May

Shuttleworth nails his colors to the mast

A bug has been filed over on launchpad, regarding the Commercialisation of Ubuntu by Canonical. It seems Shuttleworth has nailed his colors to the mast, and they’re clearly not the pretty colors we’d all hoped for.

The original bug report, by Matt Lee, founder of libre.fm, reads:

With the release of “Ubuntu One” and the news that Launchpad will not be released as free software, Canonical’s message: “Canonical is committed to the development, distribution and promotion of open source software products, and to providing tools and support to the open source community.” is no longer true, and its continued association with Ubuntu is damaging to free software.

Canonical should decide if it wants to be committed to the development of free software or not.

Canonical employees should decide if they want to be seen to work for a proprietary software developer, whilst talking about free software.

Canonical should either release publically, all the source code for Launchpad and Ubunet, or it should update its mission statement to state their commitment to the development of proprietary software.

The Ubuntu community should decide if they want to be associated, governed and ruled by a proprietary software company, and should appoint non-Canonical people to all the key positions.

Mark Shuttleworth (founder of Canonical), has responded to it with:

Ubuntu was founded together with Canonical, they have always been (and I hope they always will be) intertwined and interdependent. There are thousands of projects and hundreds of distributions, which have various degrees of involvement between themselves and companies. Contributors already align themselves with the projects that reflect the things they are most interested in.

Personally, I think the company/project interface and interaction makes the landscape interesting. We’re all trying to figure out the future of software, and perhaps the future of the software business at the same time.

I understand the passion behind this bug report, but I don’t think it can be addressed. The people who make up the Ubuntu community are entirely free to devote their energy to whatever path they think will serve their interests best – and that has always been the case. I suspect most people in this community are drawn here precisely because of the interdependency between project and company. And those who don’t may well be drawn to something which flows as a direct consequence of that.

There are several distributions which make a point of having no corporate backer. The people who want that, specifically, are probably already there, happily doing good work. People who want something else are wherever they think they can find that, happily doing good work. Some people may change their mind and move in either direction. But Ubuntu and Canonical were born together, with a shared mission. If that’s interesting to you, then participate in Ubuntu. If it’s not, then don’t.

Personally I think the bug report is entirely correct. Ubuntu was always a commercial venture to me; it’s always been clear that shuttleworth intended to make Ubuntu big, then profit from it. But the way he’s doing it — by going against free software while claiming to be a spokeperson in favor of it — is not only incoherent, but damaging to the community. It affects people involved in Ubuntu even more so, since (as the bug report suggests) they’re now involved with a company of questionable ethics, beliefs and practices which may not align with their own.

The most worrying parts for me were Shuttleworth’s comment that “[he] understand[s] the passion behind this bug report, but [doesn't] think it can be addressed”, his change of the bug status to “won’t fix”, and the comment that “The people who make up the Ubuntu community are entirely free to devote their energy to whatever path they think will serve their interests best – and that has always been the case”. This last is patently false, since Ubunteros have to commit to an ethical policy. I haven’t re-read it in light of this development, but I’d be surprised if that ethical policy for Ubuntu contributors allows the kind of commercial actions that Shuttleworth himself is attempting. What I think Mark means is that he owns the company, so everyone else can either like it, or get stuffed. Hell, that’s pretty much his exact wording. Which is precisely the OPPOSITE of the ideal spirit of FOSS community participation.

I really don’t get why he’s doing it this way. It seems pretty clear that if Ubuntu creates a proprietary product good enough that Linux users want it, then FOSS developers will simply bypass his underhanded attempts at control by creating a free clone. Surely selling high-end tech support, on-site/remote admin, printed documentation, etc. would be a much more natural model for them? Then again… you can’t get quite so rich selling physical services, as you can selling automated, virtual ones, and Shuttleworth’s previous success was built on that virtual model.

Anyway… I for one am glad to say that I’ve gone back to Debian before this came out, simply because I find Debian better, for many reasons. Basically, it’s the original and best, which Ubuntu adds very little on top of, and when it does, Debian soon adds those features back. If you’re still with Ubuntu, and value free software, or don’t want to be associated with this sort of anti-community behavior, you might want to consider a switch. Certainly, I think it’s time to stop recommending Ubuntu when other distros provide equally viable but more principled alternatives.

Update:

It seems there’s also a related bug about Ubuntu One violating Ubuntu’s trademark usage guidelines:

The usage of the word Ubuntu in the context of “Ubuntu One” is inconsistent with the Trademark Policy outlined at http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/trademarkpolicy

Specifically of note are the following:

The objective of the Ubuntu trademark policy is to encourage widespread use of the Ubuntu trademarks by the Ubuntu community while controlling that use in order to avoid confusion on the part of Ubuntu users and the general public, to maintain the value of the image and reputation of the trademarks and to protect them from inappropriate or unauthorised use.

The danger of confusion among users and the general public about whether this new service is part of or associated with Ubuntu is extremely high.

there is no commercial intent behind the use

The service has clear and stated commercial intent.

what you are referring to is in fact Ubuntu. If someone is confused into thinking that what isn’t Ubuntu is in fact Ubuntu, you are probably doing something wrong

The service is not Ubuntu and has no association with Ubuntu as a product or community. It merely runs on and works with Ubuntu, on equal footing with other applications like Apache, Firefox, or an Ubuntu user’s blog.

there is no suggestion (through words or appearance) that your project is approved, sponsored, or affiliated with Ubuntu or its related projects unless it actually has been approved by and is accountable to the Ubuntu Community Council

I am not aware of any such approval or even discussion by the Community Council at this time.

If you are producing new software which is intended for use with or on Ubuntu, you may use the Trademark in a way which indicates the intent of your product. For example, if you are developing a system management tool for Ubuntu, acceptable project titles would be “System Management for Ubuntu” or “Ubuntu Based Systems Management”. We would strongly discourage, and likely would consider to be problematic, a name such as UbuntuMan, Ubuntu Management, ManBuntu, etc. Furthermore, you may not use the Trademarks in a way which implies an endorsement where that doesn’t exist, or which attempts to unfairly or confusingly capitalise on the goodwill or brand of the project.

The service clearly falls under the latter list of examples similar to UbuntuMan, and as such is named unacceptably. Furthermore it appears to be attempting to capitalize on the brand, which is similarly explicitly prohibited.

Proposed fix
Rename the service to not include the words “UBUNTU, KUBUNTU, EDUBUNTU, and XUBUNTU” nor “any mark ending with the letters UBUNTU or BUNTU”, or in an acceptably non-ambiguous manner such as “Cloud Storage Solution for Ubuntu”.