Ubuntu's Bug #1 is fixed

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834

by daker • 13 years ago

690 191 13 years ago

bugs.launchpad.net

qwerta• 13 years ago

Microsoft just become irrelevant :-)

pmelendez• 13 years ago

I don't think irrelevant is appropriate. Microsoft has very talented people on board and it keeps introducing novel products (Kinect, WP8,etc) You might like them or not but one has to give credit to try new approaches.

They are not the unstoppable force that they were before but I think that calling them irrelevant is a bit too much.

sp3323• 13 years ago

I have a WP8 phone and love it, but even I can admit that with ~1% marketshare, WP8 is irrelevant. Most people don't own a console, so having a slice of that market doesn't really help either. Having talented people doesn't automatically make people care about your products.

jacques_chester• 13 years ago

I would be very happy to be a tenth as irrelevant.

TillE• 13 years ago

We're talking about Microsoft, the giant of the computing industry for 15-20 years. Their overall influence is a tiny fraction of what it was.

Apple and Google are the major players now. Microsoft is an also-ran.

tlarkworthy• 13 years ago

Bug #1

"Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace. This is a bug which Ubuntu and other projects are meant to fix. As the philosophy of the Ubuntu Project states, "Our work is driven by a belief that software should be free and accessible to all."

"Ubuntu software is free. Always was, always will be. Free software gives everyone the freedom to use it however they want and share with whoever they like. This freedom has huge benefits. At one end of the spectrum it enables the Ubuntu community to grow and share its collective experience and expertise to continually improve all things Ubuntu. At the other, we are able to give access to essential software for those who couldn’t otherwise afford it – an advantage that’s keenly felt by individuals and organisations all over the world." * http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/our-philosophy

Non-free software leaves users at the mercy of the software owner and concentrates control over the technology which powers our society into the hands of a few. Additionally, proprietary software stifles innovation, maintains artificial scarcities, and enables malicious anti-features such as DRM, surveillance, and other monopolistic practices.

... etc ...

A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software.

     * http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
     * http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
     * http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

reedlaw• 13 years ago

  What should happen:

  A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software.

This bug is still far from fixed by this measure. There seem to be only a tiny handful of PCs that only include free software.[1][2] Only a single laptop includes a free BIOS!

1. http://www.gnewsense.org/Main/LaptopGuide

2. http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Group:Hardware/Freest

raylu5• 13 years ago

My real beef is how readily Ubuntu installs proprietary software (like binary drivers) while having this "bug" in its tracker.

Yes, yes, if you want to get anything done now, you need those drivers. And a lot of users wouldn't use Linux at all if they couldn't get what they wanted now.

But the long-term implications of giving into hardware manufacturers is you will never get an open driver. Ubuntu does not care about free software at all (whether or not for good reason) and it annoys me that they pretend to.

theg2• 13 years ago

Oh, we're still fighting this "war"?

Software is about choice and productivity. It's great that we have choices and I embrace a variety of them throughout my personal and professional life, but this "us against them" philosophy belongs in a boardroom and not in the hands of users and creatives.

We can say Ubuntu has come a long way (and it has) and that it's done a lot for gaining mind share (bingo), but a huge turn off for me in OSS is this "us against THE MAN" philosophy, why can't software just be software, a means of expression that you gives you choice?

davexunit• 13 years ago

Because software freedom is important?

thiderman• 13 years ago

>Oh, we're still fighting this "war"?

No, we're not. That's pretty much the point of the comment and the closing of the bug.

Toshio• 13 years ago

> Oh, we're still fighting this "war"?

I'm disenchanted with your double quotes.

This war is real and it will remain so as long as motherboards of generic PCs/laptops come preinfected with microsoft's signing key (which is even more evil than DRM).

paddyoloughlin• 13 years ago

The topic is that the bug has been closed. Surely it is not fair to interpret that as a divisive action.

pavs• 13 years ago

Either you haven't read mark's comment entirely or you have serious reading comprehension issues.

shrikant• 13 years ago

Maybe it's an age thing, but I remember a time I could walk into most major computer stores and have literally no choice but to buy a PC loaded with Windows. The market had been distorted, and this prevented software being about choice and productivity, and instead about who had the larger marketing muscle.

To some extent this is still the case in some major retailers today, but they at least recognise that they're not offering choices. Their brush-off of Mac OS and Linux may be flawed (or not), but that the existence of alternate OSes is even acknowledged is quite a marked change from about a decade back.

davidism• 13 years ago

His statement addresses your complaint.

> There is a social element to this bug report as well, of course. It served for many as a sort of declaration of intent. But it's better for us to focus our intent on excellence in our own right, rather than our impact on someone else's product.

So you're right, and he agrees, Ubuntu should be focused on being the best it can, rather than trying to "fight" the competition.

tekacs• 13 years ago

> Software is about choice and productivity.

I'm pretty sure software is 'about' whatever the hell one wants it to be.

> It's great that we have choices and I embrace a variety of them throughout my personal and professional life, but this "us against them" philosophy belongs in a boardroom and not in the hands of users and creatives.

That's rather prescriptive, don't you think? If users wish to make this particular choice - by 'telling them off' for behaving in such a manner, in what sense are you being any less pushy and 'us vs. them' than are they?

You may have a personal distaste for their approach, but indeed their personal distaste for someone else's approach to software is what drives many[1] to stand behind this in the first place!

[1]: Of course there are always some who just want a fight - any fight. They're even less likely to change 'just because they're told to'. :P

rbanffy• 13 years ago

> Oh, we're still fighting this "war"?

Microsoft is certainly shooting. Less effectively than ever, true, but they don't seem like they'll surrender anytime soon.

So, no. We are still at war. We didn't choose to be, but, as long as they attack us and our freedom, we'll fight them.

Every patent extortion attempt, every standard body manipulation, every "Secure Boot" that prevents users from booting anything not signed in Redmond is an act against user freedom and user freedom is the point of Free Software.

Ubuntu decided to focus on quality and this is good. But don't think that, because Ubuntu's bug #1 is closed, because the desktop is becoming irrelevant fast and Ubuntu has other goals, that we are all friends.

cs702• 13 years ago

Shuttleworth's well-articulated comment and decision to close bug #1 show the kind of open-minded, flexible thinking I wish I would see more frequently from other project leaders in the free/open source ecosystem.

The decision to close the bug reminds me of a quote attributed to John Maynard Keynes. During the Great Depression, he was accused of changing his position on monetary policy, to which he responded, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

As an Ubuntu user, I'm happy to see the project shifting its long-term goal from "dethroning Microsoft on the desktop" to "delivering the best possible experience for developers and regular people across all devices."

Edits: added "on the desktop" to "dethroning Microsoft."

ealexhudson4• 13 years ago

The bug wasn't ever about dethroning Microsoft, though. The first few lines:

"Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace. This is a bug which Ubuntu and other projects are meant to fix."

This bug hasn't been solved. Mark's comment is really saying that he doesn't think it's a relevant bug any more - that desktop is no longer important.

I actually find that a particularly sad comment, and I'm not even sure it's true.

Edit: I want to add (given your edit ;) that just because this was bug #1, it doesn't mean it was the raison d'etre of the project. Maybe this bug is less important now than in 2004; I disagree that it's "fixed" or that it's so unimportant it should be closed. #1 being open doesn't mean Ubuntu is a failure, far from it.

TuringTest• 13 years ago

Don't look at it as the Desktop not being important anymore, but as the market having expanded.

This means that there are alternatives to the Microsoft monopoly, even if those are not on the desktop; therefore the original problem is no longer that severe and thus has been solved, but in an unexpected way.

prawks2• 13 years ago

> he doesn't think it's a relevant bug any more - that desktop is no longer important.

I don't think the former implies the latter. The desktop can be (and is) still important, it's just that such a narrow view isn't healthy for such a large project.

mehwoot• 13 years ago

It's the Vietnam war- just declare victory and move on. Better than the promise of the "year of the linux desktop".

teeja• 13 years ago

Huh. I think what Mark is saying is: it's never going to happen, and we might as well get over it.

ramayac• 13 years ago

A literal money quote right there: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

chris_wot3• 13 years ago

Facts don't change. Our understanding of the facts change. The quote is ridiculous, and the question is fallacious.

brandoncapecci• 13 years ago

If Keynes was alive today, I cannot imagine the failures of stimuli based on his monetary policy would change his views on it.

duairc3• 13 years ago

This is ridiculous. There's nothing "open-minded" about this. To quote the bug description:

> What should happen: A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software.

This does not happen, so marking this bug as fixed is bullshit.

The Ubuntu project used to have as its goal that the majority of PCs for sale should include only free software. This attracted people to the project who were motivated to contribute because they shared that same goal. I don't think Ubuntu would be anywhere as successful as it is today were it not for its community at the beginning. The "leaders" of the Ubuntu project have now shown that they don't really give a shit about free software, but they're still benefitting from the work of those who do and who did that work with an understanding that Ubuntu did give a shit about that stuff.

This is like a leftist political party presenting itself as a movement for the abolition of capitalism and the creation of a fully classless, stateless, communist society; this attracts many dedicated people who make huge sacrifices to achieve this goal (or at least they think so). Then, as soon as the leftist political party takes power (e.g., by winning an election or whatever), the "leaders" of the party talk as if that was the entire revolution rather than a first step on the road to it. And then the "leaders" of the party start using their newly obtained power to actively eliminate the elements within the party who are still seeking a genuine revolution, labelling them "counter-revolutionary" or whatever.

To the extent that this analogy holds, this is what Ubuntu is doing and has done. A few years ago at least, it seemed like Ubuntu was the vanguard of the free software movement. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but it was the best we had and it seemed like there might just be a small chance it could succeed (and it really did aim to). But let's make no mistake about it, let's not have any illusions about this: Ubuntu has betrayed the revolution. Fuck it, let's not use it, let's not promote it, let's have nothing to do with it. If "flexible thinking" means betraying the revolution then there's nothing virtuous about it and I hope we don't see more of it from the "leaders" of free software projects. And I hope we in the free software community learn a lesson from this about the power dynamics within communities and how it's important for our communities to have structures that prevents these kinds of co-options by individuals and companies with vested interests. In retrospect, it should have been obvious from the start (at least for me, as an anarchist) that the Ubuntu project was doomed to fail. You can't have a "'benevolent' dictator for life"; a dictator for life is dictator for life, and power corrupts. But you especially can't have a benevolent dictator for life who is/was the CEO of a corporation, whose sole purpose, by definition, is to maximise shareholder value. Now I accept that there are cases where the short-term goals of a corporation maximising its shareholder value can converge with the goals of wider communities, and I'll even admit that there are times when communities can benefit from the actions of corporations, but it must be recognised that ultimately their goals diverge. It should have been obvious that Ubuntu/Canonical's relationship with the wider free software community was doomed to end in this kind of betrayal. I just hope that people in the free software community learn from this and that it doesn't happen again.

cbhl3• 13 years ago

> In the rare cases that they come with a GNU/Linux operating system or no operating system at all, the drivers and BIOS may be proprietary.

In select markets, such as the US and UK, Hardware with a GNU/Linux operating system and open drivers and BIOS is now available from the Google Play store and your local Best Buy -- it's known as a Chromebook.

I admit that Chrome OS itself does ship with proprietary software, but AFAIK, the BIOS and drivers for all x86-based Chromebooks is FOSS, and thus all of the software on the system can be modified/replaced/tinkered with to your heart's content.

IIRC, the ARM-based Chromebook isn't quite as pure, but it's still reasonably straightforward to put your favourite distribution of Linux on it if you so desire.

rpgmaker2• 13 years ago

First of all, if you really are an anarchist you need to think a little bit more about the implications of an anarchist society (or whatever) and grow up a little bit.

I sometimes feel sad for Linux as a platform, the whole computing landscape changed beneath their feet (desktop to mobile) and they never really grasped old one to begin with.[1] It's like the rug was taken from beneath their feet.[2] And then I think that a lot of that is unwarranted, by most metrics linux is doing very well today. You can casually find Linux users on college campuses and linux developers working on the most popular websites but it feels like it would never be the tidal wave of change that some people expected. I never did (and I say it as a long time linux user) and as long as the FLOSS community keeps working on creating the best desktop the FLOSS movement can make I don't need it.

[1] This also means that there are a lot of new opportunities for the linux platform to take advantage of.

[2] And yeah I know, "android is Linux" yada yada but I mean the traditional Linux platform.

SeanDav2• 13 years ago

I guess it is also time to put that old joke to bed as well:

"Question: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: None, they just change the standard to darkness."

dietrichepp• 13 years ago

I always heard the joke as:

Answer: More.

I thought of this as less of a jab at Microsoft software quality and more of a jab at Microsoft's attitude towards software complexity. If we keep using the lightbulb as a metaphor, we keep the old on/off API and add a dimmer switch which can be controlled over the network, an access control list, and a structure which can define the light bulb's color, direction, luminosity, et cetera. With enough engineers, you can design the last light bulb you'll ever need.

The Open Source way is to have seventeen different teams design seventeen different lightbulbs, including one that can scale to 5000W and cause immediate retina damage, and a 1/4W red LED barely bright enough to read by which light bulb users on forums swear by because it's not bloated, and a Gnome light bulb which removed the dimmer in version 3 because only 5% of the user base was even aware that the dimmer existed. It still takes tons of engineers, only now they're all working on different light bulbs.

The Apple light bulb is a plain white CFL, with a CRI of 96, a 6500K temperature, and a proprietary on/off switch with no moving parts. It is available as both 14W and 24W. The light bulb has not been updated in a while now that Apple focuses on the flashlight business.

SeanDav2• 13 years ago

My version is from the days when Microsoft software was completely bug free. It had no bugs, only "features". True arrogance.

I think I prefer your version though!

unreal37• 13 years ago

We need a new joke then.

Question: How many Ubuntu engineers does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: 900. 1 to log the bug, 2 to start a flame war over it, 896 to upvote the defect to encourage a developer to work on it, and 3 years later 1 to close the defect as won't fix - no longer needed.

wtbob3• 13 years ago

You forgot the 3 engineers to develop a replacement for light bulbs based on firefly goo. Granted, it only lasts for a few hours, and it's not very bright, and the firefly population is now almost extinct, but it's a really slick colour!

Light bulbs are so desktop-oriented, anyway. Fireflies are _mobile_!

sebnukem23• 13 years ago

Shouldn't it be "None, it's a hardware problem."?

JulianMorrison2• 13 years ago

Microsoft are still scary and evil (cf: the new XBox and its snoopery), they are just scary and evil and small. For which I can only say thank goodness, and long may it last.

bornhuetter• 13 years ago

You don't work in enterprise, do you?

cmircea4• 13 years ago

Microsoft is small? In comparison to what?

Zigurd6• 13 years ago

How many phones run Microsoft? What else matters?

motter• 13 years ago

"...it's better for us to focus our intent on excellence in our own right, rather than our impact on someone else's product."

This, in my view, is the salient point for startups when faced with competition. It's too easy to get distracted by zero-sum thinking.

tantaman• 13 years ago

"Non-free software leaves users at the mercy of the software owner and concentrates control over the technology which powers our society into the hands of a few."

Does anyone else think that things have gotten worse since bug #1, not better? I feel more trapped and locked in by today's platforms than I ever did in an MS world. E.g. app store, google play, amazon whatever, cloud-hosted applications that all charge monthly fees, hosts of applications changing their terms and locking you out of your data or randomly shutting down their services entirely... r.i.p. google notebook, reader, knoll, etc. r.i.p. sims, jet-set-secrets

nullc• 13 years ago

Indeed. It doesn't surprise me that the actual freedom available to users wouldn't be important to them, but it surprises me that the Bug#1 would have spoken so clearly about it if they didn't understand the issue.

denzil_correa• 13 years ago

Two very important snippets from comment #1834 on Bug#1.

[1] : But it's better for us to focus our intent on excellence in our own right, rather than our impact on someone else's product.

I can't help but remembering a similar move by Steve Jobs once he took over Apple in 1997. Ubuntu doesn't mean "anti-Microsoft" it means (or should rather mean) "great Ubuntu". Now, whether they are able to do that in practice is a different thing but intent is a good place to start with.

[2] : For Ubuntu, our goal remains to deliver fantastic experiences: for developers, for people building out production infrastructure, and for end-users on a range of devices. We are doing all of that in an environment that changes completely every decade. So we have to be willing to make big changes ourselves - in our processes, our practices, our tools, and our relationships. Change this bug status is but a tiny example.

The key phrase here for me is the one where he lists changes - in our processes, our practices, our tools, and our relationships. This shows aversion to rigidity and adapting to times. I also think the little change there titled "relationships" means a lot. I don't think as an organization you want to be particularly hostile towards your competitors (in particular in words). I always feel that if one needs to be hostile (and/or aggressive); one needs to do that in deeds and not in words i.e. build the best product possible out there using your skills and beat your competitors fair and square. I would assume, nothing is (or hope so) more satisfying than that.

YokoZar• 13 years ago

I edited the bug itself to include a direct link to Mark's comment: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834

Somehow I felt like I was disturbing the universe doing such a thing.

venomsnake7• 13 years ago

So the company that created vast, stable, open and insanely backwards compatible ecosystem is now dethroned. The majority of what displaced it is locked bootloaders, no root and censorship enabled app stores.

Everything is open except the end user access to computing resources. Pyrrhic victory if I had ever seen one.

perlpimp• 13 years ago

I think people ought to look past current mobile/platform way of doing things. I think there should be a second wave coming of net/webapp integrated OS in the near future.

For one I am very displeased that I have three choices of web, html5(ie phone gap apps) and native platforms. I think web should seamlessly integrate into the mobile OS. At this point most of mobile OS software has been debugged and worked out. But web is still not the desktop on the mobile device. I think there is still an enormous place for innovation that can make appstore like infrastructure irrelevant.

Ubuntu can fix that, that would be a huge plus.

venomsnake7• 13 years ago

Apple, New Mobile Metro Microsoft and to lesser extent google to less extent pretty much enjoy the gatekeeper position, the 30% cut and the sense of power over developers and users. They are in position to stifle innovation as much as they like.

anon13852• 13 years ago

Web apps are exactly the kind of locked down environment we should be fighting against. They are only allowed to function within a highly restricted javascript sandbox that is dictated by a small cabal of powerful organisations. The web is more locked down than just about any previous platform.

kumarharsh• 13 years ago

Ubuntu would fix that? I doubt it. Ubuntu has not even fixed its desktop fully yet. It's breaking, and breaking even more with every new release. In 12.10, I can't safely write to my NTFS partitions, can't say if my Desktop Manager won't crash, can't say if the startup screen (plymouth) won't freeze....

Ubuntu is not going to fix anything anytime soon IMHO.

ebbv4• 13 years ago

Oh my god I am so tired of seeing comments like this one on the internet.

1) Most users do not need or want root access to their mobile phones or even any of their devices. There's a reason that in UNIX land users and root are separate things.

2) If you really want root, you CAN get it. Yes some manufacturers make it harder than others, but that's again because 99.99...% of users have no need or desire for it, and making it easier for the tiny, tiny number of people who want it is not a worthwhile investment.

Now you can argue that their efforts to make it even harder to get root access are shitty, and I won't disagree with you, but nobody's forcing you to buy these devices.

3) DOS/Windows 95/etc. are not awesome. Pretending it's awesome just because it was "open" (no permission system) and "backwards compatible" (debatable in many cases) is stupid. You're letting nostalgia or your hatred for "closed" systems bias you. Just because thing A isn't perfect doesn't make thing B great. Both thing A and thing B can be shitty, or they can both be good.

4) Linux is fucking everywhere in 2013. It owns the web. It is on most mobile phones. Even Apple devices are running a fork of BSD. So, how is this a Pyrrhic victory? Just because it's not exactly what you want? I'm so sorry.

There's a, frankly, revolting tendency in geek culture to be absolutist. That if something is not 100%, exactly, totally, purely aligned to your personal vision it's fucking garbage, or worse, evil and bad. This is childish and it's time to grow up.

oneeyedpigeon• 13 years ago

"Linux is fucking everywhere ... Even Apple devices are running a fork of BSD."

BSD's not Linux!

venomsnake7• 13 years ago

1) When the user owns the device it is up to him to decide what to do with it and not the manufacturer. So while they may not have the need for it, they definitely have the right to it if they so desire.

2) No you cant. You must use exploits/vulnerabilities usually. The only vendor that I know of that just sends you unlock code on request is HTC.

3) Yesterday I played Diablo 1 on my windows 8 machine. 3 months before that - Lotus (the game). That is measured in decades. How backwards capability is debatable.

4) Yes linux is everywhere. But invisible - moving the servers, or hidden below deep layers of customized software in the consumer devices. The linux ideology - nowhere to be seen.

Having the ability to run simple firewall to control what processes use your data plan is hardly absolutism. Or editing memory value of a running process.

Edit: Do you support the Chinese Great Firewall - because there is no difference in restricting access to internet and to software in principle?

icebraining5• 13 years ago

You're just intolerant of other people's principles. Everyone is an absolutist about the rights they care about, but since you don't find software freedom to be particularly important, nobody else can complain about the status quo.

Well, to some of us, and after the Really Important Things™ that most of us agree with, we also find software freedom to be extremely important.

papsosouid• 13 years ago

>Oh my god I am so tired of seeing comments like this one on the internet.

Me too, please stop making them. The fact that you don't care about owning things you purchase does not imply that the entire concept of owning things you purchase is stupid and nobody should talk about it.

wtbob3• 13 years ago

> Most users do not need or want root access to their mobile phones or even any of their devices.

Irrelevant: they may not _want_ it, but they have a _right_ to it.

> That if something is not 100%, exactly, totally, purely aligned to your personal vision it's fucking garbage, or worse, evil and bad.

Sometimes it _is_ evil and bad not to do exactly the right thing.

prof_hobart• 13 years ago

You seem to be conflating two separate things - the question of whether the core principles of GNU, Linux and other 'free' software are important, and whether they have been achieved.

Venomsnake's point very much seems to fall into the latter category - having devices that you need to jump through hoops, exploit holes etc, in order to be able to get full access to them is hardly a 'victory' for Linux (even if those devices are mostly running a form of Linux).

You seem to be trying to argue against this by saying those principles aren't important to most people. That may or may not be true - but regardless of that, it's not achieving what Linux set out to deliver.

Shorel2• 13 years ago

Not a victory, but a "now we will focus on dethroning Android, now that Android has dethroned Windows".

nnq• 13 years ago

"Average end users" will always be put in the positions of choosing between either: (A) stability/"security" or (B) open access to everything - give them root and the ability to install everything and an "all open" app store and you'll only have viruses and buggy everything. And a lower quality bar for everything - people are cheap and they don't recognize good quality software when it heats them in the head, so any well crafted program will always have to compete with crap-freeware (and no, "average users" don't know or care about the difference between open-source or freeware even!), so "walled gardens" like Apple's also increase quality and, more important imho, the revenue people get for making quality software. "Average end users" can't have the cake and eat it too! Now, I don't say this is right, and I don't like app stores like Apple's, but they definitely bring real value to the end user, that's why users pay for it when they can afford!

(and I've put "security" in quotes because I know this is not "real security" what you get when you trade "full openness" for it, but it's generally a "good enough substitute for security" for the "average end users", as "real security" is only possible if you are either willing and skillful enough to be responsible for it yourself or pay top dollars to get it tailored for your needs, so it's not an option for 99.9%)

duggieawesome• 13 years ago

Bug #1 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

The comment thread is a great read.

dave1010uk3• 13 years ago

The problem reported by the issue is

    "A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software."

This may have been "resolved" but I don't think this has been "fixed". Shuttleworth's comment makes it sound like this issue is either invalid or a won't fix.

Even Chrome and Android devices that are available in local PC stores almost always include proprietary software. Perhaps I am missing something but is Shuttleworth now saying that non-free software isn't a problem?

vidarh• 13 years ago

I don't know about Shutlleworth, but for me the big deal is not whether or not they include proprietary software, but whether or not free alternatives are readily available for those who care.

And there we've seen a massive shift. I ordered my laptop without OS from a major vendor. I can buy dozens of cheap Android or "real" Linux boxes at Amazon, and every bit of software on most of them either are or can be replaced by free alternatives.

cbhl3• 13 years ago

A valid concern, but x86/x86_64-based Chromebooks have a F/OSS BIOS and drivers -- for example, Google went out of their way to contribute the relevant bits to coreboot.

Installing GNU/Linux on such systems is straightforward and well-documented (flip the physical or virtual developer switch; enable USB boot from a shell; boot installer or OS from USB) too.

Proprietary firmware means dealing with stupid things like hard-coded checks for "Windows Boot Manager" or "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" in UEFI firmware (http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20187.html).

dave1010uk3• 13 years ago

That's good to know. So are we now saying that proprietary software on a device is fine, as long as it can easily be replaced with fully open source software?

veidr• 13 years ago

I agree that the bug should be closed, but it should be closed as INVALID, or perhaps WONTFIX (since Ubuntu certainly won't be the one to fix this 'bug').

Closing it as "Fix Released" doesn't make sense.

B-Con• 13 years ago

The fix has happened, it's just that most of the lifting came from other people and a change in circumstances. I think it makes sense.

ivanca3• 13 years ago

From the bug:

> What should happen:

> A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software.

So exactly what definition of "free" are you using to believe this bug is now fixed?

sebnukem23• 13 years ago

"Cannot reproduce"

klrr• 13 years ago

I only find this sad, while everyone goes mobile Ubuntu could have stayed with a focus on desktop and maybe become dominant in that market, at least for developers. Desktop computers won't die since it's the platform of choice when producing software, digital media etc.

piqufoh• 13 years ago

Bug #1 #open -> #won't fix

mp99e99• 13 years ago

This is pretty cool. thanks for posting

PlaneSploit• 13 years ago

wontfix

shortstuffsushi• 13 years ago

By far my favorite response to a confirmed bug. We use Jira, and unfortunately don't have that option configured, it's always a fun one to use ;)

sebnukem23• 13 years ago

"wf;fu"

Aardwolf2• 13 years ago

Where should one go for a future proof DESKTOP OS these days?

Many are ruining the desktop experience because "mobile". KDE seems to be the only UI remaining that is sane for the desktop.

npsimons• 13 years ago

I just switched from GNOME to XFCE after upgrading my main home machine running Debian. I knew the changes were coming, but didn't think they'd be as bad as they were. The transition has been . . . interesting, but mostly tolerable because I pretty much live in Emacs, Firefox and the terminal.

I'm actually kind of liking having way more screensavers than I really need (with XScreenSaver versus whatever the GNOME pared down version was), and having less crud and cruft bogging down my lowly old laptop.

kmm• 13 years ago

I'm debating going to XFCE too. The only thing I'll miss is extending my desktop with Javascript. I see XFCE has extensions too, but they're in C. I like C, but when I see how many lines a simple CPU frequency plugin needs [0], while a comparable extension for GNOME would only be a few hundred lines...

0: http://git.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-cpufreq-plugin/tree/...

jmhain• 13 years ago

I don't know why people claim that gnome 3 is for mobile. On my nexus 7, it's an unusable piece of crap but on my desktop/laptop, I've never been more productive with anything else.

Aardwolf2• 13 years ago

I don't know whether it's for mobile or not, it just seems that whenever a sucky change is made to a desktop UI it's "for mobile". All I see is that it (and other products) are, despite a previous evolution of 20+ years of desktop UI history, now getting worse instead of better.

But maybe you're right, it's not always mobile, sometimes it's making a UI noob-oriented at the cost of productivity. Which is just as annoying.

Jach• 13 years ago

I've been happily using Gentoo since 2006 or 2007 across different machines and expect to continue using it for at least the next 5 years, but it's not for everyone. I usually hear nice things about Arch, it's been around just as long. For an Ubuntu replacement that looks like it's going to be around for a while, there's Mint.. though I tried it recently and didn't like it and thought parts were poorly designed if they're trying to target an audience that doesn't even know what a shell is.

On Gentoo I'm still using the last release of gnome2. Xfce4 is almost as good, and for newbies I tend to recommend Xubuntu and Mint together for them to choose... MATE is a community fork of gnome2, a version of which is on Mint (that I don't like as much as vanilla gnome2).

raylu5• 13 years ago

> I usually hear nice things about Arch

That's because you're hanging out with too many Gentoo users.

The Arch Way[1] is stupid. Less broadly, it's a poor, knee-jerk reaction to Debian maintainers' over-zealous patching of software. Trusting upstream software maintainers to properly tag "stable" releases (which means something different for everyone) and to work with the rest of the software in the system is a mistake. Also, that's the entire point of package maintainers maintaining repositories.

But that's OK. Something went wrong (again)? Just downgrade[2]!

1. Hope that the old package is in your cache

2. Hope that some repo mirror is out of date

3. Profit???

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way

[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Downgrading_Packages#Fi...

jlgreco• 13 years ago

> future proof DESKTOP OS

This is something I obsess over.

Use minimalist software that you are fairly confident that you could fix or recreate in another environment if necessary; for example, don't use gnome-screensaver but instead use slock. Where possible, use software suites where being future-proof is a first-class priority; for example, wherever possible use TeXLive. Consider something standards complaint with a rabid user-base over alternatives; for example, use Vim instead of Kwrite. (In fact, take a list of the packages in the current Ubuntu livecd, and the packages in the current Kubuntu livecd. XOR the lists. The result is a list of software you should not spent time building skills in if you don't want your skills to become obsolete in 5 years.)

Where you are not confident that you can pick something that meets any of these suggestions, pick the simplest software that you don't have to customize and that you will miss the least. For example, don't roll your own X window manager and don't use BerylFusion after setting three dozen options. Use firefox or chrome, but don't marry yourself to a combination of two dozen highly specialized extensions.

In an effort to future-proof my computer experience I follow these self-imposed restrictions. Additionally, I have a strict whitelist of software that I am willing to configure: zsh, vim, tmux, elinks (only because I could bare to lose it. It is not future-proof), urxvt (very begrudgingly, I only set my font and background color), and Awesome (very very very begrudgingly. The only configuration of it that I am willing to do is set my terminal to urxvt.) Any other software I use "as is", with the expectation that it could be obsolete and abandoned tomorrow.

Brief example of something that drove me to adopt this sort of attitude: I used to use Amarok to play all of music, and got very used to my setup. Amarok 2 came and wrecked everything, completely erasing all the mental effort I had put into Amarok over the years. Upset by this, I decided that life would be simpler if I just wrote my own very simple xmms2 client that I would never change out from under myself. This worked great for about two years until the breaking changes to xmms2 (requiring me to make changes to my client every few months) wore me down. Now I just use mplayer, a shell, and standard unix utilities. Even if I have to swap out mplayer I am confident I will never have to change my workflow again on a unix-like computer with keyboard.

MrBra• 13 years ago

Ubuntu's new bug #1: Linux Mint

Fuxy• 13 years ago

Anybody feel like taking a shower after reading that or is it just me?

I mean the bug was basically the inability of customers to purchase a computer with the software/OS of their choice.

As far as i can tell i still can't purchase a system without windows unless i build it myself.

So what is the reason for closing the bug? Some marketing speech about changing goals etc. I'm sure that's inspirational and all and I'm glad they found a better goal but that doesn't fix this problem.

nivla2• 13 years ago

>As far as i can tell i still can't purchase a system without windows unless i build it myself.

Well the good thing is we are not living in 1996 either. You can purchase any of the below devices and none of them run Windows:

[1] Chromebook - https://www.google.com/intl/en-US/chrome/devices/buynow.html

[2] Dell - http://www.ubuntu.com/partners/dell

[3] Apple Mac - http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac

[4] HP - http://www.ubuntu.com/partners/hp

[5] Asus - http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/make/Asus/

etc...

nostrademons2• 13 years ago

You can totally buy a system without Windows - System76, Emperor Linux, Asus, and Dell all offer PCs that come pre-installed with Ubuntu and never pay the Microsoft licensing fee. I'm pretty happy with my System76 laptop.

wtbob3• 13 years ago

> As far as i can tell i still can't purchase a system without windows unless i build it myself.

I've bought a laptop from System76 which I've been very happy with. Everything they sell runs Ubuntu.

I've just bought a desktop from ZaReason; I'm looking forward to it. They list all the major distros (to include Debian!), and appear to be willing to load others if you ask nicely.

lexy0202• 13 years ago

Umm.. Macs?

raylu5• 13 years ago

Well, specifically running only free software. While Ubuntu falls short of that goal, OS X is not even in the same league.

rgbrenner2• 13 years ago

It's kind of a silly bug report (IMO).. so I don't oppose it being closed.. but the first line of the report is "Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace."

That's still true.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

shmerl• 13 years ago

I'd say this bug will be fixed only when Windows tax will be gone forever.

JackpotDen• 13 years ago

>bug Closed, overtaken by events.

Not exactly fixed. Also, moving the goalposts.

Shorel2• 13 years ago

Ubuntu is building a common platform for Desktop, Tablet and Phone devices, and actually a consequence of that is that some very vocal desktop users do not like it at all.

It is seen everywhere Ubuntu is mentioned, with a comment along the lines of "forget Ubuntu, install Mint! (because it looks like Ubuntu used to do about 4 years ago)".

This bug closing has more to do with aligning the general strategy towards multi-form-factor, that is, less focus on desktop-only stuff.

Having said that, I think Ubuntu desktop is absolutely great for power users, you simply learn some new shortcuts and that's it.

mwfunk3• 13 years ago

Some comments have said: it's a silly bug, but the condition is still true so WTF? I would like to think that it was finally closed at least partially because it was a silly bug and this is an acknowledgement of its silliness, and the degree to which it become ever more silly over the years.

It would've been well-intentioned but probably misguided if it existed in 1997. It was mildly silly in 2004, but monumentally silly in 2013.

In the Linux community (or politics, or business, or professional sports, or entertainment gossip, or any number of other things that people follow), people have a natural tendency to create ongoing dramatic narratives about what's going on in whatever thing it is that they're following. These narratives (certainly the Linux and sports and politics ones) always involve divvying up the participants into goodguys and badguys and us and them, in the most reductive and intellectually dishonest way possible. But, I guess it makes everything fun and exciting, and for people who don't actually know (or want to know?) how complicated and unknowable everything is, it gives them a sense of belonging and makes them feel like they understand what's really going on in the world.

Rush Limbaugh has often said things like, "I take things that are complicated and make them simple. I figure all of this stuff out so you don't have to." That tells you pretty much all you need to know about him, and the people he appeals to. I'm not picking on the right, I could throw any number of demagogues on the left into the same category. Anyway, unsurprisingly, the simplified narratives that these people always present are all about how everything's black and white and how this one group of people have all the answers. They could make everything better if only this other group of people, who are chock full of evil and malice towards you, would let them.

In politics, this kind of reductionist tribalism is actually really messed up, because it influences the government in real ways. Among sports fans, being a reductionist tribal idiot is not that big of a deal, because it's all in good fun and the worst case scenario is you might have to stumble across some guy's stupid rant about how the Raiders are the root of all evil and the people of Oakland are actually bad human beings by mere association.

In the Linux community...I don't know. If you think of it as a fun hobby for a bunch of CS students, engaging in a little reductionist tribal idiocy is possibly amusing, possibly annoying, but pretty harmless. However, at some point as a project becomes larger and more meaningful to more people, I think it actually gets in the way of the community's ability to cohere around truly meaningful goals and ideals. It needs to grow up, basically, and it doesn't need to engage in dumb demagoguery to move forward- it's reached a point where dumb demagoguery may actually hold it back. In 2013, fear and loathing with regard to MS is a pointless distraction. Brain cells devoted to hand-wringing about some imagined Evil Empire are brain cells not spent creating cool and useful things.

ivanca3• 13 years ago

Yeah, damn those silly kids engaging in a little reductionist tribal idiocy. Those same silly kids whining against DRM in HTML; that's some serious attack against progress, those kids that are against the right of the government to see your emails; that's some serious attack against our beloved authorities, and those are the same kids that will stand against the government if they decide to force a required pre-approval of any message we post on the internet; but they would have some good reason for doing that so those silly kids are just going against the truly meaningful goals and ideals that will improve our society.

mwfunk3• 13 years ago

That's a complete misreading of what I wrote, I wasn't talking about a single thing you brought up. But if you think everything is that simple and black-and-white, and think that anyone who who disagrees with you just doesn't know the facts or is some sort of hollow, evil person, then have fun with that. It feels very empowering while it lasts.

suppressingfire• 13 years ago

My only problem is that it's marked "fixed." I'd rather the bug be OBSOLETE or WONTFIX (I guess LP's closest status to those is "Invalid" which is fine, too). That would short circuit most of the arguments about the fact that the desired action isn't verifiable, and anyone that disagrees would have to argue at a higher level: is owning the desktop/laptop market a worthy goal, especially now that OS X is a serious contender? Is it sufficient that Android is Linux-based in the mobile/tablet market?

mwfunk3• 13 years ago

Yeah, he could've phrased it better or gone through the mechanics of closing it in a better way. I totally respect so many things about Mark and Ubuntu and what they've accomplished, but he can flub his delivery sometimes. I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt. What I wrote was what I hope his motivations were and I may be giving him too much or too little credit.

My interpretation was that Mark didn't want to focus on MS so much and he wants to reorient Ubuntu's goals somewhat, and this was a slightly weaselly and not 100% honest attempt to do that. It's totally conjecture based on watching the guy over the years, though. I think his heart's in the right place and I hope I'm right.

scholia• 13 years ago

Well said....

fixxer• 13 years ago

Now if I could just get Ubuntu running bug-free on my Nexus 7...

nottombrown• 13 years ago

This is an excellent example of leadership. Shuttleworth describes their accomplishments and new goals very clearly.

Ubuntu has certainly been a pleasure to use on the cloud. Congratulations to all the contributors.

skrebbel• 13 years ago

From the original bug report:

> Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace.

If they were entirely honest, they would've set it to wontfix.

schlecht• 13 years ago

Despite the small detail that Ubuntu was not at all instrumental in the progression of Android, I think that this was a well written piece, and came at a time where Linux as a whole deserved it.

monomaniar• 13 years ago

God bless.

josteink• 13 years ago

Watching this thread shows us exactly why Linux never made it on the desktop:

Instead of acknowledging all the change which has happened since this bug was filed, you have endless bickering about details and a "Linux"-community full of people unable to agree about anything, not even their own victory.

Only when these people were removed from the equation and replaced with market and user-oriented people (ref the creation of Android), was Linux able to garnish a majority share.

It's sad in itself, and sadly enough, it's even predictable.

blahx3• 13 years ago

Bug #2

Proprietary software and adverts in Ubuntu

walshemj• 13 years ago

That's not a bug thats a pious and wishywashy mission statement.

Does Linux and FOSS movement want to be known as the Lib-Dems of the software world :-)

boomlinde• 13 years ago

At least mark it as "rejected" -- the problems presented in the ticket have not been fixed.

Ubuntu's Bug #1 is fixed

Related Stories