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Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

blog.canonical.com

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Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#121

Post by tomswartz07 »

rlpb wrote: post #86
tomswartz07 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's more that they push non-prod ready packages (yes, they do) but the fact that their update model doesn't easily allow them to fix bugs from upstream. The vast majority of the packages in Ubuntu (more notably in the LTS releases) are all custom patched by Ubu-devs. Rather than taking the raw package and pushing it through, they have a semi-opaque method of testing, patching, and then releasing to the…

> I've tried several times to get an 'in' so that I could help with the process, but it seems to me like a 'club hangout' where outsiders are slightly discouraged. :( I think this is an unfortunate perception. There's an active sponsorship queue, and nominated people run shifts to review and accept outside contributions. All contributors need to do is submit a suitable diff, and subscribe the sponsorship team to the…

I suppose I misspoke- I wouldn't say it's discouraged, but as another comment said; it's painfully bureaucratic- it's almost too difficult for an 'average joe' developer to hop in and help patch/test their own software.

I'll share my story: I help maintain a 3,000+ node Puppet config for a school district, running Ubuntu 12.04 on various laptops/desktops. Part of our config used XFCE's weather widget on a panel. A few months back, the widget stopped working, as the API's url had changed. I had tracked down the issue independently, and even found that newer versions were released for 13.10+, but alas- no backport for 12.04. I tried to investigate how to test and sponsor the package to get it backported for the LTS, but after nearly a day's worth of digging, I gave up.

Conversely, on my Arch tech station, the XFCE widget was updated many times in between, with many bugfixes and other updates.

> The reason is the risk of regression.

I can appreciate it. It makes sense that one would want the software to be as tested and stable as possible.

However, it seems a bit disingenuous to me that the developers of the various software packages are not the 'final say' in the development. Sure, the patches might only affect a specific version of Ubuntu, but as a Developer- I would prefer to fix the issues myself.

I hope that makes sense- I'm not trying to paint Ubuntu's update method in a poor light, I just can't quite grasp the full scope of why it's done that way.

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#122

Post by dspillett »

Crito wrote: post #94
cones688 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would but I love APT As a near 100% RHEL/Fedora user I am always wondering if there is anything but a material difference between apt and yum? From using Ubuntu extensively a few years ago they seem to have near identical feature set?

Only differences that I have noticed and cared about as a home user: Yum lets you do `yum search` but Apt splits that off with `apt-cache` (this is annoying because with yum I can just swap out that 'search' with my line editor). Apt tends to be faster for equivalent operations.

If you use aptitude instead of apt* you get most of the features rolled into one command, and it also provides a curses based interface if you prefer that to the command line but are in a situation where a full GUI is not available to you can use an X based tool. I'm not sure about Ubuntu but it has been standard issue in Debian for some time.

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#123

Post by tomswartz07 »

goshawk wrote: post #120
tomswartz07 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ownCloud is pretty awesome. It's like a self-hosted version of Dropbox. All open source, too. https://github.com/owncloud/

Thank you! going to see it it has a handly client i can install and it takes care of syncing...

Yep! Mirall is the client (full disclosure, I'm a pseudo-team member working with this client's development) and the server software would also be needed.

Check out http://owncloud.org/ for the full info on getting it set up! :)

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#124

Post by bashinator »

Crito wrote: post #94
cones688 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would but I love APT As a near 100% RHEL/Fedora user I am always wondering if there is anything but a material difference between apt and yum? From using Ubuntu extensively a few years ago they seem to have near identical feature set?

Only differences that I have noticed and cared about as a home user: Yum lets you do `yum search` but Apt splits that off with `apt-cache` (this is annoying because with yum I can just swap out that 'search' with my line editor). Apt tends to be faster for equivalent operations.

    dpkg -S /some/file # tells you what package provides that file  
    dpkg -L some-package # lists all the files provided by a package
    apt-get search  # lists all package names matching

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#125

Post by Touche »

icebraining wrote: post #109
UrlichtZwei wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, Adobe PSDs, WMAs, RARs, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

Proud custodians? Yes, they wrote the format and controlled it, but it was no different that a proprietary protocol; it was just a necessary way of allowing people to send data around. .DOC and .PSD in particular have always been proprietary messes that they wanted you to treat as a black box.

I was thinking more about OpenDocument, EPub, PNG. Things we take for granted today. It seems that once efforts transferred to the web companies simply have no desire to cooperate on their protocols. Even though cloud syncing is simple enough that dozens of companies have reinvented it, the companies don't feel any obligation (as I personally feel they have) to open up these protocols.

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#126

Post by simias »

brewdad wrote: post #98
diminish wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For something as important as "file storage" 12 months would be a safer option to make sure everyone was alerted and reacted. Or Ubuntu may keep the files as torrents/tars after that for up to 12 months and ask for a payment of for download.

The problem with an extended shutdown is that it eliminates any sense of urgency to act. If I know I only have 2 months to find a new provider, I'll start searching and migrating now. Give me a year, and I'll ignore the problem for 10 months before acting.

Freezing the accounts would be enough to create this sense of urgency, you wouldn't be able to modify or upload new files on the system. You would have to look for an alternative at that point...

Re: Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

#127

Post by Touche »

rlpb wrote: post #117
Touche wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Troubling that Ubuntu One wasn't already open source. Can anyone explain to me why every cloud drive is using their own proprietary protocols to do the same thing? Why we have to install a different client for each vendor? That's one thing that annoys me greatly, and I'll never use Dropbox as long as its syncing tool is proprietary. Does anyone else remember when companies were proud that they were the custodians of…

Canonical provided an answer here: http://askubuntu.com/a/15295 . I think the answer is interesting, and this could apply equally well to any other vendor.

That's a silly answer. The technology behind the syncing is not a competitive advantage. The existence of dozens of these services should tell you that. The way the companies can compete is by building services on top of the cloud syncing, and by providing integrations with other services you use. That stuff makes sense to be proprietary, but the syncing itself doesn't, imo.
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