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Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

theregister.co.uk

21–30 of 85 posts

Re: Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't like Amazon lens either (there isn't even an Amazon.ro so it's mostly unusable for me), but they have to make money somehow. Find another business model, this one sucks.

I know the parent comment will be downvoted, but I'll reply anyway. I'd like to hear how this "sucks". One could argue they may track you, invasion of privacy or that it's "just the beginning" and will lead to more adware. Those are what I'd call minor complaints. You can say you think it looks bad, or that it slows down your system, or that you'd would never use it. Those are even more minor as you can uninstall it…

The fact that the OS comes with spyware out of the box is just a minor complaint? Okay..

Re: Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

#22
post #7

As someone who has been an active contributor to desktop Linux in the past, and particularly very close to Ubuntu (I was sponsored to attend UDS-O), I have to say that I am happy Shuttleworth is finally taking this much needed stand. I can absolutely understand the blowback to his sentiments, because really, the diversity of use and mindset in the Linux community is one of its defining characteristics. But frankly, h…

That's basically saying the linux community and their mindset are antithetical to modern computing.

What a massively backhanded insult. Yet also a tragically true statement.

The world is flying towards Sim City always on DRM with open arms, and mark shuttleworth wants to lead the charge? Fine. Coddled computing for everyone.

For god sakes, A pox on the people who actually choose to use Amazon Linux.

Re: Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

#23
post #7

As someone who has been an active contributor to desktop Linux in the past, and particularly very close to Ubuntu (I was sponsored to attend UDS-O), I have to say that I am happy Shuttleworth is finally taking this much needed stand. I can absolutely understand the blowback to his sentiments, because really, the diversity of use and mindset in the Linux community is one of its defining characteristics. But frankly, h…

The problem is secrecy and authoritarianism run directly contrary to the spirit of open source software, and if we're going to go down that road then we need to stop calling it a community-driven Linux distribution.

Where will we be when Amazon et al start leaning more heavily on Canonical for more invasive features? What recourse will the existing user-base have other than being callously told to "fuck off if you don't like it, or buy some lube and start grabbing your ankles"?

Re: Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

#24

I found myself agreeing with a lot of the sentiment expressed in Mark's post but ultimately, I lack faith that Shuttleworth and Canonical have what it takes to pull off the stated goal of creating "an experience that could challenge the existing proprietary leaders." For example, I don't find Unity to be better in any meaningful sense than the "community-driven" GNOME 3. Canonical has come up with some interesting id…

Agreed. Talk about being stretched too thin. For example, I've been fighting with compiz (their wm of choice) all day. I'm about to give up, but love the negative plugin.

If they could demonstrate capacity to fix existing bugs I might be interested in their new directions... until then no.

Re: Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

#25
post #4

While the community is ready to dismiss anything Canonical does, they also seem to overlook the work Canonical has done. Unity is far from perfect, but it is functional. Also, the whole issue of inclusion of Amazon links could be solved with a single command, "sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping". And it's ridiculous that Canonical gets flak for trying out a new revenue stream (one that can easily be removed if i…

How is it unreasonable to propose making the Amazon ads opt-in? Sure it ruins their dreams of guaranteed revenue streams but at least it'll be a compromise.

Re: Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't like Amazon lens either (there isn't even an Amazon.ro so it's mostly unusable for me), but they have to make money somehow. Find another business model, this one sucks.

I know the parent comment will be downvoted, but I'll reply anyway. I'd like to hear how this "sucks". One could argue they may track you, invasion of privacy or that it's "just the beginning" and will lead to more adware. Those are what I'd call minor complaints. You can say you think it looks bad, or that it slows down your system, or that you'd would never use it. Those are even more minor as you can uninstall it…

It sucks because it stinks of authoritarianism and selfishness. How do users benefit? How does the community benefit? Why are you trying to justify that users should be glad that they're being spied on and spammed?

Re: Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

#27

Yeah yeah, we get it. Canonical: "You guys hate Unity but we're really stubborn about it". Keep trumpeting your crap then. Thankfully it's pretty easy for just about anyone to switch window managers (or Distro for that matter)

Nice attitude to legitimate criticism (Unity kills productivity for many). I guess thats why all the 'l33ts' and everyone else is running to OSX. Thanks for the motivation.

Re: Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

#29
post #27

Yeah yeah, we get it. Canonical: "You guys hate Unity but we're really stubborn about it". Keep trumpeting your crap then. Thankfully it's pretty easy for just about anyone to switch window managers (or Distro for that matter)

Nice attitude to legitimate criticism (Unity kills productivity for many). I guess thats why all the 'l33ts' and everyone else is running to OSX. Thanks for the motivation.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I'm paraphrasing what they're saying to people. I agree with you completely, Unity is garbage and thankfully we can still switch it if we need to, or switch distros altogether.

My comment is disparaging the arrogant attitude of Canonical on this subject.

Re: Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

#30

    "By 2009 I was convinced that none of the existing free software communities could create an experience that could challenge the existing proprietary leaders," Shuttleworth wrote, "and so, if we were serious about the dream of a free software norm, we would have to lead."
If Unity is the outcome of Canonical's lead, then I'm sorry to say that they're doing it wrong. I want you to download Ubuntu 10.04/10.10 and compare it with Ubuntu 12.04/12.10. You will be nothing short of terrified of the experience - They just destroyed every single advantage of Ubuntu - For example:

Unity creates a terrible confusion on what is where and how you access or close an open window.

Shutdown speed is slower than windows 8 sometimes! (And Windows 8 isn't slow, it's really fast, but Ubuntu 10.x used to be faster)

The OS itself feels sluggish at times.

I sincerely feel someone should take the 10.04 and spin it off into a new better OS, polish it and give it back to the community - If it's good enough, I won't even mind paying for it!!

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