ubutnu's efforts to improve linux desktop ??

[Loïc Martin]

ashwin kesavan iyengar a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to know how ubuntu gives back to the community in general
> (not just ubuntu community, but linux in general). There are certain
> software products that it has developed that it has chosen to keep it
> to itself, unlike the other big guy here ( Redhat) which gives most of
> its developed software to the community. AFAIK the software i am
> talking about are rosetta, launchpad & upstart. I am sure rosetta is
> proprietary but i am not sure of the other two (correct me if i am
> wrong) . Coming back to the topic of my post, i would like to know how
> much of the time & money of ubuntu & its developer are spent on
> improving the desktop scene in linux rather than the server space.
> There has been lot of development & contribution to making linux more
> suitable as a server OS of choice. Redhat, suse & other have known to
> spend a lot of money & developer resource on improving the state of
> linux as server. But very little is done to making linux suitable for
> desktop. I find ubuntu as the first distro to concentrate on desktop
> space as well. But since they have a server market as well, which is
> of course more profitable. I want to know how ubuntu spends their
> resource on improving desktop arena. This information could be usefull
> in promoting ubuntu.
> As people are more away from pc to mobile devices. IMHO the distant
> future hold for two kinda things ulta mobile device for end user &
> server market that servers these mobile
> devices. I know ubuntu has joined hands with intel to improve the
> state of things here. What has been the progress made in this area?
> 
> with regards
> ashwin
> 
Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm no expert) but :
- launchpad and rosetta are developped by Canonical, not the Ubuntu 
community;
- AFAIK launchpad and rosetta (I really have no clues about rosetta, I 
always considered it had been developped before and outside Ubuntu, but 
I'd consider yu have done your research before asking these question, 
which would be the elementary savoir vivre) are not distributed, thus 
licensing have nothing to do with them (launchpad could be licensed 
under GPL , even though I assume launchpad isn't, and still since 
Canonical isn't *distributing* it they wouldn't have to show the code). 
Just FYI, and because many newbies assume the contrary, you can take any 
GPL software, modify it as you want, use it, and still you would have 
the entire right to keep your code to yourself *as long as* you are not 
distributing the modified software.
- I would be surprised if upstart hasn't been released under a free 
license (most probably GPL2) considering it's shipping in the CD. Actually :

apt-get source upstart
Lecture des listes de paquets... Fait
Construction de l'arbre des dépendances
Lecture de l'information d'état... Fait
Nécessité de prendre 969ko dans les sources.
Réception de : 1 http://archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main upstart 0.3.8-1 
(dsc) [657B]
Réception de : 2 http://archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main upstart 0.3.8-1 
(tar) [956kB]
Réception de : 3 http://archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main upstart 0.3.8-1 
(diff) [12,4kB]
969ko réceptionnés en 1s (606ko/s)
dpkg-source : extraction de upstart dans upstart-0.3.8
dpkg-source : extraction de upstart_0.3.8.orig.tar.gz
dpkg-source : ./upstart_0.3.8-1.diff.gz

I think it answers your question regarding upstart...

BTW, look at your email address before looking at other people's 
services... Mark already pointed the fact that most people questioning 
launchpad's license do it from their gmail account. So you'll have to 
find yourself another email provider if you really care about these 
questions (and you have all the rights to ask them, but then you have to 
be consistent with that and do yourself what you're asking from others - 
I'd be surprised to see RMS with a gmail account ;) ).

Cheers,
Loïc

P.S. : I'm in no way affiliated with Canonical. And I love the FSF