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Episode: 3429
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Title: HPR3429: Linux Inlaws S01E39: Ubuntu and the Community
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3429/hpr3429.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-24 23:17:51
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---
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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3429 for Thursday, the 23rd of September 2021.
|
||||
Today's show is entitled, Linux in Laws S0139.
|
||||
Ubuntu and the community and is part of the series Linux in Laws It is hosted by Monochromic
|
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and is about 87 minutes long and carries an explicit flag.
|
||||
The summary is all about your favorite to be in spin and IBM mainframes.
|
||||
This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
|
||||
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
|
||||
This is Linux in Laws, a podcast on topics around free and open source software,
|
||||
any associated contraband, communism, the revolution in general,
|
||||
and whatever fence is your tickle. Please note that this and other episodes
|
||||
may contain strong language, offensive humor, and other certainly not politically correct language
|
||||
you have been warned. Our parents insisted on this disclaimer.
|
||||
Happy Mom? Thus, the content is not suitable for consumption in the workplace,
|
||||
especially when played back in an open plan office or similar environments.
|
||||
Any minors under the age of 35 or any pets including fluffy little killer bunnies,
|
||||
your trusty guide dog, unless on speed, and qt-rexes or other associated dinosaurs.
|
||||
Welcome to Linux in Laws, a season 1 episode 39 of Not Completely Mistaken,
|
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the one with canonical Martin Hower Things.
|
||||
Yeah, I think it's a great, Chris. It's still sun still shining in the UK.
|
||||
Yes.
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||||
Is it COVID-19?
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||||
Oh, perfect. This is the sweltering heat, like 22 degrees as well, over then in the UK.
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||||
No, this is a very cool 24, I think.
|
||||
Ice, ice, ice, hidden early apparently the British child is too bad.
|
||||
So, I don't know yourself today.
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||||
Can't complain. I mean, the effects of global warming are certainly setting in here.
|
||||
We are now touching, I think, 27 or something like this.
|
||||
Kind of mid-June.
|
||||
Okay, but this is no weather show. This is actually Linux in Laws.
|
||||
Your primary source, your primary source of, or your premier, premier source.
|
||||
It's been, it's been long there.
|
||||
Your premier source for fun, humor, and of course, open-source topics.
|
||||
And today we have no other than Reese coming from canonical, but why don't you introduce the
|
||||
referees?
|
||||
Well, this isn't a weather show. I thought I was going to talk about the British weather.
|
||||
No, sorry about this.
|
||||
I said that it would be quite a long show.
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||||
I'm like, I use it eight hours.
|
||||
Exactly, I don't have a lot of five minutes, I guess.
|
||||
It's raining, it's overcast, it's too hot.
|
||||
That'll do.
|
||||
Right, yeah.
|
||||
Fair enough.
|
||||
15 seconds, right?
|
||||
Well, see you guys.
|
||||
It was thanks for having me, man.
|
||||
Great to have you on the show.
|
||||
Yep.
|
||||
Yeah, let me introduce myself.
|
||||
So my name is Reese Davis.
|
||||
I work for a company called Canonical, the publishers of Ubuntu.
|
||||
I have worked here for two, almost two years now, where I started as a product manager for a
|
||||
number of Ubuntu or Ubuntu related products.
|
||||
And then a number of months ago, I sort of made a switch to the community slash advocacy team.
|
||||
Where I work with my new colleagues in community side of things.
|
||||
I work with developers in an outside of the Ubuntu community to to make community events and to
|
||||
make developing on Ubuntu a better experience.
|
||||
And I work with themes in psychoanonical to help them approach and help them improve
|
||||
and help them in general with their sort of community initiatives.
|
||||
And I've been, I've been a big fan and a big proponent of open source and all of these things
|
||||
for a while, although I haven't been in it and contributing as long as perhaps
|
||||
or three of your listeners, I think you said.
|
||||
And what they've been up to for now, I'm just a part of, I apologize.
|
||||
Yeah, and I've just always been a big fan of all of the open source.
|
||||
I've drunk all the cool aid and now I'm really in and hoping to
|
||||
come to answer you guys' questions, hopefully answer some of your
|
||||
your hundreds of fans questions and I really just just help things out.
|
||||
Thanks for having me.
|
||||
Yeah, now I'm a pleasure,
|
||||
I'm tempted to say, raise a quick question.
|
||||
It's how, what we normally do is, essentially, we,
|
||||
that has been a great intro all right.
|
||||
But what drove Mr. Davis to open source originally?
|
||||
maybe you can share some of that on your early years and how you arrived at the
|
||||
open source ecosystem. So my early years were in university let's say that's when
|
||||
I was that's when I was very young and where I was I was learning and I was
|
||||
studying mechanical engineering and mechatronic engineering and as part of
|
||||
that my as part of that and throughout university and throughout this
|
||||
kind of schooling I gravitated towards the more open source things and the
|
||||
and Linux and doing those kinds of these kinds of open projects and in the
|
||||
meantime I was getting involved with various sort of different technological
|
||||
technology communities and other kinds of communities online and really
|
||||
sorting to to see and become a part of this kind of open source community
|
||||
mentality and seeing the value of all of these things and how people interact
|
||||
and contribute and get along together and so on and so whenever I was working
|
||||
on projects of my own whether that was for for school or for my own self I would
|
||||
be using open source projects and writing code for them and writing
|
||||
documentation for them and seeing if I should be back to this this one left
|
||||
that is open source and and I just saw it as a way as a really really good
|
||||
and strong and and one of the best ways not just in terms of what you can get
|
||||
for success but in terms of quality of experience and validation of
|
||||
individuals to contribute and to to technology and so from there I really
|
||||
really took me in a really was it a straight line towards Ubuntu and
|
||||
Canonical what really attracted me to it all was the vision if you will the
|
||||
mission statement of Ubuntu which was which has always been Linux for human
|
||||
beings right making it making technology available and making it easy for
|
||||
people to do their own thing and not having the best of technology abstracted
|
||||
from people just because they live somewhere else or they or they work on
|
||||
different things and so that's what's really driven me here that's what took
|
||||
me to product management with Canonical to hopefully sort of drive that road
|
||||
map and drive things in that kind of direction and it's also what brought me
|
||||
to the community side because as as Canonical grows it means there's a lot
|
||||
there's a lot a lot of effort goes into the commercial side of things into
|
||||
getting things going and trying to make Ubuntu entirely and fully self
|
||||
sustaining it's public knowledge that Canonical is is is turning over it's
|
||||
fully it's self-sustainable even if it can it can sustain the development of
|
||||
Ubuntu in and of itself on its own and while that happens we don't want to
|
||||
lose focus on the community side of things and the open source nature of
|
||||
everything and that's that's really what I wanted to get into and we really
|
||||
wanted to focus on and yeah does that answer your question with it I just
|
||||
ramble a little bit too much I can answer for Chris and that definitely does
|
||||
because I wanted to pick it well they actually pick up on one of the things you
|
||||
mentioned is really that mission you to bring the free software I mean how much
|
||||
is that how does that manifest itself in terms of apart from building on
|
||||
Ubuntu and supporting the community there out of any other initiatives
|
||||
that that Canonical has in that area so we itch we try to have it manifest in
|
||||
this is in whatever we can have it manifest in a lot of the big projects and
|
||||
products and things that can work on is done it's done in an open source way
|
||||
it's contributable it's doing all of these things and a lot of what we try to
|
||||
do with the likes of the Ubuntu desktop for example is is make it as available
|
||||
as possible while while still being free and open but have but in order to
|
||||
sustain these kind of things that's when we look at enterprise solutions and
|
||||
commercial opportunities with big players so if you look at the clouds I like to
|
||||
say I'm not sure if anyone else says this but I like to say the clouds these
|
||||
days aren't really made of water they're made of Ubuntu the big public
|
||||
clouds thank you thank you for the laugh I needed them and and that's a
|
||||
common choice of distribution on those exactly and that's where and so that's
|
||||
where a lot of a lot of time and sort of research not of innovation goes in
|
||||
in psychologist towards those kinds of towards those kinds of deals and so
|
||||
that money can be put straight back into the development and the and the
|
||||
innovation within the technology that we that is things like the desktop
|
||||
which people can use all over the world and we've seen these things do specific
|
||||
projects we are moving with which we try to move with the times try to move with
|
||||
things and so there are things in two sections there's things on the sort of
|
||||
cloud side of things where you've got virtualization technologies like LXD or
|
||||
multi-pass where Oracle puts a lot of resources and same with things like
|
||||
microkates an open stack and the big cloud native buzzwords if you will and
|
||||
then there's innovation on the devices the more IoT side of things where you have
|
||||
the likes of microkates micro Kubernetes and you have things like
|
||||
snaps and and the snap store and and that kind those kinds of technologies that
|
||||
while we work with big players we work with some of the biggest players that are out there
|
||||
we try and make it so that the money and the funding and the things that come from
|
||||
those big things definitely trickle back down into the not even trickle but
|
||||
force straight back down into the development of these technologies that we try and move toward
|
||||
that mission sounds very interesting sorry you want to go next no it's interesting changing
|
||||
tack a little bit given the fact that Ubuntu is a spin of probably a part of beside
|
||||
Redhead the most widely used distribution in enterprises called Debian maybe you can
|
||||
share a little bit of of light on where actually Ubuntu came from and why Mark Shutterworth
|
||||
chose Debian as the upstream distro yeah so I imagine the two of you know more than
|
||||
have more experience and know more about where Ubuntu came from in the beginning but I can
|
||||
expect to a little bit and the relationship with Debian there so obviously Ubuntu is downstream
|
||||
to Debian it's based it's a Debian based distribution and it came and what it came about
|
||||
where it came from was well again I can't speak for Mark himself but where I see it came from is
|
||||
Debian in those days as I understand I don't I wasn't involved in those days but Debian stands in
|
||||
those days was very good and it was this distribution it was changing things it was it was doing all
|
||||
the things that Ubuntu wanted to do but it wasn't doing it it might well it probably it wasn't doing
|
||||
it in such a way where it was long term and and regularly structurally viable and so the one of
|
||||
the things that Ubuntu wanted to do was was to turn that into a regular into a regular thing to
|
||||
standardize it and make it accessible to humans to not humans I mean humans can go with Debian right
|
||||
but to make it accessible to your your average user if you will right if the next in the beginning
|
||||
was going to take off it needed to be accessible in that way and the likes of fingers as it existed
|
||||
then it wasn't it wasn't approachable for necessarily approachable for the new person
|
||||
and so on so in the beginning when Ubuntu started coming around and it was it was a smaller group
|
||||
of people contributing all over the world and they'd send out the CDs and I'm sure people
|
||||
they still have the CDs right they send them and they'd say right work on it and contribute
|
||||
and develop on it and and it it became that much more approachable it came that much more
|
||||
accessible and having Debian that was likely wasn't able to do that in the same way because of
|
||||
how it had started and how it was the foundations for for lots of different things and I was trying
|
||||
to do all of these different things in a very so technical way and so Ubuntu took that in a more
|
||||
accessible direction and really focused in on making it simple and making it approachable
|
||||
to the average user and that's something that I think we still aim a lot for today we still focus
|
||||
on while I like to think and I like to say that it's the most popular distribution for your
|
||||
average developer which I think is true it's also in my experience the most approachable
|
||||
distribution for for new people for people getting started when I was getting started not terribly
|
||||
long ago with Enics and getting things up and running it was it was a bitch bashbosh up and running
|
||||
get it on my laptop but I can and away I can go I don't need to think of it as this this thing
|
||||
that you have to get to work it was just something that worked right and and that's where that's
|
||||
I think one of the ways in the beginning that Ubuntu became successful and was able to and
|
||||
was able to to succeed it's an interesting perspective indeed yes because
|
||||
fully stutter I'm an arch package maintainer among a very many other things when I started with
|
||||
arch arch wasn't the most approachable distribution for me most manjaro has has of course
|
||||
changed this a little bit but I reckon especially with the with the likes of the Ubuntu
|
||||
spends and I'm particularly talking about mint here mint has I think alongside Ubuntu itself
|
||||
helped to lower the bar with regards to I have a USB stick or just put it into my machine it
|
||||
guides me through the install and within a couple of minutes maybe 15 maybe 20 I have a
|
||||
working system has come a long way such a long way such a long way and it's and it's and it's
|
||||
that exact sort of ability that sort of procedure where you could just get it on a USB and plug
|
||||
it into your laptop and where you go that the debut of the labels and then folks like mint and
|
||||
and Ubuntu can recapitalize on and make it so they're users so that their distributions are
|
||||
approachable to to non Linux or non technical people right what what I would love to be able to do
|
||||
I'm I'm confident I could do with a lot of relatives right now it's just hand them a USB stick
|
||||
and say hey why didn't you try this and they go what is it and I can say well just click these
|
||||
two things and then follow the instructions in a way you get nothing dodgy to see here nothing dodgy
|
||||
to see here it's just an operating system I promise yeah yeah you mentioned I mean obviously
|
||||
the difficult application well not to go but you mentioned a few applications of where
|
||||
you've been used and canonical puts his efforts and the desktop the the server side cloud
|
||||
you didn't mention the WSL part of that oh my goodness how big does that feature in your
|
||||
in your work or in canonicals you know proud level of importance what are you able to go
|
||||
well thank you for catching that one I did miss that out and if if Sahini if you're listening
|
||||
I apologize for missing that out Sahini is our product manager for WSL and she's very passionate
|
||||
about working with Microsoft to make WSL a good experience and yes it is definitely a priority
|
||||
of ours to make sure that that Windows users specifically obviously it WSL is has people
|
||||
Windows users have a good experience using a booth do on on Windows for the I'm sure no one
|
||||
in the audience doesn't know but I'll say anyway Windows WSL is the Windows subsystem for Linux
|
||||
and it's it's a piece of software that you can run on Windows which which just lets you use
|
||||
a window instead and that for me is great because I it means when I go to places that have Windows
|
||||
machines or if I if I if I ever get myself a Windows machine I could change my mind immediately
|
||||
and just use that instead I mean it's still the default user land right I mean for just
|
||||
sure you went to both the first user land that run on WSL 1.0 we are not at WSL 2.0 as a
|
||||
real kernel running on top of the micro kernel which is the foundation for something called
|
||||
Windows formally known as Windows NT as a new technology but we're talking about what 25 years
|
||||
back but it's a totally small game watch out for the upcoming episode series 27 episode 124
|
||||
where Windows came from and why it's obsolete but that's that's it's a teaser okay joke aside
|
||||
you know why Windows is now open so I think it's all right very good that's the one
|
||||
Martin was open to us before it's demise that's a different story anyway no jokes aside I was kind
|
||||
of I wouldn't say surprised but it was kind of certainly a different tack on on the whole thing
|
||||
when Microsoft actually chose Ubuntu as the first user land for something called WSL need to say
|
||||
other user lands are now available I think it's just a matter of selecting the right one from
|
||||
the Windows door and then you have a an open suzer then you have a native devian of course
|
||||
center S and fedora also available it all started actually with Ubuntu any particular inside on
|
||||
this by Microsoft chose actually Ubuntu or why would you chose Microsoft to be part of this WSL
|
||||
effort good good question in the beginning so I don't I don't know trying to smile in the beginning
|
||||
I think it was just that they were they were using Ubuntu already so they created they made WSL
|
||||
and they wanted it going and and for whatever reason I'm not privy to their decisions as they
|
||||
were using Ubuntu and then we got involved they started talking to us we had a engineer
|
||||
nit by the names of by the name of Hayden Barnes and an engineer by the name of Patrick who were
|
||||
WSL engineers before joining canonical and then they joined canonical and they they focused on
|
||||
that relationship and developing at the Ubuntu experience on the on WSL and so we were able to
|
||||
to work with them and to contribute and to and to make Ubuntu a strong and a good experience I
|
||||
think I think that's the the reason as well I imagine as the reason that Ubuntu is is that
|
||||
the default the moment is because we were we were there with them we were we were helping them
|
||||
make make sure things worked and make things happen and so just just by comparison to other
|
||||
distributions who maybe weren't able to or didn't get involved in those kinds of relationships we
|
||||
were able to sort of to sort of sneak in there but as you say you can you can click and choose
|
||||
other distributions while you're on your Windows computer so no one feels like they're they're locked
|
||||
in even though they're already on Windows so maybe they are but you know on a on a similar subject
|
||||
over the years I have been barriers let's put it this way speculations assumptions that's the
|
||||
other thing and in poll might winters if you're listening you know who I'm talking about
|
||||
that Microsoft is actually putting some money on the table for for a company called canonical
|
||||
not just because I have a nice logo and they were the first user land that was available in
|
||||
WSL but rather for their innovation and tax deck that they would bring to the table
|
||||
need to say I won't ask about any kind of detail inside but what's the general just on this
|
||||
I mean is is canonical for sale in that is the Microsoft or other other companies
|
||||
well I can say that we have we have some very nice logos and I categorically say that it's not
|
||||
up sale no okay not the Microsoft or to or do anyone so as far as I know so even if Martin and
|
||||
myself the two of us in between us we'll put some money on the table that won't be that won't
|
||||
happen okay for a while well hang on you didn't mention YouTube putting money on the table that's
|
||||
a whole different ball game how much they're talking here maybe three I'll have to take it
|
||||
okay no jokes aside Martin go ahead I think you had a question well it's not on a more
|
||||
sort of open source there's there have been some some complaints in the past about you know
|
||||
you've been to these community efforts and then all that stuff and I guess you know be yourself
|
||||
being a community outreach person how have you experienced that and what has changed I guess
|
||||
in to make that a you know a less of eight criticism on of canonical it's put it that way
|
||||
it's an interesting it's an interesting story it's a very it's it's a very valid
|
||||
criticism right so it was it was it was it wasn't it wasn't a good um we didn't have a community
|
||||
team for a while we didn't have these things so let me let me let me roll it back a few years
|
||||
before I joined the company um there was a state of things where there wasn't a dedicated
|
||||
community team there was an advocacy team which was focused on snap on snappy on snaps specifically
|
||||
and there were um various smaller well various subsections of the community around various sort
|
||||
of projects and products at canonical so uh you had the snap advocacy team which were probably
|
||||
the loudest and the most active that's where you saw the likes of Alan and that's where you saw
|
||||
and the likes of Martin put in their efforts and then there were other smaller sub subsection
|
||||
communities around the products and projects like like juju which is a cloud thing or things like
|
||||
magnet cage is just a Kubernetes thing or things around snap craft at snap d in all of these
|
||||
different sort of projects and products and what um we were doing in that way as we were trying
|
||||
to to build community up around these things instead of um instead of focusing in so
|
||||
the snap community started to come alive um I imagine you've heard or have been on and if you
|
||||
haven't you should absolutely go to the forum for snap craft that's forums.snapcraft.air
|
||||
where please sorry before we go any further I reckon there are two listeners out of our four
|
||||
who do not know what snaps are maybe you should explain what snaps are and why they're important for
|
||||
you when to you say 50% of your users don't know um so very very simply snaps are
|
||||
and sort of application containers that you can use to package your software in a way that is
|
||||
um one it's it's available to install across distributions to its its secure and it uses sort
|
||||
of container technology to make sure things are secure but three probably in my opinion the most
|
||||
the biggest pull for snaps is that it makes them highly available to people it makes them simple
|
||||
so that you can just go um you cannot worry about the packaging or the format or whatever you can
|
||||
think of what application do I want oh okay I just get it over there you know and and that's not to
|
||||
say there's also for those 50% of users there's there's uh there's some controversy around snaps
|
||||
there's been controversy around snaps over the years and uh it's important to note that snaps aren't
|
||||
the only way of doing things they're not the best way of doing everything they're a very good way
|
||||
to do some things but it depends on the use case and the application and for the right use case
|
||||
of snaps are um are really good really easy and really approachable to people now which is where
|
||||
a lot of the community effort was going a lot of the outreach was going and um over the past two
|
||||
years while I've been at Oracle I was able to see some really really great work being done by
|
||||
people we mentioned earlier around snaps and doing that advocacy and building that community
|
||||
and building out and it was and it was really interesting and good to see and I joined
|
||||
and that's the kind of stuff that I wanted me doing so I did some as a product manager I did some
|
||||
sort of community adjacent type things I did the developer survey for 20 or four release I did
|
||||
some talks and some presentations various conferences in this model of focusing on different
|
||||
projects and products of building communities around them but um for a while the overall sort of
|
||||
state of the Ubuntu community in general um I think it's fair to say it was declining and there was
|
||||
a lot of very valid criticism around uh the fact that it at least looked like um which is really all
|
||||
about matters to a community like this right it looked like the community was declining and
|
||||
clinical wasn't giving it as much attention as perhaps it could or perhaps it should and so
|
||||
I'm not sure where the where you guys get your information but and so a number of months ago
|
||||
on the old Ubuntu discourse and that's at discourse.ubuntu.com and there was a long thread which is
|
||||
where I saw the inception of this whole thing of a discussion around um the importance and the
|
||||
investment in the Ubuntu community and um our benevolent dictator arc was in there and discussing
|
||||
and talking about these things and that's where this sort of we're calling it a reboot of the
|
||||
Ubuntu community came from because we recognize um that the community teams the community itself
|
||||
and canonical weren't giving it enough attention as it deserved as it really deserved and so what
|
||||
happened was we reinstated or we rebooted I'm not exactly sure of the details the community council
|
||||
which is a group of Ubuntu members who who are really there to um to sort of moderate
|
||||
Ubuntu member discussions and to and the talk things through and to be a guiding a guiding hand
|
||||
and one of the the biggest part of this for canonical was just sort of reboot of the community
|
||||
which is what I am now a part of and you can read about that on the Ubuntu blog where we if you
|
||||
just googled up into community reboot I'm sure it will come up or you can go over to the discourse
|
||||
and look around there. Chris are you gonna say something? Link's moving the show notes yes.
|
||||
Oh wonderful. Well then look at the show next um yeah so which is which was the the big thing
|
||||
is that canonical so that's the team that I'm on now with uh my friend and colleague Monica
|
||||
and our uh manager Ken who is hopefully who is an interim manager because she is
|
||||
the engineering manager for the best of team as well so but me and Monica are here now to
|
||||
to sort of shepherd uh canonical back towards the public community not that it was ever far away
|
||||
but back towards it the way I like to look at it and I always like to look at it is canonical isn't
|
||||
a separate entity and it's not a overarching entity uh canonical is and should be a contributor
|
||||
to the Ubuntu community and that's what we're sort of here to facilitate now so we uh we liaise with
|
||||
developers and other communities and community members and we liaise with canonical and we sort of
|
||||
react as that conduit between the two and I could talk about all the sort of initiatives that we're
|
||||
doing but um yeah that's the sort of state of things in the moment so the criticism um of however
|
||||
long ago it was now a year less than a year ago was very valid and and it's and it's important
|
||||
we recognise that and and realise that we would we were doing something wrong um but yes this is
|
||||
what we're doing now to hopefully to rectify that interesting perspective uh go back to the snap
|
||||
thing um about half a year ago maybe a year ago there was some voices there was some voices in the
|
||||
community let's put it this way um who weren't exactly pleased with the way snaps were going for
|
||||
example the decision by canonical to to package chromium or crow for that matter just as a snap
|
||||
instead of a poor instead of a true devian package raise some concerns um can you elaborate
|
||||
perhaps a little bit on this yeah i can yeah go ahead i can i can elaborate a little bit i'm sure
|
||||
there's um i've seen this i've seen this uh talked about in a number of places online and
|
||||
my ex colleague and friend album has done some wonderful explanations of this i'm sure
|
||||
we can find some links to put in the notes because i will not entirely
|
||||
preview to it as i wasn't yeah i wasn't sort of a part of that judge but what it effectively
|
||||
as i understand it what it came down to was um it ended up the desktop team uh who
|
||||
looked who maintained that snap and we're looking after it we're having to maintain the
|
||||
dev package and the and the snap and uh what it came down to was the fact that the
|
||||
the snap itself was a lot easier to maintain a lot less work it had a lot of um and a lot more
|
||||
users than the dev package and so we made they made we made the decision to to just support the snap
|
||||
now that decision was was made publicly and it was announced long before the controversy
|
||||
i think the problem was that we didn't announce that far and wide enough and then some time later
|
||||
um the other distributions when they uh rolled forward they realized this and it looked as if we
|
||||
were sort of sneaking the snap into into into their releases which wasn't the intention of course
|
||||
that was no intention and we thought we announced it although we definitely could have done a better
|
||||
job uh and so that and so that was where the controversy kicked up and people thought we were
|
||||
trying to push snaps down people's throats but when the reality is we want to uh we want to use
|
||||
snaps when snaps make most the most sense and in that case for us resources wise and
|
||||
availability wise and and uh keeping up to date wise uh was the main thing and then of course since
|
||||
said controversy um there's been a couple of i know i i know uh Alan and a couple of other people
|
||||
have done sort of explainers like this in interviews and there's a blog post out there that
|
||||
you can read through to to see the full reasoning uh but all of that is it is quite fading from my
|
||||
memory but i hope that i haven't said anything too wrong now uh as far as i can recall it
|
||||
poppy said something on on the wonder podcast around that time and he said that innovation basically
|
||||
doesn't make it feasible for us to promote their packages so the rate of innovation was outpacing
|
||||
the release cycle cadence and that's the reason basically uh why i think canonical at least
|
||||
according to that statement by mr. Pope decided to package this is snap rather than full
|
||||
blonde devian package and but i think the notion or the maybe the misconception in the community was
|
||||
that actually one of the biggest Linux distros was becoming just a container for for snaps
|
||||
well so i'll just i just want to tweak that a little bit there because uh i'm almost certain
|
||||
that Alan wouldn't have said that uh that's the case for all devs and for all things that because
|
||||
it makes a lot of sense and we want to have a lot of devs inside of but just for the rate of
|
||||
innovation of the chrome package specifically yes exactly yeah um exactly and so yes so exactly so
|
||||
there's a lot of concern around about becoming this snap only thing which uh which just isn't true
|
||||
you can look and see the uh packages in them we we still like it we still push we still have a lot of
|
||||
dead um packet packages and devian developers as part of a community who who don't think that's true
|
||||
either in them and yeah it just made sense for that particular snap and we did a bad job of
|
||||
communicating that especially to other distributions uh but but we're learning and uh i'll personally
|
||||
make sure something like that doesn't happen again i mean it's yeah it's interesting because
|
||||
our reckoning your bookter's history is sprinkled with attempts and learning curves and
|
||||
conclusions let's put it this way upstart probably would be another example for for for the for the
|
||||
youngsters in the listenership upstart was a system v in it replacement in originally designed
|
||||
and implemented by by canonical before system d took over with some release i think it was
|
||||
1617 right i can't even remember if it wasn't LTS or not but maybe it was it was 1604
|
||||
details maybe in show notes if i can dig this up where canonical simply buried upstart in favor of
|
||||
system d was emerging as the de facto standard and fair play to canonical because that show is
|
||||
that actually companies can learn i from a take up perspective i thought upstart quite interesting
|
||||
let's put it this way it was certainly more focused than system d especially system d nowadays is
|
||||
because system v is probably we all know it is is is it is encompassing more and more
|
||||
functionality of originally kind of dispersed functionality with regards to programs and
|
||||
general ecosystems but canonical picked up the trend and simply dropped you upstart and
|
||||
simply replace it with the then emerging industry standard called system d
|
||||
so i don't actually i don't actually know to rinse i know about as much as you just described
|
||||
there with the upstart thing but but it's a good example right of of companies like canonical
|
||||
and canonical specifically learning from these different things and there's been a lot of
|
||||
controversial a lot of controversy around some of the decisions have been to it and canonical
|
||||
has made for Ubuntu over the years and i think it's i think it's fair to say that when those decisions
|
||||
are made they're not made lightly and they're made with with the in mind of being becoming and
|
||||
could continue to be accessible approachable to new users and to be able to be
|
||||
sustainable because canonical as companies go isn't the biggest company isn't even close to it
|
||||
a large company really and it needs to remain sustainable and needs to remain lean in this way
|
||||
to able to keep these things going so picking up technology that we don't think or don't believe
|
||||
is going to continue to provide that kind of value to users just isn't this isn't the way to do
|
||||
things and that can be applied to lots of different things and an example i like to think of for
|
||||
example is is mayor a lot of people think mayor as a as a technology which is a graphical
|
||||
display server that canonical was was backing disappeared a few years ago but it has this bit
|
||||
still kicking it's still there there's still developers at canonical working on it and the
|
||||
difference between dropping something and continuing to going is we still see and we still get
|
||||
very positive feedback and people coming to us are saying that we like it that they like it that
|
||||
things are going well and they say this is a very valuable thing and maybe it's not the thing
|
||||
right now but it's worth continuing so that project is still still gets resources it still gets
|
||||
people working on it and then if something gets dropped maybe like upstart or something else
|
||||
it's because it's not because of loud and angry people online right that's a very
|
||||
usually that's a very small audience it's because the value that we see there for these users
|
||||
for the approachability that bring through just isn't there anymore and we're not afraid to
|
||||
to cut things like that if it does if we can't see it contributing to the ecosystem and the
|
||||
approachability could bring to the long term then it's a very real possibility that we that we
|
||||
lick our wounds and move on if something's winning why not move to that you know what I mean
|
||||
okay yeah no it's an interesting point here that you mentioned it because obviously everybody
|
||||
associates you've been to with this canonical right but there are more that our projects that you
|
||||
um well contribute support you mentioned mere um what are the other big ones that that are of
|
||||
interest to clinical and more specifically why you can kind of share a little bit of lies on that
|
||||
that'd be great sure well um yeah well there's so there's there's numerous projects kicking around
|
||||
and things that uh there's resource behind the uh i've got to list somewhere if i can put it up
|
||||
but um there's an edge in me which is sort of at the background and the way it works is it sort of
|
||||
spans from IoT to edge to the cloud and that when you say um most people who know about
|
||||
have been to know about Oracle i think that's true in certain circles there's definitely uh it's
|
||||
definitely a great much greater number of people who know about Ubuntu don't feel about canonical
|
||||
which is which is sort of a um sort can be a can we struggle at times and sort of explain this kind
|
||||
of thing because you don't want to use uh parallels of other operating systems but it's um but it
|
||||
makes things difficult so the way things that exist there are there are projects that sort of
|
||||
contribute to Ubuntu there are things like Ubuntu desktop and server and adira snaps and things
|
||||
like landscape which are projects that um uh that go back a long time and they they contribute
|
||||
to the overall sort of ecosystem of Ubuntu and then there are projects that are uh that are still
|
||||
contributing to the Ubuntu ecosystem but are almost foremost solely uh backed by canonical things
|
||||
like um things like mass or or uh or the audio which juju and exactly mass and juju and things
|
||||
like charms and charm open stacks and charm cubanetes and so on and these uh uh these are projects
|
||||
that get uh that get our attention because that uh they're sort of ahead of the game in those
|
||||
industries and because we see a lot of value in in making things in the future more approachable
|
||||
and more accessible in the same kind of Ubuntu sort of way so as I say as projects like mere this
|
||||
project like multi-pass or unbox or uh the Ubuntu server itself, Ubuntu desktop itself has
|
||||
worked that we're doing uh with fingers like NXT which is uh the Linux contain Linux containers and
|
||||
and just and things like that which contribute to the idea of value that we can bring to Ubuntu
|
||||
users down the road in or down the road all right now in in what they're doing to make things make
|
||||
this time technology more accessible and then you've got sort of longer term projects or longer
|
||||
term products like uh ESM or Ubuntu Advantage which focuses more on making sure that even people
|
||||
coming in late or even people are using uh legacy or outdated technology can continue to consume
|
||||
and continue to use these things in the sort of approachable way that we want them to.
|
||||
Okay yeah I mean I did the reason for asking the question was because obviously you are a
|
||||
canonicalist commercial company supporting them as opposed to uh and people obviously draw
|
||||
parallels with the red hat and all this kind of uh I don't know if you've faced um uh whether it's
|
||||
uh operating system or a database like um whatever first vessel red is right there's always
|
||||
well not there there are um there are there are commercial companies um trying to make a
|
||||
business model out of this and I was trying to kind of get an idea about you know what a
|
||||
canonicalist company um how is it trying to you you mentioned uh the mission and and how that fits
|
||||
in with with uh making it accessible to um and putting that money back into uh you know various
|
||||
projects uh makes sense but uh in the end of the day it is obviously a commercial company so
|
||||
how does that kind of uh what is the comparative business vision for for canonicalist company to
|
||||
yeah is that purely as you mentioned to facilitate the Ubuntu and its usage and put money back
|
||||
into the community or is there a you know a great big plan to you you mentioned it wasn't for sale but
|
||||
yeah well ultimately the ultimate goal of your benevolent leader i mean sorry uh just small
|
||||
interlude here in case canonical still needs money after the after the initial sale of this
|
||||
certificate authority um of a certain market shuttle worth well that's assuming that you do
|
||||
don't put another money together together right obviously right okay um well
|
||||
use this from my listeners as well wow that's always sounds wow make that a fiber yes
|
||||
okay here we go here we go um so it's uh it's it's interesting i won't i wouldn't i wouldn't
|
||||
so i wouldn't speak for Mark uh for Mark's own ambitions and i i'm going to be a little bit careful
|
||||
on i'm gonna stay away from numbers and specifics here because i'm not sure
|
||||
what i'm allowed to say but i can i can say a lot of things the idea is uh for these for for
|
||||
open source companies in general not not just for at canonical the idea is you want to you want to
|
||||
give your technology to developers and to users and to contributors in such a way that it's mutually
|
||||
beneficial i.e. and you want to be able to incentivize and reward them for contributing to your
|
||||
technology and really sort of spotlight and highlight what they're doing right the uh the core
|
||||
really of any sort of open source project of anything that's done in this way is the developers
|
||||
it's the people who are actually work on it's people who spend their most valuable thing which is
|
||||
their time on helping you on contributing to your technology and what we really what you really
|
||||
need to do is that open source company is focus on that and reward that and make sure that that can
|
||||
that's sustainable and that people who are doing that are are loving it and that there's
|
||||
something that they want to do and want to keep doing so while canonical is a commercial company
|
||||
and and it's and it's there to make money and it's it's it's the publisher we're going to in
|
||||
this way all of the money that comes from uh what canonical gets the vast majority of it goes as far
|
||||
as i know all of it really goes back into growth it goes back into building up the projects the
|
||||
things that we can work on the things that we want to work on the things that will make as i say
|
||||
this sort of vision of approachability and accessibility Linux for everybody come true
|
||||
and so there's money as i say there's money in the cloud side of things in the with the public
|
||||
clouds where we sell and we do deals with the biggest players the people who can very much
|
||||
afford what's going on there's there's money in what we do with dail and the nerve when HP
|
||||
and sort of preinstalled workstations and there's money on the devices site with folks like like
|
||||
Bosch or with the big players and devices who who we work with to build these relationships
|
||||
and these other ecosystems of devices and IoT things and really sort of move in that direction so
|
||||
there's a sort of read three pillars and the the end goal of these things is to keep
|
||||
innovating is to keep staying at the staying at the front of the pack staying with the front of
|
||||
the pack and making sure that the technology that people are creating that the innovators of the
|
||||
world are doing is done on Ubuntu so that anyone can access it right that's where the investment
|
||||
goes back into if if sales on something does really really well we'll use it to make sure that we're
|
||||
up there we're right in front with everybody else so there's a good example of this is in AI
|
||||
is in AIML that's a big buzzwordy thing that lots of people talk about but there's a initiative
|
||||
in canonical whereby we're investing and we're making sure that we're there with things like
|
||||
like cube flip which is a which is a Google project then we see a lot of a lot of value in
|
||||
and so we've got people working on that making sure that that in itself is accessible and
|
||||
attainable and approachable for people because that's that's at the front of things we've done we
|
||||
have support for things like TensorFlow and OpenCV and these kinds of things like that and that was
|
||||
before and now we're trying to stay at the front so the big customers the big deals and so on
|
||||
that clinical buzz a lot of it goes straight a lot of it and as far as I know all of it goes back into
|
||||
making sure that we can stay ahead making sure that we can stay there and enable these new technologies
|
||||
to to anyone who's using Ubuntu and that's really sort of the power of things like Ubuntu so
|
||||
one of the things that I've been the big part of is our relationship and our movement towards
|
||||
things like the Raspberry Pi and something that's that I noticed that people really the people
|
||||
got in touch with me just to say was it was amazing how they could stick Ubuntu on their Raspberry Pi
|
||||
this thing that they just got off the internet on this credit card size computer that they got for
|
||||
what 40 pounds if that they could stick it in there and then all of a sudden they had access to
|
||||
all things open source because a lot of the investment that we do goes straight into making sure
|
||||
those kinds of technologies are sort of the words that I like to use as a sort of like first class
|
||||
citizen on Ubuntu does that make sense to that answer your question I think it did yes leaving
|
||||
or or actually if people want to check out Ubuntu they do not have to go to a Raspberry Pi
|
||||
actually they can go into the center and log on to their Linux 1 system leaving the hipster subjects
|
||||
like deep learning machine learning and Raspberry Pi is on the side for a split second do you know
|
||||
what Linux 1 is yeah I don't I don't know if you look onto your main frame tomorrow morning first
|
||||
thing if you go onto your ordinary L power and depending on how it's configured you have the choice
|
||||
of a real compatible user land or something called Ubuntu so these would be the two primary
|
||||
distros as in user lands that IBM supports and that we should have a little bit more of
|
||||
of of of additional light onto what Linux 1 really is the whole thing started about 50 years ago
|
||||
when IBM decided that computers were the way forward in terms of mainframes
|
||||
were they right little known fact they actually invented the first virtual machine
|
||||
hop-upizer back in 72 it's called what is it named VM as a virtual machine
|
||||
things have have come a long way since then if you buy a brand new mainframe these days whether
|
||||
it's entry level whether it's mid level doesn't matter the whole thing comes virtualized already
|
||||
in terms of hardware support for virtualization out of the box you don't have to install any
|
||||
additional software it can run multiple operating systems on its core right away and if law
|
||||
if current laws anything to go by actually the numbers with regards to people that are still
|
||||
relying on something called ZOES I think if this is still called ZOES I might be wrong but check
|
||||
out the current IBM marketing literature literature for the details is actually declining and
|
||||
their their voices inside IBM especially after the direct acquisition saying that Linux
|
||||
is these strategic way forward for old for old and big iron if you take a look at the annual
|
||||
reports of a company called IBM you see that a significant chunk of the revenues actually
|
||||
coming from the department that still does mainframes all is slightly technically more advanced
|
||||
than 50 is back it is needless to say by going forward IBM is making a bit a big stride
|
||||
of actually consolidating quite a few distributed systems like your ordinary kind of server clusters
|
||||
onto a single mainframe instance and they're doing that in a fashion that actually from a cost
|
||||
perspective depending on the particular use case it does actually make sense so instead of running
|
||||
10 or 20 servers in your cluster running Oracle workloads you simply buy one box
|
||||
I'm simplifying things a little bit that runs Linux and where where where Oracle where these
|
||||
Oracle workloads are then consolidated on one machine you don't have to maintain 20 machines
|
||||
you only have to maintain one machine and as I said two usalans are stand are available
|
||||
per default and that's actually well and Ubuntu so yes not only is Ubuntu recognized
|
||||
in the enterprise space actually the biggest enterprise company on the planet selling enterprise
|
||||
hardware called IBM is acknowledging that with that fact that's wonderful that's good I mean
|
||||
if they if they happen to be one of your four people listening that's great I'll let
|
||||
our government say hello to me and I will say thank you absolutely I'll be sure listening
|
||||
if made address is sponsor at linuxinlast.eu
|
||||
cached donations I will come but we do take my attention as well
|
||||
glorious mark you had a question to us both yeah I wanted to get a I mean you've been
|
||||
you've been doing this for a couple of years I think on the Ubuntu side how do you see this
|
||||
panning out right I mean there's obviously there are many did live them distributed out there
|
||||
beautiful the most popular ones etc obviously next but how do you see the next how do you see
|
||||
Ubuntu's future panning out I mean just looking at it from a you know sort of bystander point of
|
||||
view there are many many Linux just yes I run Ubuntu myself as well fine but me too it's kind of
|
||||
why there is a great diversity and how do you see that panning out so in over a
|
||||
mix the five years so let me let me answer the question and then let me turn that question to
|
||||
the two of you because I'd be interested to hear what you both have to say as well because that's
|
||||
there's a question for someone much more than know than I am but so the way I see it going is
|
||||
you're right there is we've got we have enough distributions right hopefully these distributions
|
||||
continue to coexist and hopefully we can all get along and everything will be happy days where I
|
||||
see the next sort of big thing where the next things will be happening isn't necessarily with the
|
||||
hipsterie stuff that we talked about before with the likes of AI and deep learning and all of these
|
||||
things that's that'll be there I'm sure but that I don't think that's where the focus of these
|
||||
things are going to be I think the focus of things like Ubuntu and the distributions the focus
|
||||
is going to switch from this operating system layer to something higher right we've seen
|
||||
the the growth and the popularity of things like Kubernetes which is this sort of manager layer
|
||||
but what's coming next in my view and that what I think that people will agree with is
|
||||
applications and things that you can do things that you can interact with things that you can
|
||||
work with and then how all of those things work together so while we don't need any more distributions
|
||||
like you're saying we we do need more applications we do need more cross compatibility we do all
|
||||
these things and because of the history of Linux because of the history of these different
|
||||
distributions and how these things work and how they don't necessarily fit together we as an
|
||||
ecosystem are sort of a little bit behind right you look at things like Apple people like Apple who
|
||||
have this one thing they have this one thing and so if you build it for this thing or work on all
|
||||
of their things which puts us which puts us behind a little bit right but but the future of where
|
||||
these kinds of investments could and should be going is two things that complement those applications
|
||||
the things like WSL things like management platforms things like an IoT management platform like
|
||||
the snap store things like a desktop application management thing like snap stores and things like
|
||||
cloud management platforms like like like a juju or a or or an equivalent right where you have
|
||||
these places where apps which is the thing that is going to gross whether it's where people are going
|
||||
to start looking more where these things need to live and that's where we as a Linux community
|
||||
need to sort of come together and to make sure these things happen because I gave a talk
|
||||
about a month ago now at the Linux app summit LAS where I talked about applications on ARM
|
||||
and how the ARM ecosystem with the with what's happening at the moment with Nvidia and Apple Silicon
|
||||
how does this this weird unique opportunity in Linux to sort of to really capitalize on what's
|
||||
going on because if Nvidia is getting involved there's going to be a lot of money involved
|
||||
in putting a lot of effort into making the place to be in the place to work and we've seen with
|
||||
the likes of Apple's M1 computer how desktop hardware is going to start moving that way and if
|
||||
Apple are doing it you can be sure other people are going to do desktop class ARM hardware and
|
||||
so there's this future place where these things can go but if you look online at the moment if you
|
||||
just Google apps on ARM or applications on ARM architecture and so on you don't see any
|
||||
Linux stuff you see a lot of mobile stuff and that's where it shows us that there's a gap
|
||||
but but after the mobile stuff you see a lot of Apple stuff and you see a lot of Windows documentation
|
||||
and so what I think this is an opportunity to do is to come together and figure out a way
|
||||
well it's easy obviously it's easy to say but figure out a way to work together on this sort of
|
||||
application ecosystem and be there first and get there with ARM applications that work on ARM
|
||||
for this new class of hardware that's incoming and then become that front front become the place
|
||||
where you go for oh okay if you've got some ARM hardware of course you'll just you'll just install
|
||||
a Linux distribution it doesn't matter if it doesn't matter if it's something else you'll
|
||||
install the Linux distribution and you'll use you'll use those ARM packages you'll use those ARM
|
||||
applications because well because that's that's where all the applications are right and it's a
|
||||
matter of um this matter of those applications is a matter of and that's a sort of a microcosm to
|
||||
industries at the moment where the platforms are really starting to have to get ready for this
|
||||
wave of applications and how you consume them and how you manage them and blah blah blah blah
|
||||
so that's a sort of long-winded way of saying that yeah I think the future really is um lots of
|
||||
things but applications are going to be super important for the likes of Linux distributions
|
||||
sorry until I have to say this reads but until until such time is canonical results not to support
|
||||
typical a certain not typical but a certain um v7 farm chip as an SOC because that exactly
|
||||
happened to something called computer and app's utility light um I bought this gadget in
|
||||
2016 and canonical decided to end support for this SOC including the user land with 18 I think
|
||||
1804 and this particular SOC where you simply would put the you want to
|
||||
image on the SD card and could boot it because after that you would have to resort to
|
||||
compiling your own kernel maintaining the user land yourself probably patching even upstream
|
||||
packages and that wasn't great to be honest with you yeah so it doesn't sound great right it doesn't
|
||||
sound like um a good experience doesn't sound like the way things should be going but with think
|
||||
about the ecosystem of those kinds of devices all these armed devices and and think about the
|
||||
capacity and the capability of a copy like a local there's no way um at the moment there's no way
|
||||
we'd be able to cover everything like that right so I get it but the civilizing of course was
|
||||
actually this introduced me to something called alarm as an ash living sun arm which I've been
|
||||
running on most of my iron quarrels which I'm not running and right ever since and that we need to
|
||||
introduce me to arm big time and otherwise I probably I wouldn't probably be a package man there
|
||||
farm really well there you go well that's good to hear but what I was what I was going to there is um
|
||||
that and and I think that's a huge shame I wish I wish we could do all of these things we should
|
||||
do all of those specific essences but that's why the focus now it needs to be on things
|
||||
on arm specifically and enabling the most probably the most the best things not the most
|
||||
the best but the most popular things are the things where people the places would go
|
||||
they were as reprised but then you could say a similar thing for the for the up and coming
|
||||
if you will the underdog of risk five that sort of new architecture that people that people
|
||||
are talking about in the back rooms and making sure that been to is is there and and they're along
|
||||
the way and so that like I was saying before so that we're running in front and making sure that
|
||||
anyone using a boon to be able to do it on these platforms and use these things in the right way
|
||||
because you're right it's a shame that things like that don't have as much attention as they
|
||||
probably could but yeah tiny tiny hint if it's targeting desktop system for risk v make sure
|
||||
make sure your Mandarin is in order because this is what China is getting into big time if the
|
||||
current use is anything to go by isn't because they cannot get hold off of arm licenses so they
|
||||
are doing their own risk v five thing in terms of laptops so if you buy a laptop I reckon within
|
||||
a one or two years time frame in China chances are if it's not in service and Trump did a pretty
|
||||
good job and then on the embargo side of things it's going to be risk five variety running
|
||||
probably some sort of Linux indeed and if if any of your four listeners want to start talking and
|
||||
start thinking about risk five you head on over to the video discourse and have a look at the
|
||||
risk five conversations going on over there because it's super fun I just want to follow up on
|
||||
on your previous statement around the applications piece what specific are you thinking of here
|
||||
is this applications for home users for enterprises is there something specific you have in mind is
|
||||
like an app store type scenario right or what is there anything specific that you have in mind
|
||||
because obviously on image you have a lot of that there are you where you want to have your
|
||||
whatever is Microsoft alternatives there is also kind of stuff right so is that what you're
|
||||
thinking or where is the thinking now for me for me specifically it's all home use it's all
|
||||
consumer users and all that kind of thing there's so there's a million six applications out there
|
||||
right but there's only 10% less than that that people actually use and the the that a lot of people
|
||||
use that have a strong and viable user base and then there's a subset of that again which is general
|
||||
users and casual users so so a lot of the applications that go forward that need to happen will be
|
||||
ports of other applications they need to support other architectures needs to support the platform
|
||||
blah blah blah blah but if for me it's all about the individual developer the individual smaller
|
||||
communities that are building their applications right now for the first time whether learning about
|
||||
it or whatever and how can they make an impact how can they do things in the way they want to do it
|
||||
and if you're a developer right now and you don't know anything about anything you just know that
|
||||
you want to make this application that I don't know that turns on your front door camera and then
|
||||
sends some information to a cloud and then does all of this stuff if you start looking around for
|
||||
how to do that right now you don't find in what is in my opinion the best stuff you don't find
|
||||
the way to do it with through Linux you don't do it through open source you don't find the way to
|
||||
do it through with multiple architectures and so on and so forth and so for me my my desire if I
|
||||
could have one thing for the applications thing space is for those developers or these small
|
||||
communities who are making their applications for themselves or for their users to be able to see
|
||||
that just to be able to see Linux as a viable place to want to develop right to be able to see
|
||||
it as a place where oh if I apologize for Linux it'll get a lot of attention people will be
|
||||
interested in it and it'll become a thing it can continue to grow and then continue to succeed and
|
||||
that does exist at the moment that does happen of course it does not say it doesn't but I just
|
||||
love to see more of that right for me it's sort of about the individual user now before I forget
|
||||
let me turn the question around on the two of you and and ask you where you think what you think
|
||||
the future is where do you think it will be at five ten years um that's a very interesting question
|
||||
because I was just going to answer that with regards to a specific perspective if you take a look
|
||||
at the big consumer market and I'm talking about pre-page applications running on maybe embedded
|
||||
maybe tiny systems comparable to something called the NACAS and uh Intel's idea of next unit
|
||||
of computing these gadgets would either run a proprietary version of a stripped on user land or
|
||||
something called Android which at its very core is of course a Linux operating system never too
|
||||
the thing is basically that if you're talking about numbers the battle has been decided already
|
||||
the decision has been made you'll either look at Android for TVs set up box on the rest of it
|
||||
or some proprietary stuff where our ordinary users would have a hard time of a opening up the device
|
||||
and be installing their own applications that somebody recommended because especially in the
|
||||
case of these proprietary systems they're pretty much locked down that's right yeah that's true so
|
||||
Android is there in everybody's phones and the people set up boxes and then people's
|
||||
TVs and whatever and I'm not I mean but Android's great the numbers are there right Android's
|
||||
one of the top things I've done some and a little bit of Android development my time and so on and
|
||||
it's um and it's good and great but it's also it's also where the big players play and they have
|
||||
their things because you have the sort of Samsung flavor and you have the Huawei flavor and you
|
||||
all the different flavors of Android but what I'm talking about uh for this in the context of
|
||||
of the next and the components of sort of high-level operating systems is things where you can
|
||||
where you can have that full experience so if I use Ubuntu for example because of course I will
|
||||
you can do all of the the bigger development on your desktop on your workstation you can do it in
|
||||
the cloud you can do it on Ubuntu server whatever and then there's this thing called Ubuntu call
|
||||
where which is a much smaller minimal version of Ubuntu where you can deploy it on your devices
|
||||
and and those are the kind of things those kind of things to get a bit bigger that it get a bit smarter
|
||||
that you're doing a little bit more that maybe you don't want to use Android for and with with this
|
||||
world of IoT that people keep saying is coming and you're going to want something a little bit more
|
||||
something a little bit more like a proper Linux distribution you know what I mean now it's
|
||||
interesting because I have a couple of webcams and all of these webcams actually run some sort of
|
||||
virtual Linux if you're lucky you can open them up if you're not lucky it's down to a hack
|
||||
need to say you can you can modify them let's put it this way but they wouldn't use any any known
|
||||
packaging packaging system like packet manager if you're lucky you get old package or a package
|
||||
but that's about it forget about that forget about forget about rpm or some flotters there are nowhere
|
||||
near these standards and I reckon the smarter you go like webcams like other embedded devices like
|
||||
internet radios they typically run some sort of Linux but it's pre-packaged and it's closed and
|
||||
it's closed up so anything you want to do with it or set up boxes next example anything you
|
||||
want to do with this either you're the hack attack but I reckon about a fraction of a tenth of a
|
||||
percent of people buying that kid actually are or you can look for the stuff that comes pre-packaged
|
||||
the trick there though of course is if you had a webcam that was approachable if you had a
|
||||
webcam that was accessible to anybody else then you're in a bit of a pickle right but I agree with
|
||||
you in that in that if it would be much better if the software running in your webcam the fifth
|
||||
they're rubbing your thing wasn't some proprietary snowflake that they've called together and
|
||||
it's completely unapproachable and completely unaccessible but of course that needs to be some kind of
|
||||
security it was the word right to those kinds of things and while they've doing the absolutely
|
||||
wrong way of doing the security of this other thing which is closing everything and making it
|
||||
this snowflake that anything could go wrong with and not having that kind of package management
|
||||
and so on you can see why they can justify well why they think they can justify it with
|
||||
security and so on what about you man what do you what do you think yeah now it's I mean
|
||||
the fact is that not many people want to go around hacking their devices and time or the
|
||||
inclination because they just work but at the same token if there were more approachable or already
|
||||
if there was other people doing it then it would just be a case of make the whole process easier
|
||||
and more popular right and it's it's a very given that it can improve the devices for
|
||||
its own purpose like for example installing a different operating system on a laptop right
|
||||
it's quite a proven you know a standard practice and doesn't have any limitation so
|
||||
yeah so so Chris is absolutely right you know all the device I have as well they're all
|
||||
prepared he and you know they do want to job they need to do and if there is nothing really
|
||||
blocking it I'm not going to mess with them that's it so Ruta comes to mind right Martin
|
||||
it comes with with a version of Debian right but it's it's all locked down and so on but it
|
||||
doesn't matter it does what it needs to do and the interface is usable and so on so
|
||||
yeah in terms of future of of of Ubuntu personally I'm probably quite a short term Ubuntu user
|
||||
as in maybe five or so years before that who is all sorts of other flavors of Linux like Samara
|
||||
is in wet hands and sent away the I think one of the observations I have about Ubuntu is its
|
||||
package readability right and the way that's maintained and using the accessible in comparison to
|
||||
some of the others so yeah I think Ubuntu as a desktop is a good alternative and this you know
|
||||
the the biggest downside is is it or the the rise of Apple in terms of the enterprise market and
|
||||
for for home use the lack of you know applications on Ubuntu are for home use for example one you
|
||||
know not everybody will want to use open office or if you want to play one of the games they
|
||||
playing they're going to have their realtor windows right it's so those are all kind of barriers
|
||||
to to the desktop adoption unfortunately but on the server side yeah it's it's it's great size
|
||||
yourself as well easy and and many of of the software deployments that we see and in many customers
|
||||
they're yeah Ubuntu is a very good alternative these days whereas it all used to be wet hands
|
||||
you see more and more of it yeah but Martin but Martin wait for it full disclosure there's
|
||||
something called 5.13 RC1 or RC2 that does contain support for something called
|
||||
Apple Silicon stretch M1 as part of the kernel so just a matter of time on Ubuntu you can liberate
|
||||
that platform right we can liberate that one why would you have one in the first
|
||||
because it's because it works it's a it's fast the battery life is excellent and it works
|
||||
wonders on on the weekend in the disco if you turn it if you turn it up with everything it makes it
|
||||
given the fact that we're kind of short of two hours now no it's it's not that bad but I think in
|
||||
the interest of time we should wrap this up Reese there's always something called the boxes
|
||||
the regular listers of the show would probably know what I mean boxes of course and for pixel
|
||||
two weeks so if you have anything worth mentioning like a movie you've seen recently a book
|
||||
you've read recently maybe the account number the credit card number of a certain mark
|
||||
shuttle worth knows the time to venture this oh my goodness this is the place I can talk about
|
||||
that all right yes yes go just go ahead zero zero yeah actually I something happened today so
|
||||
I'm a big I'm a big um uh tabletop RPG don't just a dragon actually and something got an
|
||||
answer today called um from a company called critical role which I think everyone should go and
|
||||
check out that's all that's all I'm going to say critical role everyone go and have a look
|
||||
if you're interested if you're interested in that kind of thing Martin you're your pox I
|
||||
I focus my pox I'm still on I just I should mount since that's it's a very yeah it's very entertaining
|
||||
so um not finished the series yet what's that what series is that I should start just oh of course
|
||||
I thought it was a hint I thought was the hints made tale or something my pox of the week is
|
||||
something called hazy jane answer american camera camera camera camera members probably won't
|
||||
know it because it's a real indian sorry in new england pale ale I stand to be corrected
|
||||
it's done by a company called broodark that would be english of sort of Scottish apologies
|
||||
yeah broodark for those for those people who don't know it at broodark is a company with the with
|
||||
the tanks and London and the fancy tv ads and kind of commercial spots and commercials whatever
|
||||
and if you're into new england IPAs I strongly recommend this of course links will be in the show
|
||||
notes broodark if you are serious about open source sponsorship the email address a sponsor
|
||||
at linuxinmars.eu okay Martin before we have to let our guests go and we still have to do some
|
||||
feedback and by wonder of a of familiar i'm almost into to say some of the late feedback only made
|
||||
it into onto the hbps website now so let's go through them you want to read out the the feedback
|
||||
or should you do want me to do this hi whatever works it's i don't know if i'm in that case
|
||||
let's start with the comment on hbps out 35 of season one exactly they'll they'll comment posted
|
||||
by bob on the 10th of august right now one sec we had one by dragger still before that oh sorry
|
||||
yes yes yes go ahead okay so comment by dragger still on 7th august episode number 35
|
||||
regarding rms the number of signatures signatories of the open letter is not 506 figures as
|
||||
mentioned in the episode it is a three thousand and four by contrast a letter supporting which is
|
||||
the storm and hbs army support that will give the bio gained six thousand eight hundred signatures
|
||||
if the fs fe thinks the matter of right or wrong simply depends on how many people make are made
|
||||
uncomfortable it should withdraw its statement with unsubstantiated claims as there are more people
|
||||
made uncomfortable by the lynch mob then by Richard stormen interesting observation and of course
|
||||
yes probably rename the podcast to some old age pensioners talk about the nukes because yes
|
||||
when we last look at bob on the count time but then we have machines doing this for us right so
|
||||
okay okay now jokes aside if you take a close look and this is my interpretation of the matter
|
||||
of course the audiences manage may really vary if you take a close look at the supporting
|
||||
signatures on GitHub you may be under the impression that quite a few of the commits were let's
|
||||
put it this way auto generated so again pure pure speculation now on my part some people may have
|
||||
written some piece of software that simply with the right credentials of course did the right
|
||||
commits let's put it this way and again pure speculation if you take a close look at the handles
|
||||
they may be some indication of supporting this pure speculation let's put it this way the same
|
||||
of course could be set for the for the original letter but if you again if you take a close look
|
||||
at the commit handles you may be under the impression that this are more often than not real people
|
||||
in contrast to some piece of software doing things again this is my interpretation of the matter
|
||||
but given the fact that I've spoken to quite a few people who are under this him impression
|
||||
maybe these numbers and it's ended I'm in to go by and it's also in yourself Martin
|
||||
it's is that substantiated claim or if you make this up
|
||||
no if you take a look at the handles they look artificial well but that's kind of yeah
|
||||
yeah and Martin not proved that no feel free and as I said Martin what do you think about this
|
||||
yeah no I mean I can't say I have investigated this into detail however you know these numbers
|
||||
are fairly small compared to our original claims so should we be worried and I mean
|
||||
there's clearly a divided opinion on this subject from from both sides and it's whether you believe
|
||||
in free speech or whether you believe in you have certain responsibilities when you exercise
|
||||
your free speech that's what it comes down to I think something like this will never be
|
||||
completely concluded one way or the other correct and yeah that's my one subject then
|
||||
whether people make up votes in one way or the other it's in a way it's irrelevant it's a it's a divided
|
||||
subject right yes I'm speaking of eleven comments no of course not speaking of relevant comments
|
||||
sorry Bob wrote on the on the 10th of august clarification in the interest of fairness and balance the
|
||||
RMS open letter gained 3400 sorry 3400 signatures and stopped accepting more after just eight days
|
||||
the RMS support letter has only garnered 6800 signatures while still accepting signatures
|
||||
over four and a half months later you also forgot to mention that 61 organizations are that
|
||||
a party to the RMS open letter yes correct indeed yes but then as I said we have old age playing
|
||||
in favor of us yes yes absolutely and okay yes the GitHub stats are something to go but I don't
|
||||
think that they're till the full story but because as already explained about a minute ago maybe two
|
||||
these things can easily be automated at the end of the day okay final comment on this
|
||||
drag still again wrote on the 11th of august 2021 clarification in the interest of fairness and
|
||||
balance the RMS support letter started one day after the RMS open letter on the first of april
|
||||
with the date when RMS open letter stopped accepting more signatures RMS support letter had 555,000
|
||||
signatures sorry 551 signatures compared with 3500 five signatures on the RMS open letter
|
||||
okay and the links are in the actual post yes indeed okay moving exactly moving swiftly on
|
||||
let's move to the 36 yes can you read this out should you want me to do this okay
|
||||
so episode 36 a comment by Kevin and Brian on the 14th of August and he is saying another good show
|
||||
as anyone who listened to my shows knows I take the licensing very seriously my own view is that if
|
||||
your objective is to expand the free software ecosystem use the GPL if your objective is to
|
||||
promote proprietary software use one of the unrestrictive licenses like MIT or BSD
|
||||
well spotted I'm tempted to add that's it's got a handy bit of advice yeah I mean that's exactly the
|
||||
thing that we discussed in that episode this is saying also in previous episodes going back to the
|
||||
much stressed example of terminus to be who changed the licensing model in mid-flight although
|
||||
terminus to be of course is not close or software but the thing is that they moved away from
|
||||
the federal GPL to a to the patchal license for the adoption reasons simply let's put it this way
|
||||
the same goes for for for for this argument of proprietors of course using a more permissive license
|
||||
you can essentially what do whatever you want with the with the software I mean just take a look at
|
||||
and again I'm beating probably a dead horse here but just take a look at the ecosystem of free
|
||||
and open source software license under permissive model that the hyperscalus took and turned into
|
||||
managed business and they're making a lot of money with that on a brand new basis
|
||||
sorry that's my to send on the argument okay sorry yeah no fair enough there's most people
|
||||
probably familiar with that scenario but yes you completely right and of course the example that
|
||||
comes to mind immediately is of course ready is you find this with all the hyperscalus inverse
|
||||
brands and they would suggest elastic cash with the bookshop memories start with google and
|
||||
something called as your cash awareness exactly on Azure so yes and yes and exactly indeed
|
||||
and that's all for your wonderful feedback please keep feedback coming preferably to feedback
|
||||
at latinsinlau.eu but of course you can also post a comment on the corresponding episode page
|
||||
on hyper public radio but keep the feedback coming people and thank you very much for your feedback
|
||||
having said that please raise thank you again for participating in this episode much appreciated
|
||||
and of course we thank canonical for an absolute smashing distribution the email address mark if
|
||||
you're listening is still sponsored at the next end we would like to thank it's usually HPR
|
||||
for hosting us and having said that thank you for listening and see you next time and bye
|
||||
this is the Linux in-laws you come for the knowledge but stay for the madness thank you for listening
|
||||
this podcast is license another latest version of the creative commons license
|
||||
type attribution share like credits for the entry music go to bluesy roosters for the song
|
||||
salute margo to twin flames for their peace call the flow used for the segment intros and finally
|
||||
to the lesser ground for the songs we just this used by the dark side you find these and other
|
||||
ditties license under creative comments at your mando the website dedicated to liberate the
|
||||
music industry from choking corporate legislation and other crap concepts
|
||||
you
|
||||
as i said there are not that many people listening so there's probably no point in sending out and the
|
||||
case
|
||||
you you'd be glad to know that you now have become a regular part of the roster meaning you can
|
||||
take you can you can you can count for a participation every two weeks for the next 20 years
|
||||
excellent there we go sorted
|
||||
this is session this is episode something this is series whatever
|
||||
episode i can't remember if this is the feedback and we are rolling
|
||||
yes and of course the the immediate example that comes to mind is the classic search for
|
||||
versus versus um any other redder's offering
|
||||
that's sorry elastic cash yes so cut let's do this again
|
||||
and rolling and rolling once again
|
||||
you've been listening to hecka public radio at hecka public radio dot org
|
||||
we are a community podcast network that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday
|
||||
today's show like all our shows was contributed by an hbr listener like yourself
|
||||
if you ever thought of recording a podcast then click on our contributing to find out
|
||||
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|
||||
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|
||||
comments on today's show please email the host directly leave a comment on the website or record
|
||||
a follow-up episode yourself unless otherwise status today's show is released on the creative
|
||||
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|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user