Ubuntu is too attached to Canonical

[Matt Lee]

With the release of "Ubuntu One" and the news that Launchpad will not be released as free software, Canonical's message: "Canonical is committed to the development, distribution and promotion of open source software products, and to providing tools and support to the open source community." is no longer true, and its continued association with Ubuntu is damaging to free software.

Canonical should decide if it wants to be committed to the development of free software or not.

Canonical employees should decide if they want to be seen to work for a proprietary software developer, whilst talking about free software.

Canonical should either release publically, all the source code for Launchpad and Ubunet, or it should update its mission statement to state their commitment to the development of proprietary software.

The Ubuntu community should decide if they want to be associated, governed and ruled by a proprietary software company, and should appoint non-Canonical people to all the key positions.

Matt Lee
Founder, Libre.fm
http://libre.fm/

[Christopher Allan Webber (cwebber-dustycloud)]

So, I find it kind of interesting that this post hasn't been responded by anyone despite it being a number of hours since it was posted. But there has been some discussion about it on the autonomo.us mailing list, that has ended with this:

Josh Berkus <email address hidden> writes:
> Guys,
>
>>> The Ubuntu community should decide if they want to be associated,
>>> governed and ruled by a proprietary software company, and should appoint
>>> non-Canonical people to all the key positions.
>>
>> Or they could admit that Ubuntu is de facto controlled by Canonical
>> anyway and appoint Canonical people to all the key positions. :-)
>
> I think that Ubuntu One was a poor choice of name for a variety of
> reasons (not the least of which is that it's crappy marketing; the name
> doesn't give you a clue what it does), but I also think it could have
> been dealt with more diplomatically. Mark is a fairly easy guy to reach
> and he does listen.

Well... I have a hard time believing that this bug isn't being listened to right now, so here's a shot at framing the conversation in a way that maybe can promote some dialogue.

I think we're at a pivotal point in Ubuntu's (and Canonical's) history. How this issue is addressed is going to determine how the community reacts, and what kind of community Ubuntu continues to have.

So let's start with the community that Ubuntu presently has, and where Canonical has been positioned in it. At this time of writing, Canonical is *heavily* invested in Ubuntu... and vice versa. Indeed, that seems to be the point.

Maybe not all users know about Ubuntu and Canonical's relationship. Certainly many of the up and coming generation of Ubuntu users (which is likely the same generation of users who have bought a GNU/Linux "netbook" without even knowing that this is what they are running) may have no clue.

But who has built the distribution, really? Well, of course there's the roots that come from being a derivative of Debian. But what I'm talking about is the many volunteers, the community organizers, the hackers, and the Ubuntu Local teams that really run the machine. And I think most of *this* part of the community is well aware of Canonical and its relation to Ubuntu... or at least, what they thought it was.

I don't think this issue is going to go away. It certainly won't go away as long as Ubuntu One is named Ubuntu One. But even if it was renamed to UbuOne it wouldn't really go away... I think that that would be just a change of makeup. The real issue will fester and likely continue to fracture the Ubuntu community until we get a very clear image of where things are going to go.

So, back to the email, was the naming of Ubuntu One an issue of bad marketing? Hm, well I would say yes, it probably was. But what's interesting about it is that it really brought the issue to a head in a way that it might not have otherwise. It did so by taking a name that people rallied around as a way of presenting a set of ideals (it has, after all, the rather populist slogan of "Linux for Human Beings") and applying them to a product that broke those ideas. As Jim Campbell said on Identi.ca:

  If we go from having a closed...

[Jerome S. Gotangco (jsgotangco)]

This is like saying a software company involved in open source, one way or another has no rights to do other things that are perhaps non-open source in origin for their right to engage in business. So pretty much every company out there, even Red Hat and SuSE.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Ubuntu was founded together with Canonical, they have always been (and I hope they always will be) intertwined and interdependent. There are thousands of projects and hundreds of distributions, which have various degrees of involvement between themselves and companies. Contributors already align themselves with the projects that reflect the things they are most interested in.

Personally, I think the company/project interface and interaction makes the landscape interesting. We're all trying to figure out the future of software, and perhaps the future of the software business at the same time.

I understand the passion behind this bug report, but I don't think it can be addressed. The people who make up the Ubuntu community are entirely free to devote their energy to whatever path they think will serve their interests best - and that has always been the case. I suspect most people in this community are drawn here precisely because of the interdependency between project and company. And those who don't may well be drawn to something which flows as a direct consequence of that.

There are several distributions which make a point of having no corporate backer. The people who want that, specifically, are probably already there, happily doing good work. People who want something else are wherever they think they can find that, happily doing good work. Some people may change their mind and move in either direction. But Ubuntu and Canonical were born together, with a shared mission. If that's interesting to you, then participate in Ubuntu. If it's not, then don't.

[Christopher Allan Webber (cwebber-dustycloud)]

Mark,

Thanks for responding. Although, I notice that you did not respond about the original point of Canonical developing proprietary software (the implication being that this will continue).

I don't think I have much more to write about the subject than I have, but at least we have confirmation on the state of things: Ubuntu and Canonical will continue to be developed intertwined together, and Canonical will continue to develop proprietary software. At least that's settled.

[bigbrovar (bigbrovar)]

I think this mission statement on http://www.canonical.com/aboutus should be modified to reflect the reality so as not to create a confusion

"Our mission

Our mission is to realise the potential of free software in the lives of individuals and organisations by:

    * delivering the world's best free software platform
    * ensuring its availability to everyone
    * supporting it with high quality professional service offerings
    * facilitating the continued growth and development of the free software community"

[Dan Trevino (dantrevino)]

About the most useful comment that can be added is:

*yawn*

Everything else is just noise.

[Sidnei da Silva (sidnei)]

Fix released, now Launchpad is Open Source.