Ubuntu 12.10 will include advertisements for products on Amazon. It will look like this - if you search, product suggestions will pop up. This seems like a rather slippery slope to me, and I certainly wouldn't want this on my desktop, laptop, smartphone, tablet, or anywhere else. On the web - fine, I'm on your site, not mine - but my desktop is mine, and mine alone. Not that it matters - open source, someone will disable them. Biggest concern: does this mean my search queries get sent across the web?
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2007-11-11
I have to say I find the whole thing fascinating myself. I mean here is the company that the community gushed over, now when they are bleeding to death and trying to keep the lights on its "ZOMG they are trying to make money! How dare they not do everything for free, i'll switch OSes first!" Wharrgarbl!
I guess like communism the whole FOSS philosophy just don't work, at least on the desktop. As i have said before it will take at least 100 million dollars to bring Linux up to the same level as Windows and OSX, you have whole subsystems like X and Pulse that will need to be replaced or rebuilt, docs, regression testing, QA and QC, yet as Canonical found out there is simply no way to make money on a Linux desktop. How many "Ubuntu derived" distros are there, enjoying the fruits of Canonical labor without throwing them even a beer? I rest my case.
The big mistake Shuttleworth made was using Linux in the first place, if he'd have used BSD as Jobs did he could have kept his work, charged $20 a pop once the buzz built up and would now have the money to not only continue but actually improve the system. Instead we'll see Canonical join Mandriva, Xandros, Linsprie and the rest on the scrapheap of history and nothing will ever get any better. Different and prettier yes, but NOT better. Heck you can't even update the system without Pulse or WiFi or something breaking, this is 2012 and Linux behaves like its 1993 when it comes to drivers, that just won't cut it.
Member since:2006-12-05
I have to admit, I never did get the big deal with Ubuntu back in those days. I kept trying it, version after version, trying to figure out what the big deal was with no success. And later on, for a while they started to do the right things, so it was interesting--but it was still just Debian, only with an installable live CD, more up-to-date applications, a custom theme, less stability, and the commercial backing of a billionaire.
I despised advertising back then, and I despise advertising now. For me, nothing's changed. Hell, I only used Ubuntu for a brief time, mostly back in 2008. Back when it really was starting to get good. Before and shortly after then, as well as now, I was and have been using something else.
You make that seem like a bad thing, but Canonical itself seems to be enjoying it. Most recent example: Lubuntu.
Yes, because we all want another god damn proprietary operating system.
Member since:2006-05-23
Member since:2012-08-26
No, what the Linux community was impressed with initially was the fact that an African millionaire decided to produce a Debian Linux spin-off that would be available for 2nd and 3rd World countries.
Ubuntu, the distro, however, is not Canonical, the corporation. Shuttleworth is independently wealthy and annual revenues for their services still nets them around $30 million. No that is not Apple, but it is hardly bleeding out and struggling to keep the lights on.
FOSS and Linux are not the same as 'corporate capitalism' though they are hardly 'communistic' in opposition to it. But you obviously confuse the two numerous times in this post. Most complaints these days about Ubuntu and Canonical are that they do not know how to separate the two either.
For example, Ubuntu's insistence on using Unity and now adding by default (i.e., I must opt-out not opt-in) integrated Amazon search are two examples of this inappropriate fusing of two radically different philosophies where both become watered down. Freedom is removed from Ubuntu, and Canonical is still not the African Apple or Microsoft.
If they want to be financially more successful, they could learn a thing or two from the market segment leaders like IBM, Red Hat, etc. Red Hat and Fedora keep and maintain this separation. If Fedora wants to be bleeding edge and do something stupid like adding Gnome 3, then they can. If it is a screw-up, someone will fork it, maintain Gnome 2, etc. Red Hat's corporate Linux is very conservative and maintains stability for long-term business customers and thereby provides them a much more stable and growing revenue stream. After all, RHEL versions 4, 5 & 6 ship with Gnome 2.8, 2.16, & 2.28 respectively.
Shuttleworth made his millions in the 'dot-com' high as a venture capitalist. He is a 'personality' and not necessarily the best person to run a successful long-term corporate entity in the 'Linux' world.
Member since:2006-05-23
BTW, have you ever tried Solaris for x86? It's proprietary (again) but freeware for personal use. Oracle probably puts a lot of effort into QC for it, and it has several advantages Linux (like being much more secure by default than 90% of distros last I checked). Honestly no idea what it's like on the desktop though, or what sort of hardware support it has.
Member since:2012-05-22
Yes and nobody would have buy it. And you forget that the community is helping a lot in the bug finding fixing and quality control which you have to do yourself in a proprietary system. Everybody seems to forget that apple was struggling before 5-6 years ago before they came up with the iphone. I am not saying you can make money on the desktop but it's not the model problem.
And no search on my desktop lens not seem so disruptive. I can live with that.
Member since:2007-11-23
Oh, come one ... what "fruits of Canonical labour"? are you being serious? Just install Debian and you'll see that Ubuntu is exactly the same as Debian, not mentioning some silly stuff like upstart or Unity which Canonical developed.
They are rather a parasite, and your analogy to communism is highly inappropiate. I know USA has a century-isuess with mythical communism, but come-on!
FLOSS development model is working great and it is benefits both individuals and corporations. There is NO "communism" [BTW - you would be more accurate if you would have say "socialism"] there. There's something you won't understand as long as you're sticking to anarchocapitalistic terms of life - this "something" is kindness, selflessness and altruism.
But yeah, go ahead and buy yourself some sincere sympathy.
Member since:2008-08-01
Member since:2005-11-14
Uhm, if Shuttleworth had made Ubuntu a closed source fork of *BSD, he wouldn't have had much hype, and he would have had to put in significant resources to get various drivers (most notably for graphics) close to Linux's level. FreeBSD is currently years behind Linux as a desktop OS, for the simple reason that Linux is what all the desktop work goes in to. For your imaginary closed *BSD Ubuntu to get close to Windows, you would have to multiply your imaginary 100 million dollars with a real number higher than 1.
And despite the fact that no one seems to make much money off the Linux desktop (nor BSD), it strangely does seem to work rather well.
Member since:2011-05-14
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2010-01-18
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?
Member since:
2006-12-05
Don't install what? Ubuntu or the lens? Not installing Ubuntu is certainly possible, but this "lens" will probably be installed by default with the OS. Otherwise, how else would they be able to get those kickbacks from Amazon, sending all of everyone's HUD searches to Amazon while they're at it? If that's the case, then you can only uninstall it after it has already been installed. It's easier to just install one of the many other Linux distributions--and IMO, preferably one that is not based directly on Ubuntu.