Sam Varghese : Mark Shuttleworth's big mistake

[newbie2]

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/175606/index.html
:rolleyes:




Last week marked eight years since Ubuntu made its appearance on the GNU/Linux scene. Since October 2004, there has been a release of this distribution every six months, the initial buzz being very loud and then gradually fading away.

Over the years, it is noticeable that every time Mark Shuttleworth, the man who owns Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, introduces some feature that is calculated to bring in some income, there is a mighty hue and cry. Then the Ubuntu people try to explain it away and finally there is a half-arsed compromise which satisfies nobody.

The latest such feature, in the 12.10 release, was the addition of search results from Amazon, to regular search results. This means some income from Amazon for Canonical; the compromise was to make it an optional feature.

Similar situations have arisen in the past and will continue to come up in the future. There is one simple reason for this - Shuttleworth failed to clearly enunciate his vision at the start of the Ubuntu project. It was a big mistake.

When Ubuntu made its first release, there was a lot of talk about the meaning of the word - humanity to others. There was lots of other touchy-feely stuff, with much emphasis laid on the involvement of "community". Free CDs were shipped to people. It looked like a FOSS charity on steroids. Or EPO, a la Lance Armstrong, if you like.

But there was never any open talk about the fact that Ubuntu was a commercial distribution; it needed to make money to ensure its existence. Shuttleworth has deep pockets but they do have some finite limit. The software could be free, but the books would some day have to be balanced.

By contrast, when Red Hat, the most profitable GNU/Linux company by far, was born, in 1994, everyone knew it was geared towards making money off the free operating system. There were no illusions. Why back in 1997, when I first read about GNU/Linux, people in the FOSS community were already calling Red Hat (the distribution) the Microsoft of Linux distributions!

But over the years, Red Hat has gained a great deal of positive karma in the community. It contributes in no small way towards the progress of Linux by hiring a large number of developers who make massive contributions to the kernel. It funds peripheral activities to help the FOSS ecosystem grow.

Of Ubuntu, nobody initially said a bad word. But at points along the road, whenever there was a move towards incorporating some feature or the other that could be used to generate money, the users rose up in droves. One cannot blame them; they had been led to believe that the community was paramount and hence they reacted.

After a few such confrontations, Shuttleworth put his foot down and continued on the path he had chosen. He really had no choice but to do so when his plans to gently introduce mass-market features were criticised, first gently, then bitterly.

FOSS community members have no problem with those who try to make money off free and open source software. Slackware's Patrick Volkerding is a hero to many for continuing to bring his users the distribution they want. They, in return, buy anything and everything he puts out to raise money and help keep him going. And his distribution is one which, for the most part, has been in the black all along.

But Shuttleworth more or less dug his own grave. He should have been clear about the path he was going to take, clear about what he was aiming for, careful to put his whole plan out in the open. A GNU/Linux company has to tread a somewhat different path to the average software firm; perhaps Shuttleworth was unaware of this.

Whatever the reason, his lack of communication has resulted in what happened with the Amazon search results and what will take place in the future. It was Mark Shuttleworth's big mistake.

[CharlesA]

Helps to post some content instead of just a link..

Sounds like the usual FUD tbh.

[Mikeb85]

Yup. All this anti-capitalist attitude amongst Linux users is silly. Fact is, Linux needs to be sustainable. It can't just be a cancer on the computer industry that sucks donations out of people and corporations, it needs to generate revenue to pay developers to keep improving.

I don't think Canonical making money is bad. They operate like a non-profit - odds are the only reason they aren't actually a non-profit is because of the regulations that accompany that status.

The biggest boon to the worldwide economy and the 3rd world is the proliferation of technology to the world's poor. Even in developed economies small business creates more jobs than any other sectors. Ubuntu is a great potential solution for entrepreneurs everywhere - it's sustainability and economic viability could potentially help entrepreneurs in developing markets, creating wealth in poor countries.

But no, most of the 'free software' advocates living lavishly in our '1st world' countries are hung up on 'ideology', not realizing that Canonical and Ubuntu have taken the pragmatic route, and is looking to be a real enabling technology - not simply an ideological toy...

[sffvba[e0rt]

I am on the fence about the article TBH... If there is one thing Ubuntu (well Canonical... well Mark Shuttleworth) has failed at consistantly it is communication.


404

[KiwiNZ]

Ubuntu/Canonical is a business venture not some sixties hippy flash back.

[alexfish]

Shuttleworth failed to clearly enunciate his vision at the start of the Ubuntu project



After a few such confrontations, Shuttleworth put his foot down and continued on the path he had chosen

Well blow me down if the Author ain't a mind reader , and a poor one at that. or possible a Fortune teller in the local rag.

[fontis]

I don't mind there being some form of money being generated by the OS. Obviously the developers need to get some living out of it as well.

But here's the thing.. Ubuntu is just a compilation of software developed by other people. It's not as if Canonical themselves "created" it. Well, Unity is their baby, but the rest is just branded works of others...

Anyway, I think they should just improve on their communication skills instead of just randomly "making a tough call" and hope people swing with it.

[forrestcupp]

I don't think it was his biggest mistake at all. Just when he got us all sucked in and addicted, and he fooled everyone to start making Ubuntu a priority when packaging software, he turns the tables and sucks the life out of us, and there's no where to run. :D

[Mikeb85]

I don't think it was his biggest mistake at all. Just when he got us all sucked in and addicted, and he fooled everyone to start making Ubuntu a priority when packaging software, he turns the tables and sucks the life out of us, and there's no where to run. :D

There's always somewhere to run... Just nowhere that is better...

[rg4w]

But here's the thing.. Ubuntu is just a compilation of software developed by other people. It's not as if Canonical themselves "created" it. Well, Unity is their baby, but the rest is just branded works of others...
People made GPL software long before Ubuntu came along. People built much of that on top of the work that had come before them, long before Ubuntu came along.

Canonical has found ways to help offset a subset of their own costs. Others are free to do the same, just as they've always been.

If programmers don't want people to use their code, they shouldn't choose GPL as their license.

If they do, they understand that if Canonical can pull this off, chances are good the company is smart enough to share some of the profits upstream.

But first, there need to be profits.

And so it begins....

[grahammechanical]

You have to pity the poor guy. He has to make a living. And as he cannot create he can only criticise. Who is the parasite living off Linux if it is not the journalist.

Mind you, when I read Mark's blog I do wonder if he is writing in English. He does have a way of expressing himself that does not make it easy for people who do not know what he is talking about to understand what he is saying.

Well, he does that to me, at any rate. And I am from the East end of London. And I never went to university. So, what can you expect.

Regards.

[KiwiNZ]

You have to pity the poor guy. He has to make a living. And as he cannot create he can only criticise. Who is the parasite living off Linux if it is not the journalist.

Mind you, when I read Mark's blog I do wonder if he is writing in English. He does have a way of expressing himself that does not make it easy for people who do not know what he is talking about to understand what he is saying.

Well, he does that to me, at any rate. And I am from the East end of London. And I never went to university. So, what can you expect.

Regards.

He is from South Africa, they cannot even play Rugby there :P:P:P

[sffvba[e0rt]

He is from South Africa, they cannot even play Rugby there :P:P:P

Grrrrr.....


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[KiwiNZ]

:-\":-\"\\:d/

[sffvba[e0rt]

:-\":-\"\\:d/

Oh look ,it is the Bryce Lawrence William Webb Ellis Trophy...


404

[bra|10n]

That's too good, \\:D/

[Peripheral Visionary]

Mr. Shuttleworth "brought Linux to the people" with greater success than others who have done the same. There's Mepis doing the same thing, but without the greater success and popularity that Ubuntu enjoys. There's PCLinuxOS doing the same thing, and doing it very well, but not enjoying the same popularity as Ubuntu.

The reason is all the money that Mister Shuttleworth has been able to invest in the project. Anyone could have done what Red Hat and Canonical have done to bring Linux to the desktop as well as the server market. Doing so was a big risk of private capital and if Mister Shuttleworth finally gets some meaningful return on his years of investment in Ubuntu, I'm all for it. We see Mint doing similar stuff now and no one says a word. Red Hat has done it all along and no one objects. The only difference is that Canonical is "non-profit," and somehow that's supposed to mean that it's unethical for Mister Shuttleworth to recover some small portion of his massive investment over the years? Ridiculous. Look at the six-figure salaries of some non-profit corporations that rely entirely on donations and volunteers! Why is that okay but somehow it's not okay for Mister Shuttleworth because he "didn't invent Linux and FOSS?"

Perhaps his only mistake was founding Canonical as a non-profit instead of a commercial enterprise.

[Mikeb85]

Mr. Shuttleworth "brought Linux to the people" with greater success than others who have done the same. There's Mepis doing the same thing, but without the greater success and popularity that Ubuntu enjoys. There's PCLinuxOS doing the same thing, and doing it very well, but not enjoying the same popularity as Ubuntu.

The reason is all the money that Mister Shuttleworth has been able to invest in the project. Anyone could have done what Red Hat and Canonical have done to bring Linux to the desktop as well as the server market. Doing so was a big risk of private capital and if Mister Shuttleworth finally gets some meaningful return on his years of investment in Ubuntu, I'm all for it. We see Mint doing similar stuff now and no one says a word. Red Hat has done it all along and no one objects. The only difference is that Canonical is "non-profit," and somehow that's supposed to mean that it's unethical for Mister Shuttleworth to recover some small portion of his massive investment over the years? Ridiculous. Look at the six-figure salaries of some non-profit corporations that rely entirely on donations and volunteers! Why is that okay but somehow it's not okay for Mister Shuttleworth because he "didn't invent Linux and FOSS?"

Perhaps his only mistake was founding Canonical as a non-profit instead of a commercial enterprise.

Canonical isn't a non-profit. It is a private commercial enterprise. It's simply been more charitable than most commercial enterprises. I agree with the rest of your post.

Mark Shuttleworth gets the most criticism because Ubuntu has the highest popularity. Sometimes I think Linux users want Linux to remain obscure.

[Peripheral Visionary]

Canonical isn't a non-profit. It is a private commercial enterprise. It's simply been more charitable than most commercial enterprises. I agree with the rest of your post.

Oh, thanks! I stand corrected. And since Canonical is a commercial enterprise, it makes even less sense that people object to efforts to make it profitable.


Mark Shuttleworth gets the most criticism because Ubuntu has the highest popularity. Sometimes I think Linux users want Linux to remain obscure.

Maybe it's just one of those things about being on top. Others want to be Number One and when they can't do it on merit, they try to get there by bashing whoever happens to have the top spot.

[jrog]

Ubuntu/Canonical is a business venture not some sixties hippy flash back.
This.


Yup. All this anti-capitalist attitude amongst Linux users is silly. Fact is, Linux needs to be sustainable. . . . But no, most of the 'free software' advocates living lavishly in our '1st world' countries are hung up on 'ideology', not realizing that Canonical and Ubuntu have taken the pragmatic route, and is looking to be a real enabling technology - not simply an ideological toy...
And this.


I don't mind there being some form of money being generated by the OS. Obviously the developers need to get some living out of it as well.

But here's the thing.. Ubuntu is just a compilation of software developed by other people. It's not as if Canonical themselves "created" it. Well, Unity is their baby, but the rest is just branded works of others...
I don't think I understand this criticism. The same might be said of Red Hat, but, as far as I know, it isn't. (You might say that Red Hat has contributed more code upstream; maybe so, but that doesn't change the fact that much of the software upon which its product is built still consists of software developed by other people, or the fact that, whether Canonical has contributed as much code upstream or not, they have still contributed a lot to developing their own particular product, Unity being just one example.)

This last part isn't directed to anyone in particular, but I have to say that I really don't get the opposition to almost anything commercial among Linux users. Even the GPL itself is perfectly fine with commercial software. What's more, Canonical has seemingly spurred the most major advances toward producing what many Linux users have apparently wanted for years: a (mostly, depending on what you install) FOSS desktop OS that is a real, workable alternative to the major proprietary OSes, in at least the sense that it is much more widely known about, used, and available to those outside of the "Linux geek culture" (even coming preinstalled on a not-insignificant, though also not massive, number of computers put out by major manufacturers) than other attempted FOSS desktops. It seems to have made some fairly substantial strides on behalf of Linux. Valve's desire to bring Steam to Linux via Ubuntu is only one recent example of something coming to Linux that likely would not have come if Canonical was not doing what it was doing. Probably, this is due at least in part to the fact that Canonical is involved in commercial endeavors.

[rg4w]

He is from South Africa, they cannot even play Rugby there :P:P:P
The problem there is that NZ has an unfair advantage: the All Blacks. :)