Mistakes made and addressed

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1299

by Mithrandir • 13 years ago

123 64 13 years ago

leokun• 13 years ago

Cool how Shuttleworth also apologized for the tea party remark. Seemed kind of wrong for him to make it. Too bad he didn't address the gist of the fixubuntu site though, he didn't even link to it I think. Avoiding making the Streisand effect worse? Maybe he's already addressed the privacy issues?

m_ram• 13 years ago

The privacy issues were discussed in Sept. 2012, a month before Quantal was released.

22-Sept: Slashdot thread

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/22/1319216/ubuntu-will-n...

23-Sept: HN thread

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4558049

23-Sept: Shuttleworth blog post

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1182

AsymetricCom2• 13 years ago

discussed.

that's a different concept than addressed.

mdeslaur4• 13 years ago

There's no way to make a global search box on par with iOS, Android, OS X and Windows without sending the search string to a central server. The box is marked "search your computer and online sources", there are other search boxes in the dash to search locally, and there is a simple toggle switch to turn off the online portion in the privacy applet in the system settings.

The commands on the fixubuntu site are unnecessary, the simple toggle switch in the privacy applet solves the problem for people who want to disable online access in the global search box.

AsymetricCom2• 13 years ago

Is this a mistake that was addressed or was this a tell of the policies of Ubuntu? I really doubt that Shuttleworth is going to destroy the trove of commercially-valuable personal information that is Unity and Zeitgeist.

Clearly, he didn't address anything. He just backtracked. This isn't about the Ubuntu logo, as much as Shuttleworth wishes it to be.

btilly3• 13 years ago

OK, great. So Ubuntu only accidentally sent the nasty letter, and didn't mean to offend a lot of people who got offended with the tea party remark.

But no addressing of the privacy complaints the fixubuntu site had.

And explicitly only apologizing to non-technical critics just reinforces the validity of the complaints that http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2013/10/thoughts-about... had.

eitland2• 13 years ago

I too was puzzled about the very specific language to apologise non-technical people.

Isn't technical criticism what we want?

onli2• 13 years ago

I'm a bit confused by that section as well. Is Martins feedback given this categorization technical feedback?

Unless critique is focused on improving the software in question it is pretty much a waste of the time of the people who are trying to improve the software in question.

The criticism was not focused on improving the software in question (Mir). That could mean he regards it as waste of time - or if we do the additional step and realize we are talking about the _software_ solution of the display-server as a whole, it might be not meant by that.

I don't know.

btilly3• 13 years ago

The only technical criticism that he wants is how to make Ubuntu better. The technical criticism that he received is that he can't try to make Ubuntu better by making KWin worse. KWin is not responsible for distros. If a distro has a distro specific patch, the distro has to maintain that patch themselves.

mdeslaur4• 13 years ago

Because technical criticism is welcome, and the tea party remark never applied to technical critics.

btilly3• 13 years ago

Not true. The person who most people thought that comment was originally directed was a technical critic. And the technical criticism was of a form that is not included in Mark Shuttleworth's description of useful criticism.

sagarm• 13 years ago

At a high level, I accept Shuttleworth's apology. I do not believe that it is a company policy to use trademark law to silence complaints.

Some nuances: > Judge the policy. In this case Canonical has a trademark > policy that enables community members to use the marks > (good) and allows for satire and sucks sites even in > jurisdictions where the local law does not (great!). > Failing to have a policy would not be a bonus point in this review :)

In the US, anybody (not just community members) has a clear right to use the mark for satire and criticism. However, I'm sure there is some jurisdiction where this is not the case. Shuttleworth is not claiming that the license is needed in the US.

I was not aware of Shuttleworth's "tea party" comment; he was right to apologize for making it. Based on his post, he was making an analogy between certain types of unconstructive criticism of Ubuntu -- ad hominems, conspiracy theories, and racism -- and behavior he associated with the tea party. That behavior is, of course, not limited to just the tea party, nor is it true for everyone associated with the tea party.

senthilnayagam• 13 years ago

thanks for the spin mark, lets talk about privacy as well

denrober• 13 years ago

I just don't understand all this hate towards Canonical. You can turn it off. Yes it was awkwardly rolled out but you can turn it off. What about google search as you type? Google Analytics, hell even the Ghostery plugin tracks data. Is this just the joy of supporting the underdog then hating them when they succeed? Now I don't work for Ubuntu, I don't use Ubuntu (I do use Mint which is derived from Ubuntu). When I think about the things that Apple and Microsoft have done and do I really think adding remote search is really low on the offense list. I mean they aren't making chemical weapons! Again most of this comment is I just don't get all the hate.

honestcoyote• 13 years ago

I can understand it. In these days of constant public and private surveillance, some people want a haven and want it to be consistently safe. One of the great selling points of Linux is that it was such a haven. Linux was supposed to be one of the few things left which wasn't trying to make a buck by watching you.

Ubuntu's little Amazon search wasn't very much compared to what Google, Facebook, or the NSA have been up to, but it was still a violation of the spirit of Linux and the unspoken rules and customs many people expect from OSS. For many people, this is a betrayal.

XorNot• 13 years ago

Basically, have you ever stopped using software because it asked to install the Ask! toolbar by default in the installer?

I mean goddamn Java from Oracle does this, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's all those little rejections which slowly wear you down, because it feels like you have to be constantly vigilant.

jfoster6• 13 years ago

It's not as though they're trying to commit it into the kernel, though. There's about a million other Linux-based operating systems that can be used. Isn't it a healthy thing that they try to take different paths to success? Canonical is trying to monetize the consumer side of their OS. Red Hat sells support to enterprise. If you care about Linux, it should be a good thing that these companies are trying to make some money and be sustainable businesses.

jfoster6• 13 years ago

Not to mention that it's a free product. If it was trying to do something underhanded (eg. actually spy on users) then I could understand, but actually it's just Canonical trying to make some revenue by facilitating the sale of Amazon products. As an Ubuntu user, I want them to be successful as a business, it's a convenient feature, and I could easily turn it off (or not use Ubuntu) if I felt strongly against it. I can't understand why people pour so much energy into being critical of an underdog when there are so many other options.

alan_cx• 13 years ago

I believe it is about abuse of position.

Ubuntu has a powerful position and a very high number of users in the Linux world. So, when it does something that people believe benefit itself at the expense of users, because it can be fairly sure those users will not flee to another distributes, people will be angry.

That is why people get angry at big large corporations. Because people are locked in, financially, technically, perhaps "merely" psychologically, they really don't like it when they feel abused. Yes, there is always know-it all-who claims its easy to change, but real people know its never ever that simple in reality.

What makes it worse is the knowledge that one is contributing to the power such corporations have by taking out contracts, licences or any other commitment not easily broken.

general_failure• 13 years ago

OK everyone kiss each other. lets get this over

cryptolect• 13 years ago

It's cold in hell tonight.

pachydermic2• 13 years ago

I have been pretty pissed at Canonical lately for a number of missteps they have made but a few of them do seem like legitimate mistakes. Mark is not really a PR guy and you can tell - a lot of what he has done has just kind of fanned the flames. I don't think I need to remind you, but even in a sarcastic tone, "open source tea party" and "we have root" are inflammatory things to say. I think he addresses some of these problems pretty well in this post, and I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt here. Think about all that he has accomplished and the amount that Ubuntu has helped the Linux community grow.

So kudos to him for having the balls to apologize. I accept that apology, and I think that a lot of people (including myself) have had some venomous things to say about him as well as Canonical which probably weren't fair. So we could probably all back off here and focus on the real issues.

...but...

He's still not talking about the two elephants in the room.

The Unity lens is fundamentally fucked up. It should be opt-in. Period. It's clearly an infringement on users' privacy and totally not in the spirit of libre software or Linux. I can't really trust Canonical - even though they've given us all so much - because of this issue. So long as they don't back down from this I'm going to look at everything they do with a critical and possibly cynical eye... it just clearly looks like they're selling out their users. It is really just sad to see them selling out to Amazon like this, and I wish it didn't have to be this way. I can't really fathom the amount of money Mark has spent on Ubuntu. I don't really know how he can make it work as a business. But the Amazon search in the lens just seems like a morally wrong and short-sighted way to go.

The second issue which we all need to address is Mir. The technical arguments are completely over my head, but I feel like Canonical hasn't fully made the case for why they've decided to fragment the community and do their own thing. This could just be me not understanding what's going on, but pretty much everyone who's developing this stuff seems to be on Wayland's side... why is that (and is that)? It's worth considering, but I feel like Canonical should be engaging the community, although with all the flaming that goes on I can see why they don't. We all want the best free software we can get, but some serious thought needs to be devoted to the ramifications and rationale for having two display servers.

So that's the end of this long rant - let me know what you think.

jcastro• 13 years ago

It is really just sad to see them selling out to Amazon like this, and I wish it didn't have to be this way.

I think many people confuse the smart scopes as "selling out to Amazon." The lenses integrate a bunch of online sources, some are commercial, some are not. You can try it by hitting the super key and doing something like `wiki:metallica` or `code:discourse` (which searches github for projects, etc.). There's something like 100 sources for information in the dash. Amazon is just one of them.

It's closer to something like Watson for the Mac or the integrated search in Android. Unfortunately people just assume that Ubuntu has "amazon spyware". If you don't like the integrated online search it's one switch to turn it off and Unity will revert to offline-only searches in the Dash.

pachydermic2• 13 years ago

How many of those sources have a "Buy for $x" button under them? And I don't necessarily want to send the context of searches for content on my own computer over the wire to Canonical's servers (especially these days).

I'm not saying the lens search is an awful thing for everyone. What I'm saying is that they should have the button set to "off" by default, let people know what is available to them, tell them about how it works, and then ask if they want it or not. That's it. That's all it would take.

But even if they do that... isn't it still like the Java installer asking you to install an Ask.com plugin or something? I mean... that's kinda the lowest of the low for free (as in beer) software. Searching Wikipedia and for .git repos online is one thing. Ads are different.

nikcub• 13 years ago

The Unity lens is fundamentally fucked up.

Even if you are ok with it being opt-out, I think you would have to acknowledge that it isn't a very good business model. Linux users tend to be very conscious of their privacy rights.

Further even if you think it is ok to be opt-out, and think it is a legitimate way to monetize Linux users, you would acknowledge that Canonical have not handled any part of this story arch very well.

This has done more than enough damage, I think they should abandon it and find another way to fund their development.

They could win back a lot of support and sympathy with a mea culpa moment acknowledging at least one or more of: it wasn't a good idea, it wasn't implemented well, and we didn't handle the criticism properly.

jfoster6• 13 years ago

I think the reason Canonical is running into so many problems here is that they are not really targeting your conventional Linux user. They're well and truly after the mainstream, but there are still these old-school Linux users clinging on without realizing that Ubuntu isn't really meant for them.

jfoster6• 13 years ago

Would you rather that Ubuntu go out of business than try to make money through the Amazon feature? Do you use Ubuntu? If so, why do you still use it if you feel so strongly against it? If not, why do you care so much about this? I'm a very happy Ubuntu user of many years, and I'd like to see Canonical be a successful business.

Morally wrong would be if they were trying to hold my files for ransom, or produce buggy software to sell me upgrades. They're just making it more convenient for me to buy stuff if I want to. On the spectrum of things that are morally wrong, this is so far from being something to get really upset about.

keithpeter2• 13 years ago

How much money does Amazon pay Canonical per month for basically random meaningless search terms from an unsegmented user base? I'd really like to know.

PS: I have used Ubuntu on desktop and I have made modest (OEM price of Windows 7) donations.

4ad• 13 years ago

I can't really trust Canonical - even though they've given us all so much

What did they give us exactly? Unity? Upstart? I'm laughing.

It's really interesting how Canonical managed to promote Ubuntu. In the beginning, Ubuntu had nothing Debian didn't have. Nothing at all. It was just Debian with a brown theme. They claimed it was the most user friendly Linux distribution, and a lot of novices believed them not knowing better. Fake it 'till you make it.

Ubuntu's success comes from the free CDs. That was Mark's single good decision, but what a decision that was.

code_duck• 13 years ago

Ubuntu advanced desktop Linux in terms of ease of installation, drivers and slickness bar a time when Debian seemed to be stagnating. I was a Debian user for years, but around 2005-6 I decided to change my main system to Ubuntu. At the time, it had been years since stable Debian had been updated and I was finding it laborious to update the software manually. Meanwhile, Debian unstable was more up to date with the latest KDE, gnome, etc but was ... unstable. Ubuntu did a lot of work well in terms of final fit and polish to make Debian more user friendly. While I have long been most at home glunking around in a shell, I appreciated this there's a limit to how much time I can spend compiling KDE and upgrading libc.

Create• 13 years ago

☑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_(public_relations)#Techni...

bowlofpetunias• 13 years ago

I tend to think favorably of Canonical and very highly of Shuttleworth, but in this case I'm already pissed of after reading only the first part of the post. This is just highly manipulative PR speak.

First there's the repeated suggestion that Canonical is "generous" in allowing all kinds of use of its trademark, where however that kind of use, like satire, is protected by law. It's like saying "look how generous I am to stop for pedestrians at a red light".

Second there's the ludicrous analogy between the a bug in the code and the incident. A bug in code, no matter how bad, doesn't compare to an act of aggression aimed at a specific party. The internet did not overreact, it was Canonical that acted with disproportionate aggression. Shuttleworth fails to recognize that and still tries to cover it up by accusing his critics of being unreasonable. A better technical analogy would not be a bug, but deliberately installing malware.

This is not an apology. It's a defense combined with an underhanded attack an Canonical's critics.

I wasn't one of the "vocal non-technical critics". Now I am. This attitude stinks.

chc4• 13 years ago

First there's the repeated suggestion that Canonical is "generous" in allowing all kinds of use of its trademark, where however that kind of use, like satire, is protected by law. It's like saying "look how generous I am to stop for pedestrians at a red light".

Satire is not categorically protected by law and the usage in question was not clearly satire by usual definitions. You should investigate matters more carefully before getting "pissed," because your information seems to be coming from questionable sources.

Second there's the ludicrous analogy between the a bug in the code and the incident. A bug in code, no matter how bad, doesn't compare to an act of aggression aimed at a specific party. The internet did not overreact, it was Canonical that acted with disproportionate aggression.

All this was was words. To call a letter requesting that a site not infringe on Canonical's trademarks "an act of aggression" is a bit of an overstatement. Computer bugs have caused several orders of magnitudes greater harm.

onli2• 13 years ago

I'd like to add that Canonical has for years protected the word ubuntu, and it did so coherently.

Projects which were not official projects should not use the name in their url or their name. See getdeb/playbuntu as an example: http://blog.getdeb.net/2008/08/playbuntu-is-now-playdeb-beta.... fixbuntu couldn't be easily confused with an official ubuntu project, but still.

But projects like the (independent) local support forums sure were allowed to use the name, they got an official approval. See also the trademark license: http://www.canonical.com/intellectual-property-policy (though I'm annoyed by their use of "intellectual property", I tend to support Stallmans position on this one)

So his first paragraphs - how it is handled and that this is done in a good way normally - seem to be correct to me. Try to create a distribution of Windows (think reactOS), name it Windows something, and compare the reaction.

msh4• 13 years ago

A lawyer sending threats is by most people's definition a act of aggression.

Especially when it's very doubtful there was infringement.

maxvu• 13 years ago

This is just highly manipulative PR speak.

The only part of the first section that wasn't "here's what happened" and "we're sorry, it was wrong" was detailing how generously they use their mark. I'm not trying to condescend, but just like patents and employment law, I think trademarks aren't as simple of an issue as they'd seem. I believe (with my layman understanding) that, in fact, the onus really is on the bearer of the mark to defend it. I think it was a tagline mentioned in the Wired article that spurred my interest (but -- surprise -- can't find it anymore), but that was a detail that I was interested in knowing. I think that's pretty impressive.

Second there's the ludicrous analogy between the a bug in the code and the incident. A bug in code, no matter how bad, doesn't compare to an act of aggression aimed at a specific party. The internet did not overreact, it was Canonical that acted with disproportionate aggression. Shuttleworth fails to recognize that and still tries to cover it up by accusing his critics of being unreasonable.

This is an extreme reaction. I don't see a notice of misuse of a trademark as an act of agression, rather business in the globalized world. Is it possible forcible purging is Canonical's M.O. and it's just bad luck that they got caught this time? I guess so, but hey -- that's what the courts are for, right?

jarofgreen2• 13 years ago

So, cheap pop at Debian in an apology? Ummm ...

jarofgreen2• 13 years ago

Heh, quite fun watching the score on this go up and down, a controversial statement? I see @dlgeek has also commented on this.

outside1234• 13 years ago

Never Mark Shuttleworth's fault.

Someone playing politics with an open source project or some unknown staffer who made a "mistake" - never the culture he built or his over the top response to said open source project not adopting the divine direction that he has taken.

Nope, not Mark Shuttleworth's fault.

dlgeek• 13 years ago

What was with the crack at Debian?[0]. Given how reliant Ubuntu is on Debian's work and the amount historical animosity that there's been (a lot of which Mark directly caused with the early interactions between the projects), fanning the flames just seems incredibly stupid.

[0] "Debian started arguing about whether it should remove all references to the distro-that-shall-not-be-named but then decided to argue about whether it should enforce its own trademarks which lead to an argument about… oh never mind."

nicholassmith• 13 years ago

Someone submitted patches for Debian that changed Ubuntu to 'the disto which shall not be name', and then it spiralled out from there.

eCa• 13 years ago

Please accept my apologies if you [...] felt offended by the label.

That's not an apology for using the label, that's a [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology

forgottenpaswrd• 13 years ago

Wow, I find it amazing how hard is for him to apologize for the "tea party" remark.

It took him almost a month, then he uses another person's mistake as an example, and then in a small remark at the end, he apologizes.

I guess it is "better late than never". But it speaks about how little social skills some geeks have(he was programmer before billionaire).

oneeyedpigeon3• 13 years ago

The fact that Shuttleworth describes fixubuntu.com using the phrase "folks behind a “sucks” site" demonstrates his entirely dismissive attitude of a very important issue, here being raised by ONE person, not in a "sucks" style whatsoever.

NateDad• 13 years ago

That's not the point. He's saying the site is critical of Canonical and Ubuntu, and he's fine with that. "Sucks site" was just a shorthand.

oneeyedpigeon3• 13 years ago

Come on - 'a "sucks" site' implies one that is wholly, disproportionately, and/or subjectively critical. fixubuntu.com is none of those things. Shuttleworth's wording was - I think, intentionally - used to disparage and discredit it as a source of useful information.

protomyth• 13 years ago

'Last week, the less-than-a-month-at-Canonical new guy sent out the toughest template letter to the folks behind a “sucks” site.'

This is not an excuse and reflects poorly on all management when you throw the new guy under the bus. The only response to this[1] is "I" not "the new guy". You are the captain of the ship and don't get to hide behind the new guy.

1) If there is legal consequences and not PR, then you probably shouldn't state anything about what happened inside and should only speak the absolute truth or the parts your lawyer let's you.

rdsubhas• 13 years ago

Just stop reading this shit.

| I made a mistake myself when I used the label “open source tea party” to refer to the vocal non-technical critics of work that Canonical does

He's still sticking with labelling vocal technical critics as the open source tea party. Just read it carefully once again.

| That was unnecessary and quite possibly equally offensive to members of the real Tea Party (hi there!) and the people with vocal non-technical criticism of work that Canonical does

| Please accept my apologies if you have been a vocal non-technical critic of Canonical’s software and felt offended by the label

Well this non-apology apology completely insults the intelligence of anyone reading it.

Edit: Formatting

Mistakes made and addressed

Related Stories