Ubuntu, the Bad Selfish Linux

If those people who complain about Canonical wish to draw users away from Ubuntu, getting them to use distros that contribute more, perhaps they should take time to think like "average users," and less time thinking like "developers." I'm just an "average user," and have used several distros over the past five years....OpenSUSE, Mandriva, Fedora and Kubuntu (as I prefer the KDE environment). For the past couple of years, I've stayed with Kubuntu.

Why? Well, when I think about switching to another distro, the first thing I do is look at which applications I use and need. I'm a ham radio operator, so I use applications such as Klog and CallGit, among others. I do a search for applications and can't find many of the applications packaged for other distros. No, I don't want to untar some package and hope I have all the dependencies met. I just want a simple way to install and Kubuntu/Ubuntu has them. Likewise, I want steghide with the GUI. I go to KDE-Apps.org and sure enough...there are .deb packages for Ubuntu. Easy to download and install. The same goes for many other applications.

If I'm looking for an easy to follow, "How To," I'll do a Google search and nine times out of ten, I'll find one...for Ubuntu/Kubuntu. I'll find a plethora of "How To's" for Ubuntu/Kubuntu I've never even thought about before but are worthwhile. More "How To's" than I find for any other distro.

Then, there are hardware drivers. I want to use the proprietary Nvidia driver. Kubuntu....one click. Fedora...I spend two days of total frustration, follow "How To's" which don't work for me. I then go to the Fedora forum and find more "How To's" which don't work for me or which I don't understand. I ask for help and am given a lecture on how much better off I am to use the free Nvidia driver from the "freedom" philosophy. Great, but I don't have all the features I have with the proprietary driver. Same with setting up my HP network printer. Never can get it installed, yet a couple of clicks with Kubuntu and it's working just fine. The Fedora forum?? No responses. I must have the only HP network printer around.

I'm not an Ubuntu "fanboy." I could care less about the name of the distro I use. I'm just an old retired guy who probably isn't as quick thinking as I was when I was younger. I don't want to jump through a hundred hoops to get an application I need installed, nor to have my hardware working as I wish it to work.

So, maybe Canonical doesn't "contribute" in the true philosophical sense for many, but as has been said, there are many ways to "contribute." Maybe it's contributing to the community, since so many skilled people spend so much time making sure there are endless applications packaged and available for "average users." Or those other people who contribute with never ending easy to follow, "How To's." Or those people with the patience on forums to walk you through what you want to do, using simple explanations...even just "copy and paste" instructions, if necessary.

Maybe the world of contributing covers many facets beyond the philosophical aspect so often argued in these articles which complain about Canonical and their "contributions." At least from the perspective of the "average user."

ComputerBob, I just looked at that Debian Forums thread, and this entry http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=54074&start=0#p... leaped out:

Quoting:As a relatively new Debian user (2 yr +) I roughly agree with your points, although as has been said, hate is too strong a word.

This forum was a surprise to me. It's a lot less active than I would have expected, seeing as Debian is one of the founding fathers of Gnu/Linux. I can only think that most 'newbies' are too afraid to put their heads 'above the parapet' for fear of attitudes like yours (and mine). I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad.

Certainly, other forums like Ubuntu and Pclinuxos have a friendlier feel to them and are busier but here its a lot less moderated and theres definitely an 'edge' to some of the comments. Personally, I like it this way but its off-putting to many...

Sure Shuttleworth's millions are a factor for Ubuntu, but Ubuntu itself, along with projects like Mint and PCLinuxOS (on the newbie end) and Arch, Sidux and Gentoo (on the grizzled-veteran end) exist and thrive because they fill a need that the existing distributions/projects are not taking care of very well.

Debian is great. No doubt about it. I've probably run it on more systems for more time than anything else because it runs better (or at all) on more of those systems. But Debian doesn't always take care of new users very well. I like the Debian User Forums, but they are less-used by far than they should be.

A user of Debian, more often than not, can find answers to their questions in the Ubuntu Forums. Sure there are a lot of not-so-helpful answers, but there are so many posts you're likely to find what you need not just for Ubuntu but Debian, Mint, CrunchBang and the like.

The Ubuntu community is very good with new users. Those active on the forum know they're going to be asked the same questions hundreds of times. You don't get and keep new users by being anything but helpful and patient, and for Ubuntu and the community in general is a very valuable thing.

And yes, I think that's an extremely significant contribution to the entire Linux and FOSS ecosystem.

I'll go back to one of the communities perceived as downright hostile: OpenBSD. You're told very early on that reading and knowing the FAQ, using the man pages and doing a search before you ask is a good way to go.

In the case of projects like OpenBSD, showing the community that you've "done your homework," goes a long way.

Just reading the OpenBSD-related discussion on DaemonForums.org, which is friendlier than the mailing lists, will give you a good idea of what is acceptable and not.

In any community, posting without a great deal of lurking beforehand will definitely get you into trouble.

As far as other BSDs go, I don't see any less RTFM on Forums.freebsd.org - and their FAQ/Handbook is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 pages.

In the case not just of Ubuntu but Debian, Arch, Gentoo, the BSDs, etc., having voluminous amounts of up-to-date and easily navigated online documentation is the answer to just about all of these issues. Some projects are better at this then others.

Most newbies (and everybody else, too) I'm sure wouldn't mind at all to have their question answered with, "Look at this Wiki page, which should answer your question / solve your problem, and if not, let us know what you did and how it went, and maybe somebody will have more targeted information."

OpenBSD is in no way aiming for the kind of world domination that Ubuntu (or Linux in general) aspires to. I don't even think FreeBSD has ambitions, on the desktop anyway (and PC-BSD notwithstanding, as it stands alone as the only BSD desktop-focused project), but for those in the Linux community who want to bring users over from Windows and Mac, a welcoming and helpful (and non-threatening) attitude is the only way to go.

TxtEdMacs: As you point out and as ComputerBob supplied the link, the Debian forum hardly encourages a newbie to seek help. What may seem simple and basic to a skilled user may seem insurmountable to a newbie. At 65 years of age, I've learned a lot, but I wasn't born knowing what I do. And I've spent a lot of time and patience in my life helping others who wished to learn something and needed help, even it it seemed basic to me. At best, that thread ComputerBob offered, shows a juvenile mentality which is going to do little to attract much more than more juveniles. I've seen a few similar posts on the Ubuntu forums, but someone generally will give the poster a quick admonishment.

I've been a ham radio operator for 43 years. Another area requiring a fair bit of technical assistance. We've always used what we call the "Elmer" approach with newbies. An "Elmer" is someone with the skills and takes the time and patience to answer the same rudimentary questions time and time again, if necessary. We try to encourage participation, not discourage learning. A bit more mature approach than the Debian forum seems to apply.

Much the same on several of the other forums. I've encountered problems with Fedora and posted on the forums....only to be met with utter silence. I ask myself if I'm the only one who has ever attempted to set up an HP network printer with Fedora. Apparently so, as there is silence. I run hp-setup, as I do with Kubuntu and get little but errors. Or, I attempt to get a package installed, with no success and am given a list of other dependencies I need to have. Why doesn't the installer find those dependencies? If I'm asking for help in installing the proprietary Nvidia driver, I'm not seeking a lecture in why I should use the free driver which is crippled.

As for the number of packages available....I don't know. I just know that I can set up a few easy to locate PPA's with Kubuntu and I have all the packages I need. With other distributions, there are always packages I need which I cannot find. So yes, perhaps others find all they need with other distributions, but I personally do not.

It's up to the Research and Development department to develop, hence the D in R&D. It's the task of R&D to make sure the structural parts are sound, and materials with the right tensile strength are being used.

It's up to the Sales department to convert souls, cultivate fanboys, make promises and care about the appearance of the parts.

After that, R&D starts complaining because they can't deliver what Sales just promised. Sales starts complaining because they say R&D is too slow, and nothing comes out of it.

R&D asks for more employers, but the Boss looks at the financial reports, and he can't find anything R&D department earned. They only cost money, actually. After all, it's the Sales department which brings in the cash.

Sometimes, the people of Sales interfere with construction details. However, most of the times they're clueless, and propose structures and mechanisms which would never work, are impossible to manufacture or break within a year.

Sometimes, the people of R&D interfere with marketing, they think Sales is doing a bad job at telling customers what great inventions R&D department did, and they feel the R&D department doesn't receive enough recognition for their work. After all, it's only the companies logo which ends up at the product, and not the name of the designer.

Also, Sales listens to the customer. Actually, that's their most important job: Communicating with the customers. They're good at it, nice suits and such. Otherwise they wouldn't belong to the Sales department. They care about details. Their power is to make even a bad product look 'good enough to sell'.

Members of the R&D department are paid, because of the existence of the Sales department.

A corollary would be: A paid RD department cannot exist without a sales department.

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So, if you have an R&D department, but no marketing, chances are they will not make much money. Hence, developers won't get paid very much. However, if they receive 'credit' - even without marketing, all is OK.

Debian has been in existence since 1993. Have Richard Stallman and Linus been complaining as they felt they were not credited? Not as far as I know. Probably because they felt credited, and Ian belonged to the same department as Richard and Linus. One hella happy R&D club.

All is well, the R&D department is happy because credit is given where credit is due. They don't complain about the fact almost nobody wants to use their products, or even knows their products at all. After all, they made a nice product which made them proud, and they can point to in their resumes. Why would they care if people use or like it? Objectively, they haven't sold ****, but why would they care? The fact they did a terrible job - from a marketing point of view - doesn't make their product any uglier, after all, a picture doesn't become prettier if more people look at it.

What happens in 2005, is, all of the suddenly somebody adds a Sales department to the happy RD department. Just because the Sales department thinks they made a good product and they can sell it to twenty times more users than the R&D department does on their own. What follows, is about the same which happens in any company with a Sales and R&D department:

Lots of times, the departments forget they're working for the same company.

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Once, in a large company, a coder knocks at the door of Steve.

"Those Sales fella", he says, "they haven't contributed j*ck of code to our product! They haven't been productive in any way." He goes on complaining: "They don't even put our names on the product, even while we did 90% of the work! They only take our work, and even act like they invented it! Could you please ask them to give our department of R&D rock-stars more credits, and can you ask them to contribute more code? Oh, and they're disconnected with the R&D department, they even don't know the names of our kids!"

Steve and the coder both burst out laughing, eventually rolling over the floor. After they're back in their chairs, Steve gives the coder some coffee, writes the name of the coder on a badge and puts it on the nominee-board for Best Joke of the Month. "Well, that's the best joke I heard in a long time!" Steve shouts.

Back at home, Steve starts thinking, about what Greg says: ""If you doubt, for a nanosecond, that Canonical is a marketing organization masquerading as an engineering organization, then you’re either an unapologetic Ubuntu fanboy or you’re not paying attention. "

He picks his abacus and moves two red beads: One for the red Debian logo, and one for the Hat with the same color. He moves another bead, the pink one, for Canonical, and starts wondering while both are on the same thread?

After all, two clearly different coloured beads shouldn't be on the same wire, they should be separated, right?

He contemplates the meaning of Canonical. "Reduced to the simplest and most significant form possible without loss of generality".

He takes a purple pill, and sees how the two red and the purple beads reduce to the simplest and most significant form possible, in fact, they're melting together.

When sober again, he sees there is no abacus.

"Phew", he sighs relieved - as he now knows his nightmare is over.