Launchpad.net proprietary? [Archive]

asimon

January 30th, 2006, 12:10 PM

Yes, currently Launchpad (Malone, Rosetta, etc.) is neither open source nor free software. Although Ubuntu keep telling us that it "is entirely committed to the principles of free software development; we encourage people to use free and open source software, improve it and pass it on."

So if Ubuntu encourages me to use free and open software does that mean Ubuntu encourages me not to use Malone and Rosetta? ;-)

Havoc

January 30th, 2006, 02:07 PM

Well, I think they plan on making it Free Software.Stallman isn't happy, I can tell you that.:)

Viro

January 30th, 2006, 02:16 PM

No one is in the business of keeping Richard Stallman happy. Most developers are interested in picking a tool that does the job best, regardless of ideology. This includes developers of the Linux kernel, as demonstrated by their choice of BitKeeper for so many years, since nothing comparable in the open source world exists.

xequence

January 30th, 2006, 04:08 PM

Stallman isn't happy, I can tell you that.

Stallman woulden't be happy unless music, software, movies, and then some were under the GPL.

nocturn

January 30th, 2006, 04:12 PM

I'm sorry to see all this Stallman bashing. We have a lot to thank him for.

xequence

January 30th, 2006, 04:15 PM

I'm sorry to see all this Stallman bashing. We have a lot to thank him for.

I have nothing against the guy, he seems cool and all, and promoting open source is good... But you cant make the world open source. Some thing are better closed source...

earobinson

January 30th, 2006, 04:15 PM

This would be something that would be good to bring up at a ubuntu meeting.

nocturn

January 30th, 2006, 04:21 PM

I have nothing against the guy, he seems cool and all, and promoting open source is good... But you cant make the world open source. Some thing are better closed source...

First question: why not? Sure it will take a while and requires big changes.

Secondly, Stallman is not requiring anyone to do that (though he would like it). He just takes a very firm stand on some thinks being closed or non-free.

earobinson

January 30th, 2006, 04:25 PM

Back on topic, who wrote launchpad.net. to me if it is infact closed source this is a huge contradiction of what ubuntu stands for, they wont even include rar or anything but the major bug reporting site is closed source, man thats bad.

xequence

January 30th, 2006, 04:29 PM

First question: why not? Sure it will take a while and requires big changes.

Secondly, Stallman is not requiring anyone to do that (though he would like it). He just takes a very firm stand on some thinks being closed or non-free.

Why should Stallman care if Lauchpad is proprietary?

And its just the way the world is. Open source works in many ways, but also closed source works in many ways.

Stallman should tell people the advantages of open source so they can decide if they want their application to be open source or not.

poofyhairguy

January 30th, 2006, 04:36 PM

Back on topic, who wrote launchpad.net.

Half of the Ubuntu developers wrote Launchpad itself.

to me if it is infact closed source this is a huge contradiction of what ubuntu stands for, they wont even include rar or anything but the major bug reporting site is closed source, man thats bad.

It that way for a reason....some think that this is how Mark plans to make money off of Ubuntu. With the ability to control lauchpad you have the ability to (kinda) control forks. So if you really want an Ubuntu fork you must pay to use launchpad.

But that is just speculation for now, and Mark says he will open launchpad one day.

asv

January 30th, 2006, 04:42 PM

It seems very odd to me that Canonical is saying that they will release it some day. Why not release it now? Its certainly stable enough to be considered a beta release.

u

commodore

January 30th, 2006, 04:48 PM

Stallman doesn't promote open-source!! He promotes free software (which is open-source+ other goodies).
Bashing Stallman is totally wrong IMO. He has done SO much. He's a very, very good guy.

earobinson

January 30th, 2006, 04:53 PM

Half of the Ubuntu developers wrote Launchpad itself.

It that way for a reason....some think that this is how Mark plans to make money off of Ubuntu. With the ability to control lauchpad you have the ability to (kinda) control forks. So if you really want an Ubuntu fork you must pay to use launchpad.

But that is just speculation for now, and Mark says he will open launchpad one day.
Couldent you just fork and use bugzilla, maybe im being stupid, then watch lanuchpad for when updates come out and include them?

any reasons other than mark making money.

poofyhairguy

January 30th, 2006, 05:11 PM

Couldent you just fork and use bugzilla, maybe im being stupid, then watch lanuchpad for when updates come out and include them?

Maybe. Thats why its not a certain lock. But that way is much harder than using lauchpad.

briancurtin

January 30th, 2006, 07:37 PM

It seems very odd to me that Canonical is saying that they will release it some day. Why not release it now? Its certainly stable enough to be considered a beta release.

u
from what this thread has talked about, it has nothing to do with stability

majikstreet

January 30th, 2006, 10:23 PM

it'd be nice for them to release it..

anyway.. I think we should cut the damn stallman talk right now... sooooo off topic lol.

christhemonkey

January 30th, 2006, 10:29 PM

Sorry to sound stupid, but whos stallman?
actually, im probably better googling it! never mind!

earobinson

January 30th, 2006, 10:33 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

Link anyways

christhemonkey

January 30th, 2006, 10:36 PM

I apologize for my ignorance :)

poofyhairguy

January 30th, 2006, 10:38 PM

Sorry to sound stupid, but whos stallman?

Linus and Stallman. If you use Linux you have to know about both. They are our Bill Gates and Ballmer.

xequence

January 30th, 2006, 10:40 PM

Linus and Stallman. If you use Linux you have to know about both. They are our Bill Gates and Ballmer.

No, Linus and Stallman are our Ballmer and Gates.

(I dont like linus or ballmer, I do like stallman and gates, so I had to switch them around)

Sorry to sound stupid, but whos stallman?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

Anthem

January 31st, 2006, 07:04 AM

Launchpad's no more proprietary than Google.

asv

January 31st, 2006, 07:38 AM

Launchpad's no more proprietary than Google.

How is that relevant? Last time I checked, Google was not an open source software company.

Google Mission

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful

Canonical Mission

Canonical Ltd. is committed to the development, distribution and promotion of open source software products, and to providing tools and support to the open source community.

It seems to me that a proprietary launchpad.net flies in the face of the Canonical mission statement.

poofyhairguy

January 31st, 2006, 07:50 AM

No, Linus and Stallman are our Ballmer and Gates.

Hmmm...I see your point of view!

Burgundavia

January 31st, 2006, 09:03 AM

As pointed out earlier, Launchpad is proprietary (non-free in the debian terms). I believe the longterm plan is to open-source bits of launchpad while developing more.

As for the number of people working for Canonical, it numbers about 55 (as of Nov 2005). 5 of these people are non-technical (Malcolm, Claire, JaneW, Jane S, and Marilize). Approx. 12~15 work on the distro team. This is the team that works on Ubuntu itself. Which leaves ~30 people, who work on Launchpad and Bazaar.

There is an old statement about razors and razor blades. Lets just say I don't think Ubuntu is the razor blades.

Corey

Viro

January 31st, 2006, 10:14 AM

There is an old statement about razors and razor blades. Lets just say I don't think Ubuntu is the razor blades.

So in other words, no such thing as a free lunch? :confused:

mattheweast

January 31st, 2006, 03:07 PM

I am convinced that Launchpad will be open source when the time is right. The sponsorers and developers care too much about open source.

However, there is a good reason that the time is not right yet. If launchpad were released now, it might be used by various projects separately, in different places. This would undermine the ultimate benefit of launchpad, which is to control many projects, distributions and upstream projects alike, in one single place. The advantages of this goal are obvious.

If launchpad is made open source before it is mature enough to handle many upstream and distributions at the same time (which it is not, at the moment), it is likely that its fundamental benefits will be undermined.

earobinson

January 31st, 2006, 03:54 PM

asimon

January 31st, 2006, 04:03 PM

I am convinced that Launchpad will be open source when the time is right. The sponsorers and developers care too much about open source.

So in the mean time it's okay to tell everyone that Ubuntu is entirely commited to free software and at the same time make it depended on propritary software/services? Sorry, I say action speaks louder than voice. Actually Ubuntu lost already some credibility in my eyes.

I propose to stop claiming that Ubuntu is entirely commited to Free Software development and make it plain in round terms that ubuntu promotes propritary software. Because this is the situation right now.

I woudln't even mind if Ubuntu promotes, depends on, and uses propritary stuff. There are other distributions to choose from if you don't want it. But what's wrong is that what I hear in talks from Mark Shuttleworth or read on ubuntu.com is not in line to what's done.

Havoc

January 31st, 2006, 04:19 PM

This has nothing to do with Ubuntu.Just because It's made by Canonical doesn't make it a part of Ubuntu.That's like saying that Linux was less open becaus it used Bitkeeper.And also, Ubuntu does *not* depend on propietary software.It's just another service (In this case, a bug-tracker, translation-tracker, and revision control thingie).If the people of Ubuntu (The devs) didn't want such tools, they'd just stick with the ones they already had.

I'm pretty sure Canonical won't F**k us over with Launchpad, even if they could. :D

asimon

January 31st, 2006, 04:51 PM

This has nothing to do with Ubuntu.Just because It's made by Canonical doesn't make it a part of Ubuntu.
Sorry, I disagree with that. If Malone@launchpad is Ubuntu's bugtracker than this has everything to do with Ubuntu. The same for Rosetta which is promoted by Ubuntu for translation work.

And also, Ubuntu does *not* depend on propietary software.It's just another service (In this case, a bug-tracker, translation-tracker, and revision control thingie).If the people of Ubuntu (The devs) didn't want such tools, they'd just stick with the ones they already had.

So tell me, what's the official way to report bugs, if I should refuse to use propritary Malone? I haven't yet read about an official alternative? And I can tell you that posts on the mailing lists, or forum are always anwered with "file a bug report".

I'm pretty sure Canonical won't F**k us over with Launchpad, even if they could.
I only know that I am suppossed to use propritary stuff for contributing to a distribution which sells itself as entirely commited to Free Software.

Viro

January 31st, 2006, 05:34 PM

I honestly do not understand the objections some people have. Ubuntu is open source. It is committed to stay open source, and they do not have a separate closed source version. What is wrong with using a proprietary tool if it does the job better than currently available open source alternatives?

It's like saying that Linux isn't open source because the kernel developers used BitKeeper instead of CVS/SVN for source code control. The developers chose BitKeeper because in their eyes, it is far better than anything available in the open source world, and it was easier to just use BitKeeper than divert man power (that would be used for kernel development) to develop a source code management app that can rival BitKeeper and the Linux kernel wouldn't have progressed as rapidly as it has if it weren't for BitKeeper.

What is wrong with Ubuntu using Launchpad? Even if they take launchpad away, you still have your Ubuntu source code. What's the big deal? It is helping Ubuntu development.

Dragonbite

January 31st, 2006, 05:57 PM

I know some people that would want some closed-source software in the world ... the people getting paid to write them!

Is there an open-source equivalent that is currently available, secure and business-sound, enough to spend the resources (man-hours if nothing else) to set up, run and maintain?

asimon

January 31st, 2006, 07:05 PM

I honestly do not understand the objections some people have. Ubuntu is open source. It is committed to stay open source, and they do not have a separate closed source version. What is wrong with using a proprietary tool if it does the job better than currently available open source alternatives?

There is nothing wrong in propritary tools per se. What's wrong is the double talk we see here. Ubuntu should tell us, "hey, we are pragmatic, we use and depend on propritary stuff, please understand this". Instead they use propritary stuff and say "We are entirely commited to the principles of free software development". This is wrong. They promise A but deliver -A. Not good.

It's like saying that Linux isn't open source because the kernel developers used BitKeeper instead of CVS/SVN for source code control.
Please read more carefully. I never sayed Ubuntu isn't open source. I sayed the commitment as advertised at ubuntu.com and other places is not true.

What is wrong with Ubuntu using Launchpad? Even if they take launchpad away, you still have your Ubuntu source code. What's the big deal? It is helping Ubuntu development.
What's wrong is that according to what's written at ubuntu.com or the impression you get from the talks from Mark Shuttleworth they should not use it at all.

Try to ease up a bit Asimon.........Thanks, KB.

asv

January 31st, 2006, 07:45 PM

However, there is a good reason that the time is not right yet. If launchpad were released now, it might be used by various projects separately, in different places. This would undermine the ultimate benefit of launchpad, which is to control many projects, distributions and upstream projects alike, in one single place.

This is the classic Sun argument against open source. We don't want it forked. The problem is that its completely invalid. Just because an organization wants people to use their service/product, doesn't somehow justify keeping it proprietary.

Again, I'm not a free/open source zealot, but its ridiculous for an open source company to have a huge proprietary project which could could be of benefit to many users and organizations.

The forking argument for a service like launchpad is generally overblown. The bigger better version of the service is always going to be premier destination. Does the release of slashcode keep a significant amount of people away from slashdot? Of course not, the value in a web service would not be diluted by opening its source code.

Viro

January 31st, 2006, 10:17 PM

There is nothing wrong in propritary tools per se. What's wrong is the double talk we see here. Ubuntu should tell us, "hey, we are pragmatic, we use and depend on propritary stuff, please understand this". Instead they use propritary stuff and say "We are entirely commited to the principles of free software development". This is wrong. They promise A but deliver -A. Not good.

Encouraging people to use Free software to develop doesn't mean that you do not use proprietary software at all(!!). I advocate the use of Free software. Since I have a Powerbook that runs Linux on PowerPC, I am acutely aware of the need for true Free software (many proprietary Linux binaries are only for x86). Nevertheless, there are times when Free software do not meet my needs. One such example is Matlab.

A pet gripe of mine is the lack of a compatible Matlab clone in the Free software universe. I've heard all sorts of suggestions from Octave to Python. Octave is similar in syntax to Matlab, and Python is a neat language. However, for serious numerical work, like what Matlab is designed for, Python and Octave are not real alternatives, even if they are free. Both of these packages are usually 50 - 1000x slower than Matlab in the work that I do. That makes them pretty much useless if I want to get work done in a timely manner. Of course, you can argue that if I need speed, why not write directly in C. I do, but then productivity suffers. At the end of the day, Matlab is the best choice for the work I do; nothing in the Free software arena comes close.

I know the Linux kernel developers faced a similar situation when they decided to use BitKeeper. To be productive, or not to be (paraphrasing a famous writer :)). I don't know about the Ubuntu developers and Launchpad, but I don't doubt that if they could find an alternative, they would use it. Besides, even if they removed launch pad, that doesn't affect Ubuntu at all since the source and everything else is available. I do not see a problem here.

asimon

February 1st, 2006, 12:20 AM

Encouraging people to use Free software to develop doesn't mean that you do not use proprietary software at all(!!).
This is absolutely right, I too encourage people to use Free Software but use propritary software for certain tasks.
But I think there is a difference between 'encouraging' and 'entirely commited to'.

I know the Linux kernel developers faced a similar situation when they decided to use BitKeeper. To be productive, or not to be (paraphrasing a famous writer :)).
I think this situation is not comparable to the bitkeeper story at all. That situation was completly clear from the start. Once again, my gripe is not about the usage of propritary stuff, but saying Ubuntu is entirely free software commited when this 'entirely' is untrue. Many people are even unaware of the fact that launchpad is propritary!

I don't know about the Ubuntu developers and Launchpad, but I don't doubt that if they could find an alternative, they would use it.
They had a working free bug tracking alternative before. Now to contribute bug reports I have to use propritary Malone, there is no alternative. With Rosetta there was always the alternative to not use it but make translations upstream.

Besides, even if they removed launch pad, that doesn't affect Ubuntu at all since the source and everything else is available. I do not see a problem here.
They should not remove launchpad. Rather they should change a certain statement at ubuntu.com and maybe state some things differently in future talks.

WildTangent

February 1st, 2006, 01:19 AM

Asimon: if you're so concerned about that statement, why not bring it up at the next Community Council meeting.

-Wild

xequence

February 1st, 2006, 02:37 AM

Asimon: if you're so concerned about that statement, why not bring it up at the next Community Council meeting.

-Wild

Just a random question, but does anyone (except you and a couple people that I guess would know about it, like azz and poofy) accually know what this council thing is, and when they meet, and where? o.O

poofyhairguy

February 1st, 2006, 03:10 AM

Just a random question, but does anyone (except you and a couple people that I guess would know about it, like azz and poofy) accually know what this council thing is, and when they meet, and where? o.O

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommunityCouncil

neighborlee

May 27th, 2008, 09:19 PM

This is absolutely right, I too encourage people to use Free Software but use propritary software for certain tasks.
But I think there is a difference between 'encouraging' and 'entirely commited to'.

I think this situation is not comparable to the bitkeeper story at all. That situation was completly clear from the start. Once again, my gripe is not about the usage of propritary stuff, but saying Ubuntu is entirely free software commited when this 'entirely' is untrue. Many people are even unaware of the fact that launchpad is propritary!

They had a working free bug tracking alternative before. Now to contribute bug reports I have to use propritary Malone, there is no alternative. With Rosetta there was always the alternative to not use it but make translations upstream.

They should not remove launchpad. Rather they should change a certain statement at ubuntu.com and maybe state some things differently in future talks.

I just learned about this, non OSS aspect of lauchpad, and while sure its clear that some software not open source is used and necessary atm ( if you need certain 'hardware' that is ), it really sends a weird signal, that bugs filed for a freely available OS would be handled by non opensource code, which was written by that same company.

Please no rants about opening a OLD thread, I just found out about it.

Maybe OpenSolaris....wpam begin.

You know this isn't about me, its about opensource..or so I thought, then I find this out.

That is why this whole mono thing was something I wanted nothing to do with and now with ooXML we find those of us not supporting it were probably very much correct. Standards and open source someday will be the hallmark of society.

cheers
nl

perce

May 27th, 2008, 11:34 PM

Is Launchpad distributed at all? if Canonical developed it, and makes it run on Canonical servers, then there is no contradiction: free software principles say that if you distribute some software, you must distribute at certain conditions that empower the user (n particular making the source available and allowing to modify it), but they don't say that you must distribute all software you write.