What is Digg?47 Comments
- GnuTzu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27The urge to be proprietary would typically increase as a company gains market share.
Of course, some companies start out to be proprietary, but they'll get worse as they grow.
The funny thing is that the PC was thought to have gained on Apple because the PC was viewed as an open platform. Microsoft capitalized on that open platform but eventually turned that around and, even today, tries to maintain a stranglehold on its market share.
It will be interesting to see who becomes less open as open source progresses. I'm glad to hear that Mark Shuttleworth (and others) are voicing a commitment to remain open. - calebdesu, on 10/12/2007, -4/+25"And yet Ubuntu is going to ship with binary drivers...."
No one is forcing anyone to install them. At least people have the option.
After XGL/AIGXL/Beryl has jumped into the scene, I've seen a huge increase of interest in Linux. The Important thing is more people realize there is an alternative to other more popular Operating Systems.
FTA: "With Ubuntu, our vision is to make the very best of free software freely available, globally. To the extent we make short-term compromises, for drivers or firmware along the way, we see those as bugs, and ones that will be closed over time." - schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Yes, when he says "Keeping it FREE" he, on the one hand, refers to free CD's. I'll remind you that Microsoft turned a blind eye to piracy in order to gain market share. On the other hand, I hope he'll keep the product free to modify, view (at code level), and distribute (the easiest part).
- Camus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17"As free software becomes more successful and more pervasive there will be an increasing desire on the part of companies to make it more proprietary. We’ve already seen that with Red Hat and Novell[...]"
+1
That's important now. - calebdesu, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15Free is good.
- fiver22, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15I'm so sick of the mind-set that because Ubuntu is popular it isn't "cool". ***** that noise: Ubuntu's popularity means that it can succesfully strive against MS's dominance. She (Ubuntu) has the power to bring together FOSS and distribute it to the mainstream. -Shouldn't we all get behind this cause and show other people that there are altenatives to MS and Apple?
- lnxaddct, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18Shuttleworth is full of himself. Red Hat is not proprietary in the least. RHEL and CentOS are damn near bit-for-bit the same because Red Hat releases their source and Red Hat engineers are known to help the CentOS guys when they need it. What you're paying for is support, the same thing Mark intends to make money from. Novell has a few bits that they keep to themselves, but even they aren't that bad.
Shuttleworth's arguments are ridiculous and he gives Red Hat and Novell absolutely no credit for the tens of millions of dollars that they dump into open source development every year... developing that same software that he is profiting from. Also, as most of you know, free software isn't just about the price... the most important part is rights and access to the code, yet he is including binary drivers in Ubuntu... and at the same time mocking the company that sponsors Fedora development, which takes freedom in every sense very serious and tries to change things rather than accepting them. Fedora is one of the freest distributions that I know of, they don't allow anything proprietary or that isn't 100% open, which goes above and beyond even Debian's stance on free software.
If Shuttleworth really cared about the future of free software, his distribution wouldn't include proprietary and closed pieces. The only thing that this leads to is less freedom and less control for the end users. Using proprietary codecs and drivers just because it is convenient to do so doesn't solve anything and is *not* in the spirit of free software. He's ***** all of you, hopefully some of you see it. - Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9That's why everyone calls me and not Microsoft when their system breaks? I've not met a single person who ever thought of calling microsoft up for support when their systems were hosed. Come to think of it, there was one, and he said it was pathetic and a total waste of time (microsoft uk).
- selrahc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9and both is the best.
- JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Freedom is better.
- Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@Kanna
I don't get your logic. How is your use of open source software in any way dictated by the random ramblings of people on a social networking site? That seems entirely random. - neko, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Yes, I mean, I get sick of the dupes coming through digg of the ubuntu bug#1 story, same as everyone else, and I prefer Debian for my main machine - but that doesn't mean ubuntu should be hated. It's a useful rallying point.
- kiwiboyus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Even though I am not using regular Ubuntu anymore (I switched to Mint Linux which is based on Ubuntu), Ubuntu was the first distro that actually made me consider dropping Windows altogether. Props to Mark for what he has done and is doing to raise the profile of linux, in the end it's all good!
- Shutter, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Yes, absolutely. Once people know and use one distro (e.g. Ubuntu), they'd be much more apt to switch to another distro if it so suits them. There's no need for distros to be knocking against each other when the Linux market clearly needs a lot of forward momentum if they want to gain market share.
- Toshibi, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10I haven't booted my own PC into Windows in over a month now. I absolutely love Kubuntu. For the average user, Ubuntu is everything they need and then some. With Automatix or EasyUbuntu it becomes even better.
- diggapleaze, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4So I wonder how the for-sale fluendo codecs fit into this scheme? On the one hand, most people *need* to playback proprietary audio/video media, and OTOH probably the biggest "selling point" of Linux to new users is that it's free as in beer.
Maybe Shutteworth should just buy codec distribution licenses from Microsoft, the MPEG, Apple, Real Media, and the DVD consortium and give away free legal codec downloads to people who want them :) In my dreams. Or maybe someone should start up a new pledge bank. - prammy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@oobuntu:
Actually Redhat does make it pretty easy for anyone to make an RHEL compatible distro from the tools they provide. They have provided Anaconda (installer), Kudzu (hardware detection), and source rpms for every GPL'd tool in RHEL. Centos is not the only RHEL compatible distro. I remember whitebox linux and a few others who did the same thing.
RHEL may have _some_ proprietary stuff, but CentOS will run just about any RHEL app you throw at it. Binary compatibility and all that.
Redhat also throws in a ton on contributions to the kernel code, to Gnome and other projects. They also open sourced Netscape's Directory Server (RHDS or FDS depending on whether its with RHEL or Fedora), GFS and LVM2 from Sistina (purchased and made free) in addition to many other pieces of software. Hell why not get the info directly from Redhat itself? ( http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RedHatContributions )
If Centos is piggybacking, then so is every other distribution which uses Gnome or the linux kernel. Redhat has made many contributions and continues to do so today.
As for a free fork of Ubuntu. It exists and that is called gNewSense. Ubuntu is basically piggybacking on debian unstable. They just polished out the final product, thats all. I like Ubuntu, and I even recommend it but there is no way I can honestly say that Red Hat has not done anything for Linux but Canonical has.
As for the Centos/RHEL issue, the only thing Red Hat made them do is to remove their trademarked logos and asked them to not call it redhat. Which is fair, since CentOS is really not Red Hat. - mmcgrath, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Does anyone else think Mark is a little bit of a media whore? Just sayin...
- FreeFlow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Hey, when Mark made his millions he treated himself to ONE personal splurge - A trip to the ISS in space. This cost him less than 5% of the wealth he had accumulated.
In the meantime he has started spending huge amounts of his own personal fortune into the development and promotion of OSS. He has also funded a number of community projects personally and I cannot fault him for what he is doing.
PS - The kind of person he is...
He gave each employee in his company a 1 Million rand (+- 136,000 USD) bonus when the sale of his start up company went through and he received the money. Even his gardener and a receptionist that had only started working there a month before the sale happened received it - EVERYONE.
Now try and tell me he is hunting profit. He does not need any more money than he already has and at least is spending it on a worthy and uplifting cause.
I don't personally use any Linux distro (still windows for me I'm afraid..), but let's give credit where I'ts due. - alchemista, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't mind paying for CDs (beer) if the software is free as in freedom. I'd prefer not to, but I think the free as in freedom is more dangerous than the free beer.
- misterjangles, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4it's because the people who say that type of thing - the issue isn't actually linux, ubuntu or anything else. it's their own personal perception of "cool" based on doing something that is technically difficult. as soon as the ordinary users start installing gentoo, then those people will move onto something else even more technical and non-mainstream. Anything popular or designed to be easy for the average user will never be "cool" to that type of person.
- Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think most people wouldn't mind paying a small fee to view proprietory formats. However, there is the argument that if you feed them, they will live and open formats are a way better solution. Proprietory formats only exist because companies want to screw money out of you...
- straxus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"I don't have any problem with paying the people who made the software I like, but I guess I'm old fashioned that way."
Neither do I. I've bought thousands of dollars in games. It turns out though, that the rest of the software I like is free software.
"Next up, everything should be free and people don't need to get money for creating things."
If everything were free, we wouldn't *need* money to create things. We would create things because we needed them. That's what's happening with FOSS. If reproducing physical goods became as cheap and fast as reproducing software and media, I wouldn't see a need to pay for anything anymore. After all, if everyone could have a house, food, and clothing by an act as simple as copying a file, there would be no need for anyone to 'work for a living'. Instead, we could produce things that would fill a personal need (hobbies) and share it with others. - prammy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3From Mark's blog post:
"their “really free” editions are not certified, carry no support and receive no systematic security patching."
Actually Fedora does have regular security patches and updates. It does not however have commercial support options that RHEL has. But then again when you buy RHEL you are buying the support rather than the distro itself.
Lets say I go with Ubuntu and want professional support. I will still have to pay :-) - prammy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@Freeflow:
You are right. Lets give credit where credit is due.
Canonical IS a for-profit company and Mark does indeed aim to make money from his ventures with Ubuntu. This is not a bad thing. In fact I do hope that he makes money from it. The collateral effect is that we benefit from having a solid well designed distribution which we can all use.
Same with Redhat. They contribute a lot to Linux, which even Mark benefits from. Novell does as well though to a lesser extent. Say what you may about Novell, they did release the ximian connector for Exchange and Yast2 under the GPL. They did a major boo boo with their deal with MS, but lets not discount their contributions. But the single biggest contributor to Linux (including Gnome) is Red Hat.
As for irony, the company currently known as SCO also made a lot of contributions to Linux. Namely SMP support and the JFS2 filesystem. Its sad that Caldera/SCO decided to go the route that they did. - Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A mint question: Is it just like using ubuntu (repos/updates) but you get some binary blobs and a different theme? How "stable" is it? Cheers!
- flag564, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5"Microsoft? vista has already tanked. Try again."
Please dont make *ubuntu users out to be full blown idiots with statements like that. - Kanna, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7"Microsoft? vista has already tanked. Try again."
You and the people who are about to digg me down are why I hate to use open source software sometimes. - verevi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Mint just installs everything you would probably install anyways. It uses the Ubuntu repos. My Dell 700m laptop works pretty much perfectly out-of-the-box including connecting to my WPA wireless router. Pretty great distro, however, I expect the next version of ubuntu to include alot of whats in mint.
- Camus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If anyone is interested, I made a little collection of events around this:
http://my.opera.com/Camus/blog/show.dml/663155 - BullTaco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1>hunting for profit
I don't think you can separate non-altruistic motivation from open source development:
http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-028.pdf
See figure 4, the most widely distributed offerings acquired the most contribution from for-profit concerns. - GnuTzu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@prammy,
I'm not sure that this is all that relevant to your point.
However, for profit or not for profit, let's not forget the parallel role that the Canonical developers are supposed to play in relation to the open source developers. The claim is that they aren't there to dominate or control any projects; they are only there to help keep things on schedule (something for which Debian has been under some criticism).
Anyway, what is the profit model? Do these companies make more money from selling licenses, boxed versions, or books. Or, do they make most of their money selling support? - straxus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2A few years back, the same types hated Mandrake. Before that, Red Hat. 5 years from now, it will probably be something easier and more successful than Ubuntu.
- livestradamus, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7If you don't pay for Windows, don't use it.
- GnuTzu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My my; such strong language!
Clearly, Mark is quite vocal. Putting his personality into the Ubuntu marketing strategy seems to be part of the plan.
Personally, I like the way he stirs things up. But, I have no idea how much of his ego there is behind the marketing. - technerdy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ubuntu is strange name for a project, does anyone else think so?
Youtube comes to mind too, the first time i heard it, it was quite strange, but now I am used to it.
The spell checker seems to agree with me on both Youtube and Ubuntu.
I am indifferent to the name, but now knowing what it means, it seems like you can pick anything pronounceable for a project name and put enough marketing behind it, and it will become a household name so to speak. - oobuntu, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4@inxaddict
the last i heard, CentOS was not part of Redhat, and in fact, Redhat forced them to remove all mention of their name from the CentOS site, instead referring to the OS and one build from a North American vendor's OS...
I use it, but they are piggybacking and RH don't like it.
If Ubuntu used proprietary drivers, i'm sure there will be a UbuntuFree fork or something to cater for that crowd. It's all about choice, and I will choose the one with the proprietary drivers, because I end up downloading them anyway. If more stuff "just works" then it makes it more accessible.
I hear that Fedora are looking to sort out the wireless driver nightmare - good luck to them, I hope they do. - straxus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1digg me down.. Prammy already mentioned gnewsense...
- technerdy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ubuntu is one distribution in a sea of many, and launched pretty late in the game. I guess Mark S realized he could play on his semi fame as the first African in space (or a billionaire who reached space) and help his goals in Ubuntu along.
- ArmchairAthlete, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Companies and people like to pay for good support.
- Falladir, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1xubuntu power! If you're running (k)ubuntu, I urge you to try the xubuntu desktop. It *is* noticably faster, and their desktop panel system is better than KDE's in some places (cpu monitoring, for instance).
xfce is an excellent bit of ware. - kyrre, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Shuttleworth is of course talking about free as in beer, not free as in speech. Ubuntu will include proprietary codecs and drivers. It is fine to make them available to users, but they should make the user know what the big deal is in the process. For hardware Ubuntu could just recommend that people stick to Intel chipsets for full free software compatibility.
- 7of7, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2I don't have any problem with paying the people who made the software I like, but I guess I'm old fashioned that way. Next up, everything should be free and people don't need to get money for creating things.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I always get Mark Cuban and Mark Shuttleworth mixed up. Both watched the first shuttle launch in 1972 and both were made honorary members of the House of Blues due to fledgling saxaphone careers.
- clickwir, on 10/12/2007, -14/+10Windows, I don't pay for and don't feel I should.
Kubuntu, I don't pay for but feel it's more worthy of my money than Microsoft.
I've donated a few bucks here and there to some open source projects or bought a tshirt, I like helping them out knowing I am still getting a great product but don't have to pay for it.
Microsoft? vista has already tanked. Try again. - drouk1556, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Shuttleworth forgot to mention buying your own nation in the middle of the english channel. THATS how you keep it free.
- lyzz, on 10/12/2007, -19/+12And yet Ubuntu is going to ship with binary drivers....
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7895189911.html
All this while taking a jab at Redhat and Suse. Wow.
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