This Takes The Cake: Sam Varghese of IT Wire Goes On The Offensive Again

Fully agree with Martin here... not that Varghese would deem it fit to respond quickly.

Varghese writes in page 3 of the iTWire piece 'Ubuntu users, Shuttleworth doesn't owe you anything', found at http://www.itwire.com/opinion-and-analysis/open-sauce/37783-... :

Quoting:....You are not doing Shuttleworth any favours by using Ubuntu and he does not owe you a thing - the sooner you realise that, the better.....

Shuttleworth has to make Canonical and Ubuntu profitable - else he will have to pull up stumps at some time in the future. Your input (bug reports, opinions, other help) aids the movement in this direction - and in return you get a nice distribution which you can use freely.

If you don't like this kind of arrangement, move on and start using some other distribution. But stop throwing hissy fits. Remember, FOSS is all about choice.

And yet current beta-testers and future Lucid Lynx users certainly are, in effect, doing favors for Shuttleworth by using Ubuntu!

It seems that Varghese is conveniently overlooking Shuttleworth's infamous deflection-response to a beta-tester, 'Comment 167 for bug 532633' found at [url=https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ source/light-themes/ bug/532633/comments/167]https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ source/light-themes/ bug/...[/url] :

Quoting:[Beta-tester] > We are supposed to be a community, we all use Ubuntu and contribute to it, and we deserve some respect regarding these kind of decisions. We all make Ubuntu together, or is it a big lie?

[Shuttleworth response] We all make Ubuntu, but we do not all make all of it. In other words, we delegate well. We have a kernel team, and they make kernel decisions. You don't get to make kernel decisions unless you're in that kernel team. You can file bugs and comment, and engage, but you don't get to second-guess their decisions. We have a security team. They get to make decisions about security. You don't get to see a lot of what they see unless you're on that team. We have processes to help make sure we're doing a good job of delegation, but being an open community is not the same as saying everybody has a say in everything.

This is a difference between Ubuntu and several other community distributions. It may feel less democratic, but it's more meritocratic, and most importantly it means (a) we should have the best people making any given decision, and (b) it's worth investing your time to become the best person to make certain decisions, because you should have that competence recognised and rewarded with the freedom to make hard decisions and not get second-guessed all the time.

Does anyone else see Shuttleworth's response as one eerily reminiscent of George Orwell's infamous Cold War allegorical novel Animal Farm??? See the Animal Farm Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm for further info and allusions. As Animal Farm's not-so-benevolent dictator and his team declare: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Soon thereafter, in the novel, the not-so-benevolent dictator and his team convince workhorse Boxer to "invest [all of his] time [and strength]" to work harder and harder at the farm's windmill with ever-diminishing returns. Same for the other farm-development animal teams. Interestingly enough, and related to Varghese's own quote above, some animals just cannot endure [the pig-team's] "kind of arrangement" and they eventually CHOOSE to move on [to other farms].

Now does Squealer (er.... Varghese) think that Shuttleworth's own response here can REALLY attract and keep more time-investing beta-testers, and attract significantly more Ubuntu Lucid Lynx users as well??!!

Perhaps not.