants.
There’s lots of efforts and who knows how many man hours of work in every software we use every day.
I’m only trying to say that we should think for a moment and appreciate all that, therefore contribute back what we can to that cause.
I’m not saying that people should be forced to contribute or that everyone should release their whole creations as open source. But giving something something back is the right thing to do.
A good thing to do for example is to help the underlying software that you are using to create your own things. e.g. provide good bug reports, implement a feature, fix bugs, test experimental features and report things back, etc.
This will not only help others and the software/project itself but it will also boost your reputation in the community.
I mean, it’s only about being a good member of a community and help those that have helped you to be where you are now.
Edited 2012-04-21 16:23 UTC
Hey, I respect you’re opinion too
In sentiment I agree with most of what you say.
I’ve personally benefited from donations to opensource a lot and the good-will in our community is amazing, I don’t meant to be cynical and detract from that – or suggest that human nature is ultimately selfish.
But whats right and wrong are moral issues – and I dont think its fair to say Canonical is `wrong` for not contributing back to linux.
Imagine if Ubuntu doesn’t exist in a year for being non profitable, I would hate to think this is because of pandering to a community of linux-zealots telling them how to operate. – Rather then focusing on making a great desttop.
So contributing back is great – but I think self-interest ensures a base level of contribution amongst open-source projects and theres no reason to get angry they dont give back to Linux so much.
Otherwise you could get angry they dont contribute back to Xorg/glibc/gcc/grub… it gets silly.
Right. My point is that if we can combine self-interest and contributing back, then it would be a win-win in the end, everyone wins and everyone is happy.
Contributing back is also a investment for the contributor. When you contribute back to a project you also ensure that the people who created the software (or whatever it is) are happy and they will possibly likely help you if you ever need help in the future.
Also, your reputation plays a big role, e.g. if you ever need to get hired in the future, your contributions could be a great asset to demonstrate your skills, etc.
Anyway, self-interest and contributing back are good things, and I believe the two can co-exist just fine in most cases.
My only beef with Canonical was all the times that talk about their new release with X, Y, and Z technologies. The problem is that most of those technologies were built and testing in distros like Fedora, debian, and OpenSuse. If you like Ubuntu, fine, no problem. But lets not forget where the majority of the development is done. It isn’t usually on Ubuntu.
Redhat and the others build the foundations. Ubuntu does the polish (integration across the system, providing those tiny GUI widgets that make configuration a breeze, packaging things up so that supported packages all use the same, supported audio system).
Both are important, and looking at Ubuntu’s popularity (with the average Linux user), they seem to provide value over the others: On Ubuntu I rarely had the experience of applications mysteriously breaking because they don’t support the tech-du-jour yet.
That goes hand in hand with supporting fewer packages (what someone else lamented). That’s true, but those they support are _actually_ supported (not packaged just enough that they don’t break too hard).
Canonical is a leech.
I don’t see why this would be an issue at all. Most people who use open source software don’t contribute back code and that’s fine. There is no obligation to submit patches upstream just because you make use of open source software. (I say this as an open source developer.)
Plus, the kernel is just one of over 30,000 packages included in Ubuntu. Canonical contributes to many projects with code, with paid developers (check out their career page on their website), they supply infrastructure and bug tracking to other projects, they support GNOME, Shuttleworth donates to KDE, and they have done a huge amount of marketing, certification and documenting over the years.
There are reasons to not like Ubuntu, but claiming Canonical doesn’t contribute to the open source community or that they are a “leech” just because they don’t focus on kernel development is plain ignorance.
Kernel Contributions are not a requirement for any distro.
However, this is a requirement for Kernel contribution, which IMHO, should be:
1) Integrators with Hardware and Software Server Applications for LINUX.
Contriibutions should be testing and verification. This is a community responsible thing to do
2) Manufacturers of Hardware.
Either should pay customers, vendors or end users for development and on going improvement of kernel features for said hardware.
Or of course, do it themselves and publish it back to the community.
Under no circumstances should any binary drivers be manufactured by these people.
Primarily for reliability reasons, and secondly I don’t trust them, or third party people at this level.
Security is impossible with binary blobs on any system. So the less binaries the better.
3) End Users. Should report kernel problems to their hardware manufacturers….if you want to be a responsible user anyway.
-Hack
The whining about Canonical not “giving enough back” demonstrates one of the most hilarious facts about GNU/Zealots: none of them understand the difference between the terms “voluntary” and “obligatory”. Is Canonical failing to meet one of their obligations WRT to the GPL? No? Then STFU, no one cares about your whiny self-entitlement-by-proxy.
Then again, this IS a group of people who believe that altruism is still altruism when it’s enforced by a license – so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. To any company that works with “Free Software(tm)”, it must seem like a gigantic bait-and-switch. There’s a license that outlines what you can & can’t do with that software; fair enough, so you’re in the clear as long as you abide by that license, right? But no, you’re still going to get hordes of GNU/Freetards whining that you’re not doing enough “for the greater good” (or some other bit of recycled socialist rhetoric).
GNU/Fanatics just want to have their cake and eat it too. They want a license that enforces altruism, but they also expect any company that uses “Free Software(tm)” to go above and beyond the the license requirements out of the goodness of their hearts or some such. If it’s an actual obligation, then put it in the goddamn license – but even uber-Freetard Richard Stallman has enough sense not to put a “you must contribute to the greater good” clause in the GPL. Even he realizes that would kill “Freedom Fries Software(tm)” faster than a shot between the eyes.
What it really boils down to with Canonical is that they’ve committed the two worst possible sins in the eyes of GNU/Fanatics: they’re a (gasp) commercial organization with a product that uses GPL software, and (even worse) they’ve been moderately successful. And if you’re a neckbeard-cultivating Freetard living in your parents’ basement, what do you resent more than anything else? The success of others, of course.
Edited 2012-04-21 19:14 UTC
Ahahaha, two downmods already? Thanks for proving my point, guys.
Why does that prove your point? You post was so inflammatory that it looks like a troll attempt, hence people will mod it as such.
You’ll forgive us for thinking that someone calling himself “Ballmer knows best” might be a troll?
Using all the Ubuntu logic here…PCLinuxOS has brought just as much to the Linux desktop that Canonical has.
Afterall, they’ve provided an excellent desktop for end users that is solid and less buggy than any others out there.
So…what we’re really arguing about here is what Canonical AS A COMPANY does to support Linux. Providing end users a nice GUI is great…but it’s no different than a mom and pop distro like PCLinuxOS can provide. What sets them apart? Right now, the only thing I can see that sets them apart from others is that they appear to do more…we have nothing other than people with opinions to substantiate what they acutally do.
In other words, we need more data. Just looking at the data makes Red Hat/Fedora in the pole position with Ubuntu laps and laps behind. Ubuntu isn’t doing itself any favors with comments like the one Mark let fly.