It’s time once again to show off some of the great art being made using Ubuntu and the wonderful tools we have available to us:
Also check out the Cartoon TV show made using ubuntu and blender: Pirates vs. Ninjas vs. Robots vs. Cowboys (in Portuguese)
This is my top 10 for August, if you want to see more of the amazing art being done using Ubuntu, check out the full gallery.
Yesterday I posted an entry about how I felt that commercial economics should be more widely employed in the FOSS world and that it’s our failure as a community to engaged appropriately with non-material-contributing users in such a way as to make our material contributions more economically sustainable.
Some took this to mean that I was a dangerous capitalist (ironic for those who know my as the dangerous socialist).
OK let’s make one thing clear, I do _not_ advocate for the sale of something that is already paid for. And by that I mean that someone else already put the money or time into making something FOSS and has graciously licensed it for download.
If you need to spend full time on a project to make it a success then you have no choice but to find a way to make money. My proposals so far have been more about promoting the idea of paying for the _creation_ of software than about the rather more impossible _distribution_ of software. To do that would be to make something artificially scarce.
There must be a way to see users in different lights, they are: users, potential contributors, potential inverters and a source of problems. If you can turn every Ubuntu user into a contributor then that’s great, it’s healthy for the ecosystem and it’s growth and I know it’s great for the education of the contributors. On the other hand if you don’t have time to contribute then the next best thing to invest is damned money. Paying for someone else’s time can get you that contribution and it can even be more meaningful since the people who your paying can be highly skilled and your simply saving them from a life of non-foss development.
I’ve not yet given up the hope that we _can_ find a way to have fair Free Software development that pays the bills and delivers freedom.
I was reading the comments on the interesting Mint blog about Mint testing a Debian derivative so they can take advantage of rolling releases and get away from Ubuntu’s instability. Some of the comments allude to a different sentiment:
Ubuntu is so commercially driven, whereas mint is such a nice community effort, I’d be so much happier to use mint.
– fred
Ubuntu started to annoy me a bit with all this commercially oriented development of the distro.
– Miro Hadzhiev
But above all I believe that Ubuntu will change direction and become increasingly turned to a more commercial aspect. At the same time they will lose the * community * Exchange.
– F.Dionne
My response to this anti-commercial sentiment is this quote:
You keep on using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Simply that users and members of the community are confused by what commercial actually means. Commercial is not against the community, the community is commercial, people are employed to work on Ubuntu, work with Ubuntu and to be a part of the community. A varied commercial community would actually be kinda nice, imagine if we had a Dell community manager, or a system76 guy in IRC who was chatting away to the rest of the community of users *and* business people. Take a look at Organisations Learning to contribute to FOSS the right way.
I don’t think *making money* is the real fear of these people, I think the fear is Canonical with their often over bearing unfair influence with Ubuntu that often seems like they are on one side inviting development of their features that they decide are cool and on the other side ignoring and diminishing the features that others who are not Canonical want to work on or would like Canonical to help with.
There is also a fear that Canonical will only really want to work on what makes Ubuntu attractive to OEMs and other large organisations that they have a commercial relationship with. I know that aint true and lots of Canonical people continue to work on things which are good for the whole platform, but sometimes Ubuntu’s certainly had the flavour of feature stuffing and Mark hasn’t helped with the way he words his posts about new features in the past makes it seem like they distrust users opinions.
My personal concern is the lack of commercial involvement of Ubuntu’s users, basically it goes like this: Canonical is a business and is interested in making enough money to pay it’s developers a wage. What they work on is based around what makes money. The money comes from Dell and HP. The developers work on what Dell and HP want. Users never get a direct say in the development of Ubuntu because A) They have no commercial relationship with Canonical and B) Canonical doesn’t co-operate wonderfully on DX with other programmers (commercial or non) preferring instead to announce features at the last minute and rail-road decisions and opinions of others.
OK I’m not on a rant against Canonical, both of these might actually be solved/able:
B) We’ve seen a turn around in Caonical’s DX team shenanigans, announcing Unity at UDS was a very good thing and shows leadership instead of authority. Hopefully the flavour of the team has shifted from assuming all users are idiots and need to be told what’s good for them, to something a little more progressive.
A) If the continued redesign of the Software Center can include the ability to pay for FOSS, then we can introduce the commercial relationship with Canonical _and_ App developers and provide a way for non-technical people to have an economic relationship and thus a say in the future development direction.
All signs point to common sense and progress, mistakes were made but I don’t see more on the horizon. So lets make sure Ubuntu isn’t considered “too commercial” let’s consider FOSS “not commercial enough”, because only through demanding the right commercial terms in our transactions can we make sure that developers get to eat and users get rights to the software they use and we’re not forced to accept traditional locked down software because we’re too eager to get free beer and not responsible enough to pay for Free Speech.
Your thoughts?
The FOSSed conference was certainly very interesting and although the heat was almost unbearable, the sleeping and presentation rooms un-air-conditioned at least the event fed us well (a little too well as I note by budda belly this morning) and we got to talk with some very interesting people with a different take on Ubuntu and FOSS.
First of all there are plenty of people using Ubuntu, both strait up and as a basis for educational distributions. But almost everyone at this conference was using an Apple Mac, it’s something a lot of schools have invested in. I maintain that the bastards are going to be Apple in this and upper-middle class residential markets.
One sys-admin was explaining to me how their school is ditching Ubuntu in favour of Apple Macs because he (as a sysadmin) is not paid enough to do his job properly and just doesn’t want any more work to deal with. Of course far be it from me to suggest that doing a job at all is worth doing right, but I can’t imagine how a fleet of rented Apple Macs could be easier to manage even on a larger scale. I chalk this one up to professional folly and lack of imagination.
There were plenty of positive thinkers too, lots of people really wanted to learn some of the available programs in depth so they could go off and teach other people. this is great and it’s certainly something we should be doing more of. I know Inkscape has really good how-tos and guides available to download in manual format.
In the end though we got to talk a lot about all the challenges, politics, dumb decisions and rotten thinking that goes on in education. There was certainly a lot to complain about, most of the time it didn’t seem like it was malicious, just that old problem of pushing incompetent people further up stack into management instead of firing them. Of course I also remember being told: “No one likes being their own boss, because suddenly it’s hard to tell yourself just what a dumb boss you really are to yourself”
Your thoughts?
OMG Ubuntu recently posted an entry on their blog about the new paid for Ubuntu Software Center.
I like the guys at OMG, they’re doing some interesting stuff, but d0od you’ve got a mistake and the article needs fixing.
Commercial software is not software that is closed source, commercial software is just software that you pay for. I’d love to see Free Software for sale in the Ubuntu software center, but of course because everyone is conflating proprietary with commercial and FOSS with free beer it’s frustrating efforts to monetise Free Software and make this whole gig sustaining.
This is doing a dis-service to the real power of FOSS as a peer reviewed, stakeholder and user empowered development by suggesting the only defining point to it is it’s free cost. It isn’t, the free cost is incidental, this community isn’t a charity and we shouldn’t be expected to behave like one all the time.
I’m asking you to stop explaining FOSS as free beer and commercial as proprietary. For the livelihood of programmers who want to make FOSS their job. Stop forcing software developers to close code up in order to make a living or force them to donate their time to make Free Software. Just pay a fair price for Free Software development and open access to market places and complain about markets that help promote the confusion by only selling proprietary software while giving away FOSS.
I don’t know if the Ubuntu Software Center will, I hope that since Ubuntu is an open community we can make some progress and get Canonical to support FOSS by allowing their marketplace to sell our services.
Three cheers for commercial free and open source software!
Three rotten tomatoes for proprietary software of any kind!
Here at FOSSed one of the great project on show is the Open 1:1 project which is an Ubuntu based distribution specially designed for large middle and high school deployments of netbooks for students. It’s currently deployed in a number of large schools and is on it’s second year of refinement.
It’s currently got the netbook interface and a set of education software specially picked for inclusion based on the needs of American schools much like Edubuntu for a specific region. The system is fast and responsive even on older ASUS netbooks and the install is very easy.
They’re currently moving from 9.10 to 10.04. The current plan is to create a new version once per year based on the spring release. This should allow for Open 1:1 to base it’s distro on the LTS releases and one STS release in the general Ubuntu cadence and it means that the people involved in the project are focused on delivering the distro in the summer in time for deployment for the next school year in the USA.
Right now the distro is being deployed and configured using a file-imaging system which installs by wiping out the machine and installing the distro on it. There is a plan to move to something more manageable with packages and a desire to be involved further with the Ubuntu community to make sure tweaks are in sync and going upstream and educational software is available ready to use.
Oh someone got me started on how “Linux” (whatever that is) is just an appliance operating system, destined for gadgets or clouds and never any traction in the area of desktop or general computing.
What?
Lets just define that buzzword for a second, Appliance: a single function machine often involving electricity which is simple to operate. An appliance is a device which is very easy to measure the function and performance. It literally applies to one thing. Does it clean clothes acceptably? does it keep food cold enough to stay fresh but not so cold as to turn your milk into a giant ice-lolly?
Multi-function machines are like multiple appliances bundled together, it washes, it dries and it leaves a minty pine fresh scent! Computers on the other hand are Turing machines, they’re mathematically speaking NOT appliances, they can run anything and do anything and are only limited by their hardware.
The iPhone App is far more like an appliance, single function, often gimmicky tools that are very easy to say if they perform their work. The difference of course is that general electric never had the gall to break into your apartment and retroactively remove your washing machine for non-compliance.
Not all Apps are appliances though, some are games or web browsers which pretty much disqualifies them. So apple are selling appliances on top of their iphone platform, why would Apple (and others) want you to believe that the device it’s self is an appliance?
Lots of people would like to put the genie back into the bottle, would like to convince us all that their platform doesn’t need to be open, honest or property to be controlled by the hardware owner. No, it’s an “Appliance” you see, and you don’t need to install anything new on your washing machine do you, no need to rewire your fridge for new reasons. So don’t worry that we’ve taken all your freedom away but retained our own freedom to do as we please with your property after sale.
Ah that’s right, it’s a good old fashioned hoodwink. Beware anyone telling you that the general computer1 is going away and in it’s place will be simple appliances. You can turn a phone into a computer but you can’t turn a computer into just a phone. We’ve known for a while that the mobile phone industry was rotten. Even if you’re not a techy you could feel the malignancy leaching out into the mainstream and the same will be true of internet use and other domains of functionality for these so called appliances.
This industry will rot and decay as a single function, centrally controlled framework where our options are to build our own appliances on top of someone else’s locked down api. Turing machines will always be more like canvases than spanners, even if we draw washing machines on the canvas it doesn’t change the nature of the general purpose machine and nor should it.
Thoughts?
1 Desktops might fizzle away, but that isn’t the same thing as the general computer.
This is the current evolution of the FOSS icons I’ve been using for posters and flyers, as you can see I’ve been focusing on a number of concepts to iconify the powerful rights given to users with Free and Open Source software. The ones with the blue glow are by current choices.
Any thoughts on these icons yourself?
Have you ever wondered if the people who claim to want to use “open source” don’t really understand what it is?
I get this feeling a lot, mostly from the media, government politicians and organisational administrators. Very few people understand Free and Open Source Software enough to be able to understand the difference between that and proprietary software. So is it any wonder so few people are able to grasp the importance of it in their organisation?
At times I feel it’s as if they’ve heard about some mystic buzz word that can solve technical problems they never knew existed and all they have to do is observe some religious behaviours and the wonderful results of doing science properly (i.e. publishing results and peer review) will magically be yours without any requirement to understand what it is your actually doing.
I’m also cynically wondering if this same process of belief is how a lot of well to do people understand economics. Perform XYZ and get godly justified rewards! Magic until it all falls to bits as a giant pyramid scheme.
Perhaps I’m just frustrated at the lack of understanding, the promiscuity of misinformation and bad explanations that seem to grind the clear message down into an indecipherable mess.
Your thoughts?
A debate, seemingly endless in the Free and Open Source landscape between purest Free Software activists and Practicalist Open Source is starting to find it’s way into a recognisable, worthwhile settlement. At least in my own head.
I’ve never been very fond of the Free Software Foundation’s recent destructive, abstinence only, political approaches to advocacy. It may seem that they’re no longer concerned with Free Software as a social issue, but as only a political issue, but I don’t believe this is the only thing the FSF is up to, only what they are most loud about in the press and the way they allow themselves to be perceived.
The difference of course is how you fight. Back in the days when the FSF was finding it’s feet Richard and others began this amazing process of taking functional proprietary tools and recreating these tools as free software, drop-in replacements. This process of “doing all the boring bits” really set the technical foundations and I think is why a lot of people were really amazed by the principled dedication and out of this grew respect.
You could of course be strong by simply denying yourself the pleasures of technology, because it’s not Free Software. But this is something that only a very small majority will do and while it does show conviction, It’s not producing anything and it implies negative guilt in those unwilling to give up their Wii or Blackberry. Protests are great, but they have to resonate with the public and can’t just be about showing how rotten everyone is for being human and wanting nice things.
I know the FSF is still producing software, taking troublesome closed software and making new free versions of it (hence OpenSocial), but the strength of that production has not been keeping up with it’s ability to be loud, vocal and political. What we’ve ended up with is a political organisation, but not a guiding light that executes and demonstrates the way forward as it used to.
My key consideration: Support Free Software, have conviction, be strong on the issues and be principled. But don’t whine protests, instead make solutions. Let creation do the talking (and advertise it) and invite others to come together to make Free Software solutions. Freedom through production.
The open source movement grew out of the lack of compromise in the Free Software community, but it’s grown further from being just about inviting businesses into a friendly arena and into a more pragmatics’ hiding hole, there are no difficult questions to answer, and free as in beer software is how it’s all advertised with no further explanation about how it became free in the first place.
It’s disappointing because while the open source movement should have be trying to figure out the best ways to execute Free Software ideals in a realistic economic and business sense, it instead set off with a more vague set of principles that are simply less strict, but with the same intention as the FSF. Sure there is much more practical movement, more code production, but there is also a lot of confusion and grey areas being produced which are not helpful.
How many licenses are ratified by OSS? Why did they need to ratify licenses at all? or even bother with definitions? There is quite a good set of principles right there ready to use from the FSF, all that was needed was a more business, less political direction and advertising strategy. Something that business pragmatists would look at and be happy understanding and supporting based on it’s practical benefits, but also not shy away from explaining it’s long term reasons.
For me I find being practical in the immediate sense is important, but far too often this id-like satisfaction eclipses my responsibility to make sure I prepare for the future. Far too often you’ll find practicalism going hand in hand with myopia and an inability to see the future beyond next month. Even if I need to use some closed source bit of code, or some driver firmware to get everything working. I think I should always be mindful of making sure I am a) not investing further into the closed source ecosystem and that I can b) invest something into the FOSS alternatives in order to help the future of that functionality dig it’s way out of the hole.
These are long term practical and economic considerations for the open source philosophy that I wish were much more widely practised. We certainly can’t be thinking of how to construct new and exciting economic opportunities for free software development when in for example Ubuntu we shall have closed source programs with economic incentives (that users pay for) and Free Software programs with no economics beyond self interest (they’re all free and not linked to any sort of donations or investment information).
A deplorable imbalance in consideration of the future of Free and Open Source which I hope can be solved with some discussion with the distribution organisations and perhaps the organisations that manage projects financially. A standard formula and way to advertise that to end users would be most welcome.
My key consideration: Practicalism is good, but I’m weary that it doesn’t lead to complacency and myopia on the future issues. Free Software principles are very strong foundations for the long term and closed source solutions are very weak stop gaps in comparison. Be sure to invest in that long term solution even while using the short term stop gap.
Your thoughts on my whole ramble today?
