Ubuntu again

[Collins Richey]

On 5/1/06, Dallam Wych <dallam.wyche at ntlworld.com> wrote:

Top posting here. Thanks for the lengthy response. Even if I don't
agree with everything, it's good food for thought

>
> It's hardly innuendo. As you apparently don't realize how the Debian
> project works, what it's goals are, it's social contract or much
> else about it for that matter I'll point out some issues that I
> *personally* have in regards to Ubuntu.
>

Actually I do know "how the Debian project works, what it's goals are,
it's social contract", etc. I don't happen to agree totally with the
social contract, but that's a topic for another day.

> Debian is heavily involved with SPI and OFTC, making many
> contributions to the opensource community.

I don't happen to know about either of these acronyms.

>
> Debian is an all volunteer project made up of approximately 1000
> developers. Under the Debian constitution, each of these
> developers (if they meet certain criteria) are entitled to vote
> in the yearly election for DPL (Debian Project Leader). They also
> (and rightfully so) have much to say about the direction of the
> project in general. Now, lets consider that some of these developers
> have entered into an employment contract with Shuttleworth. In other
> words, they are now employees of Canonical. Yet, regardless of
> whether they contribute any longer or not to Debian, as DD's they
> are still entitled to vote for DPL. Surely you can see the conflict
> of interest here.

Yes indeed, but that would be up to Debian to resolve. If you don't
want developers who have been corrupted by a nasty ole commercial
enterprise to vote, change the constitution.

> Do you really not see the position that Shuttleworth has designed here? That by
> hiring Debian developers it (to a relatively large degree) gives his company quite
> a bit of say concerning another projects direction and other important decisions.

Well, I certainly wouldn't hire Re Hat developers to work on a
Debian-based project. I think you're on the wrong track. There is
certainly no low that prevents one corporation from hiring employees
who work for another corporation.

>
> It also has reached the point where various Debian lists receive
> lots of questions about Ubuntu systems. These questions are for
> the most part answered, something that in all of the years I have
> been a list member I have *never* seen happen before.
>

I can't really comment on the fact/fiction that Ubuntu users receive
special treatment from Debian, since I never visit the Debian lists.

> As for Ubuntu itself, I find it a poor policy to mix testing and
> unstable. btw, that's something that Debian doesn't recommend.
> I believe this from a security and bug fix point of view.

You have every right to this opinion, just as Ubuntu has every right
to mix an match software the way they see fit.

> Further to this line of thinking, if Ubuntu is based on packages
> meant for testing and packages meant to just be entering the Debian
> packaging system (unstable) why does Ubuntu include web servers?
> Who among us would actually use a testing or unstable branch on a web
> server? That is a task best left to stable IMHO.

All of this presumes that Debian has some sort of magic understanding
and absolute control over "what should be stable" for a server. Many
agree with that approach, but obviously Ubuntu is following the beat
of a different drummer. Only time will tell whether this is a good
decision or not.

>
> Secondly, I find Ubuntu to be geared more towards new linux users.

Absolutely, and it;s high time for a Debian derivative to consider the
needs of absolutely clueless users instead of catering only to the
geeks who sit on the sideline and chant RTFM.

> Also the default install includes a multitude of software that I
> certainly have no need for (though I do realize this isn't true for
> everyone). And why is almost everything dependant upon Ubuntu
> Desktop? I wanted to remove some simple application that I don't use
> and I was shocked at everything marked for removal over this one
> dependency. I don't care for the sudo bit personally, that's
> something I feel should be left up to the user to decide for
> himself.
>

Every distro escept maybe DSL offers a lot more software than I need
personally, but so what. Just think of all the software crammed into
Knoppix.

> Also, is Shuttleworths manner of doing things really the
> direction we want opensource software to go in?

The rest of that paragraph is defintely sour grapes (IMO).

In summary, as I see it, you don't care for Shuttleworth because he's
based his distribution on Debian, but he has the gall not to let
Debian run the show, and worse he's providing employment opportunities
for Debian-based developers!!!

For the most part I have no bone to pick with Debian and none with
Ubuntu. If Shuttleworth can pull off the trick of packaging Debian for
the masses, I say more power to him.

You pays you money ($0.0), and you takes you chances.

I happen to like Ubuntu and I like Fedora and I like Gentoo, and I
have been known to run Slackware. I would be the first to run to their
defense when someone swings an axe at any of them.

That being said, I find many positive things (and a few negative ones)
 about Ubuntu. Just think of the effort being made in the educational
arena and the new Xubuntu for systems with fewer resources. The phrase
comes to mind "dragging Debian kicking and screaming into the 21st
century." That's not 100% accurate, but it's certainly not 100% wrong.

My only real problem with Ubuntu and Debian and Fedora and now even
Novell is that they are all Gnome centric. I run Kubuntu, and of
course you can run KDE on any of these, but KDE is definitely treated
as a second class citizen. I would not like to wake up in a Linux
world where the only offering is Gnome. That's just my prejudice.

Maybe you and Lonni will be right. Ubuntu will be just a flash in the
pan. Then there will be only Red Hat and Debian and SuSE the way
$DEITY intended it. <grin>

--
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.