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?
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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
Yes, because we all want another god damn proprietary operating system.
Why the hell not? It would help create some bona fide competition on the desktop market, which IMO Apple and Microsoft badly need, both being effective monopolies in their respective niches.
Anyway, the problem with OSes isn't that they have proprietary licenses, it's that they have unfriendly licenses. Take Windows for example... You pay $100+ for a physical medium that's licensed to maybe 3 computers, no exception for VMs, have to buy a new license when installing on a new computer, etc. This is not a user-friendly state of affairs, but MS can afford to keep things this way because they have the market cornered. Having alternative, proprietary desktop OSes available might force them to price and license their OS more competitively.
Member since:2008-07-15
I don't necessarily want another proprietary operating system, but I'm enough of a realist to know that software doesn't get developed up to a high standard of quality unless the developers are getting paid, and the easiest way to make a return on ones investment is to sell the product at a fair price. The trouble with open source operating systems is that, when push comes to shove, there's very little money to be made from one on the home desktop. It works fine in a professional setting because most companies are willing to pay for support contracts and other services, so companies like Red Hat can make their money that way and give the operating system itself out at no cost. Home users, however, won't typically go in for such a plan and so the easiest way to make a high quality product they will want is to sell it and, where something like GNU/Linux is concerned, selling to home users is impractical as they can just get it for free anyway. This is one of the reasons why Linux on the average home desktop doesn't work: Most companies are concentrating on the corporate workstation and server since those markets are the cash cows and so home users are considered last if at all. I see no real way to avoid this except to sell a proprietary system and, unlike a lot of people here, I don't dislike the idea of proprietary software. A group of people create something and, if it's successful, they have the right to proffit from their good work. I don't much care for the licenses of most proprietary software, but that's a problem with lawyers not with the idea of closed software in and of itself.
Member since:2006-05-23
Member since:2005-07-08
Can you give an example of a single FOSS desktop application that has a company with developers 100% dedicated to it, that makes money out of it?
Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice don't count as the revenue source is not from the application they develop.
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:2006-12-05
Wow. Well if that's it, then it truly is ironic that Ubuntu is now trying to advertise shit from Amazon to people in those same second- and third-world countries. Including that continent the distribution itself originates from.
Edited 2012-09-23 04:27 UTC
Member since:2005-08-18
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:2007-09-22
Who cares about Solaris anymore ? The fork is open:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc
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:2005-06-29
The real money in GNU/Linux and BSD is in the background, not as a retail consumer desktop OS. Put it on a server, sell services running on that server, and make some bucks.
Every web host I've ever used or researched seemed to be more successful with their *nix based packages than Windows. Unless you need something specifically offered by Windows IIS, there is simply no reason to run it given the licensing costs passed on to the user.
Member since:2011-05-14
Member since:2006-05-23
Member since:2005-07-06
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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.