Is Canonical Becoming The New Microsoft?

[Avi Greenbury]

Michael Haney wrote:
> - As for Proprietary Software, I believe Linux needs more commercial
> software support.  I'm not one of those die hard "everything must be
> open source" fanatics who seem to think they own the Linux Community.
> So what Ubuntu One is proprietary and so what there might be a Linux
> version.

Linux is a good demonstration of how good Open Source software can be,
and how it's possible to build a genuine business around it.

One of the most well-known Linux companies developing closed-source
software hardly promotes this idea.

Artificial incompatibility as with Ubuntu One is something that's
generally absent from the Linux world. It generally helps no-one but
the software venodor.

> I couldn't CARE LESS if my device drivers and applications are open or
> closed source as long as they WORK.  Wouldn't you like to have DVD
> playback software that actually works right the first time, or Linux
> ports of software which previously could only be run using Wine?

That's not really the choice, though. Graphics chipset manufacturers
have a distinguished history of releasing broken Linux drivers (and
broken Windows ones).
Personally, I *like* the fact that OSS tends to lead to better code,
and I would generally expect that an open source driver will be better
than a closed source one.

> - I don't see the benefit of dropping the GIMP and OOo from Ubuntu's
> default installation.  Its possible Canonical wants to make it so
> users get more of a choice in what graphics software and office suite
> they want to use, but when it comes to open-source graphics editing
> and productivity you can't do much than these two.  

The Gimp is mostly useless on Ubuntu as a default install, really. So
few people want a fully featured image manipulation package, and a
rather large proportion of people actively want something simple.
Giving them a choice between the amusingly-crippled Ristretto and the
confusingly-featured Gimp isn't particularly good IMO. I can fully
understand replacing the Gimp with a basic image editor, rather than
keeping a fully-featured image manipulating app.

OOo is ginormous and bloated. I wouldn't run it on a netbook. The
initial decision to side with Google Docs appears to have changed to
switching to AbiWord and Gnumeric, which is a much better idea IMO.
 
> - Moving from Google to Yahoo as the default search engine.  This is
> probably the biggest of Canonical's boneheaded moves.  Google offers
> far richer services than Yahoo.

The switch is just the default search provider. Nothing to do with
availability of services.
I don't think Canonical's ever been particularly worried about the
free-as-in-freedom zealots - Ubuntu's never been the freeest distro.

> Yahoo's search uses Bing, which they say is growing in usershare,
> but its not a significant amount compared to Google's usershare.
> Now, Google has rolled out another new service called Google Buzz, a
> Facebook-like feature that works in Gmail!  What the hell is
> Canonical thinking?

I don't see why user share is relevant. If it was all about the most
popular thing, we'd be using Windows and IE.
And, again, this doesn't affect your ability to use another platform to
find out who's being snowed on, just what picture appears at the top of
the page when you search in the default browser.
If you're that opposed to using anything besides Google, you can set it
to use whatever you want. As the Yahoo, Alta-Vista, Dogpile etc. users
have been doing thus far.


-- 
Avi Greenbury
http://aviswebsite.co.uk ;)
http://aviswebsite.co.uk/asking-questions