Ubuntu: Time for Another Reality Check
Occasional criticism of Ubuntu as a less-than-perfect Linux distribution, and of Canonical as a selfish member of the free-software ecosystem, is nothing new. But no matter how many flaws one can find with Ubuntu and its developers, they have succeeded in respects where every similar endeavor to date has failed; namely, they’ve achieved a public image that blows every other Linux distribution out of the water.
A lot of the Canonical-haters, in my experience, speak out of jealousy at Ubuntu’s success. They’re upset that it’s crowded out other distributions to become almost synonymous in popular usage with Linux. Other critics are geeks who feel threatened by Canonical’s goal of making Linux accessible to normal people, which they worry will destroy the free-software world by inducting the technically incompetent into it.
It’s hard to argue with such critics, as their viewpoints are rooted in opinions and worldviews that can’t be easily changed. But there are other criticisms of Ubuntu that are valid and worth considering here.
Not the best
To start, Ubuntu may not be the most user-friendly Linux distribution. Granted, “user-friendly” is mostly in the eye of the beholder, but there are nonetheless a lot of good reasons for arguing that Mint, for example, does a better job with usability, or that Mandriva makes the system easier to configure through intuitive GUIs.
Nor is Ubuntu the most customizable Linux. Something like Gentoo would win on that account.
A lot of users would argue that Ubuntu, with its earth tones, is far from the prettiest Linux out there.
And while Canonical is responsible for some important projects that benefit the Linux ecosystem as a whole–Launchpad is an example–it can be pretty soundly demonstrated that Canonical’s contributions of code back to the upstream projects on which Ubuntu relies is dwarfed by the work of Red Hat and other larger companies.
What matters
So by some measures and opinions, Ubuntu and Canonical do not represent the best of the free-software world. But despite all this, Ubuntu has succeeded in an important area where every other distribution has failed–specifically, in expanding the image of Linux and free software to unprecedented heights.
Ubuntu has attained a remarkable presence in the non-geek sphere. Mark Shuttleworth has been interviewed by the New York Times and the BBC, a feat of mainstream media coverage obtained not even perhaps by Linus Torvalds himself. Ubuntu’s profile in mainstream news sources dwarfs that of its competitors; for a telling example, compare the results of a search of the BBC’s site for “ubuntu” vs. those for, say, “fedora” or “red hat”.
Canonical has also forged an impressive relationship with vendors like Dell and IBM. Ubuntu isn’t the first Linux distribution to come pre-installed on personal computers, and certainly not on servers. But it’s the first I’ve heard of to enjoy advertising in circulars, for example. Dell may not always promote Ubuntu as openly as some would hope, but the relationship has done a lot more than anything prior to bring Linux into the public view.
Canonical’s relationship with vendors like Dell has also reaped substantial benefits for the community as a whole. The release of a Linux driver by Broadcom, for example, was achieved through pressure from Dell in order to make sure its hardware would have solid support on Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is not the most technically innovative Linux distribution, nor is Canonical the most prolific contributor of code back to the community. But it has made up for what it lacks in these regards by advancing awareness of alternative operating systems and open-source applications beyond the realm of geeks.
To put it in another light, Ubuntu is to operating systems what Mozilla is for browsers. Firefox may not be the objectively best browser, and Mozilla is hardly the only innovator in its market–more marginal browsers like Opera may best merit that title. But despite these relative shortcomings, Mozilla made the non-geeks of the world realize that the Internet was not the “e” next to their Start menus; it made them (some of them, at least) realize that they have a choice, and that the open-source model can be a viable one.
Canonical’s success in bringing Linux mainstream has been only incremental. The Year of the Linux Desktop remains beyond the horizon. But no matter how much we may question certain aspects of Ubuntu, or certain practices of its developers, anyone who hopes to see the Linux desktop go mainstream and the proprietary monopoly broken can’t deny the centrality of Canonical in bringing that vision closer to reality in a way that sets Ubuntu far apart from all its competitors.
Wow Chris… lots and lots to complain about in the assumptions your making about people’s motivations in those opening paragraphs. But I’ll stick to the factual errors.
Report of a Linspire based machine in a Fry’s circular…. from 2005.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1880750,00.asp
Report of Xandros based EEE PC netbook in a Toys R’ Us newspaper circular… from 2008.
http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2008/12/09/give-linux-with-no-surprises/
I realize that your myopically focused on Ubuntu.. and you aren’t going out of your way to look for other linux variants that are trying to be a mainstream commercial product. But, let’s avoid being revisionist about who did what first.
I know we all want to forget the Debian based lindows/linspire.. but they did blaze a trail into the consumer space. The lindows/linspire history is important to understand the development of retailer interest in linux. What we really don’t know however is how far would linspire could have gotten if they found a private investor with Shuttleworth’s deep pockets who was willing to bankroll platform operations for 10 years or more. It’s an interesting hypothetical. There are some very important parallels in the positioning of Lindows/Linpsire and Canonical/ubuntu. And on a related question how long is Shuttleworth willing to fund Canonical until it pulls out of the red? 10 years? 20 years? He’s backed away from his earlier projections about when Canonical will stop bleeding money.
Getting Dell on the hook as a product partner is by no means a small accomplishment… even if it turns out that business arrangement required Shuttleworth to pay out of pocket to get Ubuntu products into Dell’s line up. Google’s basically doing a similar thing now with Android with its “less than free” licensing model. But at the same time… look at the relationship between HP and Canonical. Canonical was hired to build a custom interface for HP’s mini netbook line.. which HP punted completely.
The proprietary broadcom driver…is a double edge sword… just like the poulbro intel driver. Sure initially it seems like a great idea.. but once the bug reports start rolling in that the vendor isn’t being paid to fix…they just pile up and up.
-jef
Good post, Christopher. You have pointed out something that often gets missed in the discussion. Shuttleworth has really done something with Ubuntu. Whether its his leadership, his vision, his money, or some combination thereof is really irrelevant. He gave voice to the large portion of the pragmatists within the Linux community. And the community responded and this momentum propelled Ubuntu to the forefront of the scrappy underworld that is dominated by the fiefdoms of infamous Linux distros. In a way, Ubuntu puts a face to Linux in a way that no other distro has.
I just wish people would pronounce “Ubuntu” properly (say oo-BOON-too). Typically it’s bad business to give one’s brand a name that can be mispronounced in thirty different ways. Much of the open source world has yet to learn the value of branding. Yeah, I’m talking to you GIMP, PiTiVi, gtk-recordMyDesktop, KEverything, etc. Would Firefox have succeeded if its name was KInflamedVulpes?
I have thought about this as well, and while some people don’t feel Ubuntu has delivered ‘up stream’, I don’t think that is their goal. Time and again they have stated that the goal was ‘down stream’, the end user. Too often, the FOSS world think, ironically, in terms of itself and those who like their stuff. ‘What can you do for ME?’ What Ubuntu does is take that to it’s ultimate end — the other people who would benefit from it.
In other words, Ubuntu does what other distros say they want to do but never seem to do — actually make Linux an alternative to other operating systems for the average person.
Yea, you got it spot on. Some people in their arguments make it appear that Ubuntu is as pleasant to show off as a “birthday suit”. The reality of the transformational power of the efforts put in by Canonical’s devs and independent contributors is amazing. From when I discovered Ubuntu in ’05 there has been no distro out there that I have consistently upgraded version on version like Ubuntu, and I must say 9.10 show the true colors of professionalism. Where many distros create their own tools and control panels, Ubuntu makes the existing tools work better, which in turn ups the potential for upstream. Its not strictly upstreams fault for not picking up the best of downstreams efforts — and its not about avoiding playing favorites — because some dowstream devs have to provide minimum functionality that gets the job done for most people which is the unix way. Overall, even if I had doubts about the papercuts effort, after seeing 9.10 I am giving kudos to Canonical and all Ubuntu contributors.
Oops, meant to say …becasue some upstream devs have to provide …
I really like Ubuntu and do all I can to explain people why thay should use it. It is a really good post!
In my view, what sets Ubuntu apart is its focus on the desktop experience. I know there’s a big push from Canonical into the server space.
But Ubuntu, usually for good and occasionally for ill (I’m thinking of the way users are notified of software updates as the worst offender) is dedicated to improving Linux’s usability on the desktop and not just on delivering what it can find upstream.
I don’t think upstream is necessarily interested in every tweak Ubuntu makes to their packages, but certainly every developer of packages that get used in Ubuntu ought to care how their application runs in this important distro.
And the community aspect of the project, from development/packaging to the forums, LoCos and generally helpful users, Ubuntu at this point stands well above most other projects, certainly for quantity and, more often than not, for quality as well.
[…] Ubuntu: Time for Another Reality Check So by some measures and opinions, Ubuntu and Canonical do not represent the best of the free-software world. But despite all this, Ubuntu has succeeded in an important area where every other distribution has failed–specifically, in expanding the image of Linux and free software to unprecedented heights. […]
Ubuntu is doing just what is needed to advance the Linux desktop. New Linux users are everywhere I look these days since I promote it. Linux security is an enormous selling point. Microsoft is taking notice of Ubuntu too as indicated by it’s financial statements. Long live free software.
There is no doubt that Ubuntu has become *the* main flagship of the Linux banner. But with that comes responsibilities, foremost of which is ensuring that each release is solid and as stable as possible. If they can’t achieve that then they need to slow down on the releases or be less ambitious. Jaunty and Karmic had a lot of problems on their initial release and naturally people will point the finger at those responsible.
As for being easy to use. Linux is easy enough now and has been for ages. People who think installing software is hard or that the CLI is still necessary are just trumpet blowers. It has been more than ready for ages. All the main distros, Ubuntu especially, are responsible for this.
Excellent post, Christopher. Ubuntu and Canonical are creating a bigger market for the benefit of all. The mix of collaboration and healthy competition in the server, desktop and mobile markets right now is very healthy for Linux in general. Ubuntu’s success, especially outside the geek community, may warrant a rethink of the six month release cycle in time.
I have used Ubuntu since early 2006 and am tiring of it. Don’t get me wrong. Ubuntu works great for me. However, Canonical is losing touch with its base.
Developers are making decisions that are out of step with the users and Canonical is passing itself off as a community driven distribution. Recent decisions to increase rather than decrease Mono content and to cut the GIMP show that they really don’t have the best interests of the community in mind. Mono is at best divisive and half of the people don’t want it.
Let’s get real. If they wanted to make space they could cut Mono and then they could have the GIMP and more. At least they would have a half way decent photo editor. The GIMP is the heart of GTK and one of its most important open source software packages. The developers of the GIMP are working hard on usability and have made big strides in recent releases. Now Ubuntu turning their backs on them for what? F-spot?
F-Spot is not a photo editor no matter how you cut it. It can rotate and crop and beyond that it is hopeless. It even trashes EXIF data. As for PiTiVi, who wants a video editor anyway? More people edit photos than videos by far.
Canonical and Ubuntu developers are out of step with the needs of users. They are building a wall and making decisions on our behalf without any consultation. It can no longer claim be a community based distro. It is now like Debian, top down. Take it or leave it.
I use Ubuntu and test it from alpha to final release and am active on many help forums. It is becoming clear to me that Ubuntu and I no longer see eye to eye. I never thought that I would say that. I have not changed, but Ubuntu has. And not for the better.
I agree with LinuxCanuck. Flagship software of FOSS should be boldy in view and ready to use. A serious mistake on Canonical’s part. The idiotic comments to search for it in repositories is pure nonsense.
Ubuntu has been utterly contaminated with mono, an aptly named disease.
I’m one of the first public users of Ubuntu (I started using it the day Warty beta became available for download). Until recently I too thought that Ubuntu and I won’t ever part, but Mono being pushed (and drawn) in has changed that.
During years I’ve followed how Microsoft and it’s allies leverage everything they can to force and sneak in their technologies and “standards” to destroy competition. If there’s a way to use Mono related technologies to their advantage, they will use it. They have top strategists planing these things all day long, and unlike most of the free software community, they also plan long term – place hooks so to speak.
Microsoft may not yet know how exactly they are going to use Mono to their advantage – and to disadvantage of the free software community. And they don’t have to. They may just play things into certain direction, which they know is changing the playground to their advantage. New factors can be brought into play, which the free software community isn’t able to anticipate now. One beautiful day the community may find that they don’t have much room left to manoeuvre.
I’m going to wait until Ubuntu 10.04 comes out, and then, if Mono still isn’t rejected, I’ll start to look for a new Mono-free distribution for myself – unless it’s somehow proven by then, that Mono isn’t in any way harmful to Ubuntu and free software in general.
That one beautiful day in which we, the community, start to find that we don’t have much room left to maneuver appears to be on the way. Gimp was pushed aside to make room for Microsoft’s mono and to create a disturbance to distract from that heinous act.
I, too, will wait until 10.04 comes out, but with Microsoft having its representatives *inside* Ubuntu and using their participation in Ubuntu as a vehicle to taint other distros, such as Debian, it will take a major clean up effort at this point.
What Jono tried by bringing Microsofters into Ubuntu was noble and generous if not exceedingly naive. It’s time to face the facts that it was a mistake and that they are causing a lot of damage with ripple effects far outside Ubuntu.
The largest group harmed by the removal of Gimp and the affliction of mono has had *zero* voice, *zero* input: those without ready access to broadband. That includes nearly all of Africa, including hi-tech South Africa where TCP over carrier pidgeon beats Internet for throughput. It also includes large parts of the U.S. In those areas without broadband, and even those areas without *good* broadband, what’s not on the default CD might as well not exist. And what comes on the CD by default is what they will have to use, no matter how inappropriate, simply because it’s there.
So if no professional grade digital photo management software is included, those regions are denied use of those resulting skills for school, hobby, business or government work.
Shouldn’t a distro “Linux for Human Beings” aim to reduce or eliminate the digital divide rather than expand it? Removing Gimp expands. How much is up to argument, but that the gap expands is incontrovertible.
Shouldn’t a distro “Linux for Human Beings” aim to increase or establish digital independence and economic self-sufficiency rather than work to eliminate it? Giving new users an ultimatum of either not programming or else share-cropping on Microsoft technology is not a way to establish self-sufficiency or independence. Maybe that is the goal of adding mono, to bring these nations, many of which are just leaving a colonial or post-colonial stage, into a new, digital colonialism.
[…] that is another key point (bandwidth constraints). As another person put it in this blog comment: [emphasis in red is ours] That one beautiful day in which we, the community, start to find that […]
[…] Ubuntu #8211; time for another reality check […]
@tenfromtwo: first, GIMP is not being pushed aside to make room for Mono, since the Mono apps are already on the current release CD. GIMP is being taken off the CD because it simply doesn’t belong there–and the GIMP developers agree with this.
Second, GIMP takes about 15 meg. It takes under an hour to download 15 meg on a modem. Africans will have no problem AT ALL installing GIMP on their Ubuntu systems.
Before Canonical (Ubuntu) can be considered a major software player, in Linux arena or in mainstream world, it needs to be able to deliver delta (or similar) package updates. Its PR slogan of “Ubuntu = humanity to people” is meaningless to people who can not afford (or do not have access to) fast broadband internet connections, and there are many millions who fit this profile, especially in the developing world. Fedora and openSUSE provide delta rpms and updating these systems is a fraction of the downloads required to maintain an Ubuntu install.
IMO, Mr Shuttleworth needs to put some more money into Ubuntu/Debian infrastructure and Linux development in general if he wants to get deserving credit and praise.
Observer:
Do you know how much Shuttleworth is paying out of pocket every year just to keep Ubuntu going? Asking him to pay more money…to lose more money… funding Ubuntu operations is a bit much.
He’s paying far more than his fair share of the cost of keeping Ubuntu up and running. Who else is paying? Are the OEMs who are making a profit from selling Ubuntu pre-installed hardware paying? Is Amazon.. who is making a profit from selling bandwidth and cpu time from Ubuntu EC2 cloud images paying for Ubuntu development? Is Rightscale which is making a profit from providing cloud management services for Ubuntu cloud images paying for Ubuntu development? All these other businesses… making money by leveraging the no-cost acquisition model for Ubuntu…while Shuttleworth loses money…and you want him to pony up more cash? Are you as a user, paying anything for Ubuntu development? Are you purchasing any of the Canonical support services that help pay the salaries of the core Ubuntu developers? To ask Shuttleworth to spend more on Ubuntu development, when so many other stakeholders are not paying their fair share is a bit much.
-jef
[…] Ubuntu: Time for Another Reality Check […]
I almost agree completely, but I do feel that you miss out one very important factor: Those other distros who’s communities are the loudest about Canonical and Ubuntu not giving enough back to upstream completely miss the fact that their own distros main goal is targeted at the enterprise corner of the market.
Novell, and thus SuSE in the shape of OpenSuSE is baked by even deeper pockets than Ubuntu as is Fedora (Redhat).
If we move away from those three distros: Fedora, OpenSuSE and Ubuntu you tend to be moving into nerd-land with a less than pleasant average support for newbees. Geeks are in most part excellent supporters for newbees, nerds are, well, nerds. They seldom have the ability to let go of their nerd behavior and speak a language that average Joe understand.
And in that context, that of the nerds, I agree that it all boils down to jealousy on their part. Their feelings for their preferred distro is hurt by the success of others because others may not be sharing the same love for it as they do.
They are the same people that completely misses the fact that Ubuntu has made Linux known to average Joe.
My job as an Ubuntu Geek is to give support to newbees and along the way educate the new users of Ubuntu about the history of GNU and Linux and Free Software. And to help them understand that the term FOSS is the newer term invented to make GNU/Linux and Free Software an acceptable choice for companies and home users alike.