All your base are belong to Canonical
Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
Why are you telling Amazon what I am searching for?
We are not telling Amazon what you are searching for. Your anonymity is preserved because we handle the query on your behalf. Don’t trust us? Erm,
we have rootall your base are belong to us. You do trust us with your data already. You trust us not to screw up on your machine with every update.
Sorry, I could not help myself. Seriously though, Mark Shuttleworth’s argument is technically correct, but I think he could have made it in a more diplomatic fashion, especially when he starts his next paragraph with:
In summary – please don’t feed the trolls.
Doh!
All joking aside, I do feel for Mark and the Canonical folks. It seems that whenever they try something new which has even the slightest hint of commercialism, they catch a tonne of flak. Yet, I rarely read any praise about the sums of money Mark must have personally invested into the project. To me, it all seems just a little unfair.
Anyhow, regarding the new Amazon feature, I think I can understand why it is being implemented, but as many commentators on Mark’s blog have already mentioned, I think this type of service is best suited to a user’s web browser. Erm, unless the aim is to make money, in which case, it makes perfect sense to incorporate affiliate links into an OS’s GUI.
Also, anonymity issues aside (they don’t really concern me too much), my main concerns would be:
- vendor favouritism and the possibility that users might not be given, or shown the best deals. I mean, Amazon is normally pretty competitive, but it can often pay to shop around. In which case, a web browser would be the preferred tool.
- UI clutter. In comparison to performing other tasks, such as opening applications and searching for local files, how often would the average user open Unity’s dash with the intention of shopping on Amazon? I do not know, but I would question the ratio and therefore I would also question whether Amazon’s (or any other vendor’s) products should be featured at all.
That said, in his blog post, Mark also states:
What we have in 12.10 isn’t the full experience, so those who leap to judgement are at maximum risk of having to eat their words later.
So, it will be interesting to see how this develops. Also, if you have not read it already and you are at all interested, Jono Bacon has written a compelling blog post that highlights the benifits of the recent dash improvements. Personally, I think the jury is still out.
16 responses to “All your base are belong to Canonical”
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Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
Word.
Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
I wouldn’t want to be Canonical either. Trying to figure out how to make money on the Linux desktop has to be a daunting task. However, plugging every cloud service they can straight into my desktop gives me the heebee jeebees. Not knowing what my computer is talking to all the time reminds me too much of Windows. Hopefully, somebody will come up with a way to switch this stuff off.
Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
@Jake, I believe it can currently be switched off by removing its package:
However, I understand your “heebee jeebee” feelings and it would make me nervous too. Also, from a technical point of view, surely there are more potential points of failure with every cloud service that gets integrated?
Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
Jono always makes a compelling blog post in defence of every Canonical flub…. he isn’t exactly motivated to be unbiased.
Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
@Anonymous, agreed. I know it is not good to make assumptions and I possibly made the mistake of assuming that everybody would already be aware of Jono’s allegiances. Point taken.
Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
However, you will see that people do not complain only on commercialism, but also on the lack of security ( transmit cleartext of search done on home lens is amateur work in 2012, and Canonical should really aspire to higher standards, IMHO ), about the fact this was pushed in a few days without being discussed in public or announced during UDS ( so people in the community feel rules are for others, not for Mark ), about the fact that the search can become embarassing ( see the bug about adult result ), and was unannounced and forced at the last minute. People complain also this add clutter to the display. I am sure lots of people want Canonical to get enough money to survive and then start to contribute more work upstream to strengthen free software ecosystem, but lots of people do not want it at all cost. All of this could have been avoided with a simple announce, a discussion and more transparency like saying “how much money did this bring to the project”.
Mozilla do this. Mint do this. Mageia do this. Why can’t Ubuntu and Canonical act like a open community ? ( afaik, nothing prevent anyone from publishing accounting if they want )
Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
@Michael, all legitimate concerns, let us hope that they get addressed. Regarding this:
I know it is often used as a scapegoat, but people really are free to run alternatives. Personally, I think the folks at Canonical already know this and are banking on the fact that the majority of users will accept the changes. Also, I figure they can easily afford to lose some of the “hardcore” free software enthusiasts, in favour of gaining a bunch of mainstream users. Nothing new.
Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
While some people do complain that Canonical are too commercial, they usually mean that they don’t like Unity’s design. They think it’s dumbed down or something. But this is the first money-making scheme I’ve seen get any complaints. I willing to bet the majority of people want Canonical to succeed.
If Canonical began promoting DVD and thumbdrive sales of the lastest version and offering them a few weeks early (before posting the official download) and announced fundraising targets and how much money gets raised/DVDs bought then I think they would collect a ton of money.
How many people do you think would buy a DVD or thumbdrive if Canonical asked them to and it meant Ubuntu could stay independent from ads? I think a lot. It would take promotion though, so people don’t feel like they’re the only one contributing to a lonely donate page and ads or affiliate links (whatever you want to call it, if they’re not paid Amazon ads, they’re Ubuntu ads for their affiliate program) get put in anyway.
Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
@xguest, Canonical already offer Ubuntu preloaded on a USB key, but it is not quite what you are describing. Also, I am not sure how the “offering them a few weeks early” part would work with the Ubuntu release cycle — the images tend to get worked on right up until the last minute.
Sep 24, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
Well, they could postpone posting the official download then while they conduct a “fundraising campaign” asking people to buy. Or maybe just have the download be $5-$20 for the first month. (Or release them at the same time, people would still want the media as collector’s items. The average person doesn’t need to update immediately. They could do a podcast/video saying “we know you could download right away, but we urge you to buy a DVD or buy a thumbdrive. You’re going to want to have a backup anyway. If your system crashes. If you’re installing on a Windows machine or a Mac. Why deal with the hassle of buying blank discs or creating a USB key?”) Also, I think the USB is only for the 32-bit version currently and are not promoted well. I think Canonical would have to switch strategy to asking people for money like a Kickstarter or Public Radio with goals and such for it to work well with regular folks. If people think they’re the only one or Canonical doesn’t care about them they won’t bother. (They won’t think it will be enough. Same reason some people don’t vote.)
Sep 25, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
Mark’s argument isn’t really correct, it’s one of the weakest points of his post, for reasons well explained by some commenters on Mark’s post. Briefly, trust isn’t binary: you usually don’t either ‘entirely trust’ someone or ‘not trust them at all’. As one comment puts it, some people cheat at cards but don’t cheat on their spouse, some might do it the other way round, some might cheat on/at both, or neither. It’s entirely possible to trust Ubuntu in the sense of trusting that the whole Ubuntu ‘process’ will deliver updates to your operating system software which are not evil while still not trusting Ubuntu/Canonical with your search data. There are good reasons for taking such a position, too (which are explained in more detail in the comments on Mark’s post).
This is true both in theory and in practice; the history of Linux distributions and major controversial actions taken by various ones solidly indicates that, in general, many people extend trust to distributions only so far as shipping software is concerned. They do not want to trust distributors with their personal data, beyond certain fairly strictly-defined limits. Every distributor who’s ever tried to implement some kind of opt-out metrics system or anything like that could tell you that lesson.
Sep 25, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
@xguest nice idea, but as Adam and I could tell, Mandriva/Mandrakesoft already tried the whole idea of giving releases before to people who pay. What you end to do is:
So in the end, someone will have the idea of blocking public mirrors. But if you do that, your hosting cost just explode. More servers, more bandwidth, more engineers to take care of that. Then people using the system will have to register, and things will be less convenient for them ( no local mirror, no easy network installation ). So no one will do that, and you have everybody unhappy and bypassing the system.
Like Adam say in his comments, lots of things have already been tested, and people should start to learn about what happens and what happened outside of the Ubuntu world. Being slightly more aware of the past would benefit to everybody ( so for example, Ubuntu community would not take for granted the governance of the project, and maybe people would start to ask for more transparency from Canonical )
Sep 27, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
I see why Canonical are doing what they are doing, and yes, after investing millions, then Mark and Canonical are going to go the commercial route, Ubuntu was never just a hobby. If nothing else, Ubuntu is getting the Linux word to enterprises with it’s various schemes. Games via EA, sales via Amazon etc, so that’s positive. Negatives? 2 imho.
But then I see Ubuntu in a similar light to Microsoft and Apple. In that they have such a large user base, that for each person who decides to leave for something new, there are 4 more coming aboard, so these (often discussed) radical additions/changes will never have a real negative effect. Just as Microsoft users are accustomed to viruses, and Apple users devout following of all things “i” means Apple can do no wrong in their eyes, Ubuntu users are accustomed to getting new “features” (like them or not) which are different to other Linux distros.
It’s that same old Linux adage again. Plenty of choice, if you don’t like it… get Crunchbang :)
Sep 30, 2012 (about 7 months ago)
I just want to say, I completely agree with this. You’ve said what I’ve been thinking when I want to reply to someone on the internet about it, but couldn’t put together. I’m not concerned with the privacy issues either, but the vendor preferencing and the clutter do bother me. It seems like another step toward an ultimate consumerism singularity.
Oct 25, 2012 (about 6 months ago)
This post is certainly an influence on the rapidly-growing likelihood of my switching from Xubuntu to CrunchBang.
/L
Dec 21, 2012 (about 4 months ago)
Why are people moaning about about someone trying to finance a product that is supplied gratis?. UBUNTU does have its quirks, so do many other distro’s, I know from experience. It is the only distro that runs on my 4 computors without needing endless hours of tinkering. It is getting rather bloated now, but my newest machine is now 31/2 years old, my oldest is over 10 years old, not a bad distro when compared to Windows. Which by the way will not run on any of them, unless I have a day to waste whilst it boots up and another day to debug it. I am very satisfied with Ubuntu and what Canonical has achieved to date, if it were not for those guys I would not have become a linux user. A Merry Christmas to all you folk on here and good will to all linux users and suppliers. deltabravo.