Mark Shuttleworth says some free software folk are 'deeply anti-social' and 'love to hate' Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has labelled some members of the free software community habitual, hateful and reflexive contrarians. Shuttleworth added a comment to his own Google+ post thanking those who worked on Ubuntu's recently-abandoned Unity Project. But as he read the comments on that post, his mood changed and he …
I decided I hated Unity after trying it. Did I post everywhere badmouthing the developers? No. I just installed MATE and got on with my life.
That flexibility is one of the things I like about Linux. Don't like one way of something being done? There are alternatives out there (though some are easier to get going than others) to choose from.
"...What a n00b..."
And there's an example, in a nutshell. Albeit a fairly tame one.
You've only got to read the el reg forums to see examples of what he talks about. It always falls into broadly the same categories:
"Oh Micro$oft...haven't used their bloaty crap in 20 years but it's still bloaty crap"
Or
"Oh Linux...got a vuln...lolz"
Or anything in between, whether it's the OS or the Applications.
And yeah, on both sides of the court there needs to be some mental maturing taking place.
Ok. Pass the popcorn while I count the downvotes.
How could he miss all the other wars?:
vi - emacs
BSD - Unix
csh/ksh - bash
C - C++
Monolithic kernel vs micro vs hybrid
CISC vs RISC
fully free vs. allowing binary blobs
And so, so many more, and that isn't even touching the perennial license wars and the eternal coding style wars (I once saw a project implode over K&R versus Allman style indents) ...
If X-windows vs Mir is Shuttle-cock's first *Nix holy War, I'd shoot him for being a pod person that replaced the real Mark less than an hour ago. Either that, or he has had his head so firmly planted in his own ass the whole time he didn't even know there was a world around him.
It's not really X-Window vs. Mir. X-Windows, although it will live on for a long time as a compatibility layer, is on the way out.
The war was really Wayland vs.Mir, with a rearguard action trying to defend X-Windows. Several campaigns have still to be fought, but it's less complicated with Mir out of the way.
Although it has a long and illustrious-but-tarnished history, X-Windows is not suitable for all graphics devices. Even with the extensions to direct rendering, it can be slow compared to less abstracted systems, and there have always been security concerns with it, which is a bit strange considering that it's major strength was that clients could exist on different systems than the server, as long as there was a network path between them.
It is about time that X was retired, but it will be difficult to get something to the level of ubiquity that X-Windows achieved in the Open Systems era (remember, it was embraced by some of the non-UNIX workstation vendors like Digital), and all mainstream Linux and BSD distributions (but not Android) come with it built in. With Mir disappearing, Wayland will hopefully achieve this, but it is not certain.
There are places where that would be antisocial, but this is free software. If you do not like the direction Mr Shuttleworth is taking his project built with his time any money, use something else. In the free software world, there are always at least dozen elses. For distros, it is far to easy to find 100 elses.
Yes, in an ideal world in a crystal ball vacuum, it would be that way. Everybody would make his own distro, making his own choices, and integrate packages from all sources without ever making any demands (code modifications, support for a certain direction) upstream.
The real world is not ideal however, and Ubuntu-the-most-dominant-distro and MIR would be a package deal, and droves of users would use it anyway, and Canonical would set the agenda and direction of MIR. And Ubuntu is too big for any package or application maintainer to not support.
MIR would not surface because it was the best in traditional open source way, but because Canonical had pushed it no matter what. And that very real scenario (the early MIR stages happened entirely within Canonical) created the resentment. And rightly so IMHO.
Well Mir was interesting (as a peripheral observer), but it did not seem to solve a fundamental problem - that is the differences between requirements and resources (from screen size onwards) between a mobile device and a desktop (or even a laptop).
I remember Microsoft trying it - twice - and no matter what you think of their ethics, they do have some talented people working for them, even if their efforts seem to be subsumed and stifled the the Borg all too often. Mi had some interesting ideas, but a working unified, coherent system it never seemed to have a hope of being.
I did not say everyone should create their own distribution. I made a toy distribution years ago. I learned a great deal from doing so, but it was a huge time sink. I am sure there are dozens of people on the planet who would benefit from taking the time to create a distribution, but it is not a course of action I would inflict on any but the most hopelessly clueless commentard. There really are hundreds of distributions, and unless you have a really strange requirement, half a dozen of them will almost certainly be a far better choice than spending the time required to create your own.
"Making demands from upstream". I had to wait a while before I was calm enough to respond to this without a foul mouthed screaming rant whilst brandishing an iron plated clue bat. You are not entitled to demand anything ever. You can politely offer you opinion on which way you think a project should go. You can politely tell others why you think one distro is a better choice than another. You can offer money to people capable of creating a change in your preferred direction. You can download the source code, fork it and prove to the world that your way is better (or - as I have discovered - there is often a damn good reason not to try to do it that way).
All the people screaming and swearing and demanding the removal of systemd achieved bugger all. The Devuan maintainers sat down in their comfy chairs and got on with something constructive (They are close to getting into the top 100 on distro watch). By all means follow their example and create Vortux, or use one of the Ubuntu derivatives that does not use MIR.
"Ubuntu is too big for any package or application maintainer to not support." Round objects. Canonical is quite capable of creating packages for any application they want. Application maintainers have enough on their plate without doing anything non-trivial to handle specific needs of any individual distribution.
A very brief search showed that distribution makers were not particularly bothered by Canonical creating MIR. They were peeved by Canonical making statements about competitors to MIR that were not particularly true.
"I did not say everyone should create their own distribution. I made a toy distribution years ago. I learned a great deal from doing so, but it was a huge time sink."But also a great deal of fun if it's what floats your boat. When The Gitling was a teenager, we spent a lot of time playing with operating systems, mostly but not exclusively *nix. Of particular interest to me was transitioning from teacher to pupil.
And yet, this is exactly what happened, people rejected his crap and choose other things, whether cinnamon on ubuntu (mint), Wayland & gnome on fedora, etc. That people did this, actually exercised that freedom you also speak of, is exactly what he is complaining about. What an antisocial ass he is.
That's a legitimate point, but some of the resentment comes from the fact that there's a zero-sum game ni man-hours, momentum, mind-share, and credibility, and so the more forking there is, the more fewer resources there are behind any one project and thus the overall progress of the scene is harmed.
Not only do big mainstream figures like Shuttleworth get flack for forking and diverting that, but so do groups of "nobodies" - enthusiasts, who take their ball and go home when they don't like how something's going.
I gather that the decision to make between 240 and 480 people redundant was driven by the need to make Canonical attractive to (other) investors. Mr Shuttleworth has explained that, as part of that process, he decided to axe the mobile phone project. Hence, as others have explained, no need for Mir.
All the 'community' arguments don't trump the need for cold hard cash (aka working capital). Seems to work for Red Hat.
That el-reg continue to pretend Google+ is dead, except when that doesn't fit the current agenda.
Clearly the linked community is actually rather active (as are all the Google communities i use). My Google+ post stream is also very active, with quality stuff in it from interesting people. It's actually everything that Facebook isn't (which is bizzre given the media obsession with comparison of g+ to fb)
Do what? There's no media obsession with Google plus at all. Can't remember the last time i heard it mentioned except in threads on here. It's a niche service that Google will probably eol in a year or two when they realise it doesn't provide enough advertising revenue...
Clearly the linked community is actually rather active
Slightly propagandist take on the issue no? People use google+ because their platform forces people to when engaging with google sites, but they're minimally engaging with google+ itself. Which is perfectly fine but not at all what google intended for the platform.
It'd be like twitter not really being used and just providing identity services for all twitter's other sites (this is not a thing but I'm saying on comparable terms if they did own more properties). Like I said it's fine and does work for google but that doesn't really make google+ a "thing".
I can't see them ever killing it per se because it's how they unify their services together but lets be reasonable about it..
Hell, I remember my first foray into Linux some 17 years ago now, and posting on newsgroups.
I'd never posted anywhere where having a superiority complex was the norm. I still remember one conversation to this day along the lines of somebody telling me they knew the answer, and I didn't, ho-de-ho. No sh1t Sherlock, that's why I'm posting here.
Sadly, often one of the side effects of high intelligence is a lack of empathy and/or social skills. It's something one often has to work at when in such a position, balancing the fact you can think on levels beyond most people, but whilst also acknowledging basic human needs to have friends, partners etc. These generally aren't found by lording your brain power over people.
Of course, some people are just pr1cks. There's no helping them.
How about a thicko with an big inferiority complex saying "I know, but I won't tell you" when he hasn't got a clue and is trying to hide it. Just tell the emperor he has no clothes and enjoy the spectacular tantrum as he screams "of course I have clothes, but you are too stupid to see them".
people lording their financial capital over people
Somehow, I feel that if Shuttleworth's aim had been to demonstrate his financial superiority, investing in an obscure graphical shell for an operating system used by a tiny minority of computer users was not his best strategy.
"Somehow, I feel that if Shuttleworth's aim had been to demonstrate his financial superiority, investing in an obscure graphical shell for an operating system used by a tiny minority of computer users was not his best strategy."
Depends. If you want investor money you need to differentiate yourself from the crowd. No one is going to invest serious money in yet another distro with a gnome shell. But a brand new front end and API that can ultimately have applicaiton lock in (or at least reduced functionality for programs that don't use their API), well, thats another story. Kerching! Or maybe not. But I suspect that was part of his thinking.
"If you want investor money you need to differentiate yourself from the crowd. No one is going to invest serious money in yet another distro with a gnome shell. But a brand new front end and API that can ultimately have applicaiton lock in (or at least reduced functionality for programs that don't use their API), well, thats another story. Kerching! Or maybe not. But I suspect that was part of his thinking."
He sold Thawte for the US equivalent of over 575 MILLION DOLLARS, before forming Canonical.
You reckon he formed Canonical in 2004 with a view to picking up some investor money, in 2017, after he's stepped down as CEO, so he could make himself rich ...?
You're bonkers.
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I'll agree. I read much more than I post ( which is probably way too much, I accept). And an awful lot of what I read is irrational opposition, with no shades of grey either.
That being said, the statement "Sadly, often one of the side effects of high intelligence is a lack of empathy and/or social skills..." I can't accept.
There is no evidence that the commentators have higher intelligence than the normal distribution, within, perhaps, the more educated band. Nor that those who do have higher intelligence vary more than average across the empathy EI scale. Though, in IT forums there would predictably be a higher proportion of commentators on the autistic/Aspergers scale, since there would be both a lower proportion of people in the "caring" fields, because they aren't attracted to IT as much, and a higher proportion of those in mechanical/technical fields because, obviously this is what interests them.
FWIW My work has always involved intense use of people skills, empathy etc. but built on a solid base of technical knowledge about literacy development. I spend a lot of my time in forums arguing with Behaviourists who fondly believe that all you need to learn to read is to learn all the endless and often inadequate rules for decoding. ( and that all you need to teach literacy or solve learning problems is to buy a good/better phonics scheme)
"How nice of you to be kind to the little people. </Sarcasm>""
LOL. The point I'm making, is that it's possible to be smart without looking down at other people or belittling their lack of similar skills to your own. Most people have something they're good at, whether that's a tangible skill, or a personality trait like being a great listener for their friends. I found that within the Linux community in particular, there seemed to be a need by many to feel superior and laugh at other's questions, rather than gain their satisfaction from helping people.
Don't get me wrong, I've seen it on other forums too. But usually to a lesser extent; and those that behave in such a way are usually ignored or marginalised.
"Nerds and geeks over here have a reputation for at best being anti-social."
Well, consider that during the years when most people are forming their social skills, nerds and geeks are being shunned when they're not being assaulted by football players. You can't help but come out of that socially awkward. Some emerge with an empathy for other misfits, while others decide it's their turn and use whatever power they have to bully others. We call the latter category "4chan users."
"Well, consider that during the years when most people are forming their social skills, nerds and geeks are being shunned when they're not being assaulted by football players. You can't help but come out of that socially awkward."
I suspect one thing all the shooters in shopping malls seem to have in common, ...none of them could get a date to the prom.
Allow me to disagree with that one:
> one of the side effects of high intelligence is a lack of empathy and/or social skills.
I much more often find that what could be perceived as lack of empathy / social skills is just a bonehead who is not as clever as he (usually a he) thinks, trying to show off to boost his self esteem. In other words, just a random type of arsehole.
Much fun can be had when one finds an error in their arguments... ------>
Yes, that's true... but it's a strawman.
Unity is still a worthless piece of crippled crap that nobody ever wanted but Canonical.
Open Source people are hostile, Unity is terrible. Both of those things can be and are true. Open Source hostility, as embodied by Linus, does not excuse your terrible GUI.
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