Comments on: An invitation, not a conspiracy

By: Mighty Linuxz » Shuttleworth: It was an invitation, not a conspiracy

Mighty Linuxz » Shuttleworth: It was an invitation, not a conspiracy — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:00:12 +0000

[...] read more | digg story [...]

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:49:56 +0000

Mark, you did nothing wrong when you made this offer. The negative reaction by some OpenSUSE developers was on the high side of hypocrisy. Every single day they contribute work on OpenSUSE is another day they support the false and meaningless patent claims Microsoft has asserted. Anyone doing code work for Novell as it pertains to Linux is also supporting Microsoft’s IP nonsense. The use of the word OPEN in the distribution’s name should be changed so that they are honest with the end-users who don’t know better.

I applaud what you tried to do in a place filled with Microsoft shills and opponents of a free Linux. I am certain plenty of developers have since moved on to other distributions whose promise of free (as in speech) still has some meaning. I recently visited the OpenSUSE site and there is very little open about it. The home page reads like a corporate banner where very little discussion is allowed to take place and Novell copyrights fill every single page. There is very little inviting about this distro.

As one of the leaders of the free Linux movement, your fight against the dangerous monopolistic practices of Microsoft are bound to draw the response from many company shills and ignorant users who continue to misrepresent themselves.

Ubuntu continues to move forward because it still represents the wishes of thousand of developers over nearly two decades - a Free and easy to use Open Operating System available to all with no strings attached. People are listening… they are greatful… they are using Ubuntu because it’s a great distribution. They are standing up against its’ detractors because they believe in you.

Thank you for keeping hope alive.

By: Mark Shuttleworth gets quote mined « Limulus

Mark Shuttleworth gets quote mined « Limulus — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 02:01:01 +0000

[...] “I have serious concerns about the Novell-Microsoft deal - and so do other people who make huge contributions to the body of free software. Novell and SuSE are of course deeply linked, and so the actions of one do have consequences for the other. I would expect the same sort of consequences in Ubuntu if Canonical made poor decision.” [...]

By: dpt

dpt — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 09:40:25 +0000

There is nothing wrong in providing drivers for hardware. The computer owners have paid for the hardware, the hardware has to work in other OS than MIcrosoft OS. When I purchased my laptop recently, it was “Vista’ ready, they did not say that it was NOT LINUX READY. If I want to run Linux, I shall, and not without wasting my time.
I am neither rich, nor Western and certainly not a kid. I still love Linux and have loaded Ubuntu. The Internal Card Reader does not work, ENE has no Linux driver for it.
Novell has provided a back-door entry to Microsoft to the Free world of Linux. I do not like it, I sense trouble for Linux.

By: Uncle Che

Uncle Che — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 02:43:19 +0000

Rich western kids? Get a life. What other Linux distros will send over to Thailand a dozen cds of their distro? They have done it for me, not just once but now three times. I am distributing to my students and some are using it and enjoying it.

I think Ubuntu is doing more to advance Linux than any other distro out there. Ubuntu works out of the box and has everything you need on one cd install. A lot of hardware just works on the distro. And the support? Community support is awesome. Most questions answered in just a few hours, tops.

OpenSuse? I thought Suse was charging for their distros or giving a limited version? Didnd’t know you could download the is?, Are they shipping it for free?

By: Lee

Lee — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:26:50 +0000

Mark Shuttleworth invitation: unprofessional
Mark Shuttleworth apology: professional
Ubuntu users (based on comments on this blog): immature

Examples:
* I just learned that I’m a rich western kid
* Users are about to drop Ubuntu because they “heard” it was going to install proprietary software by default
* Mozilla is evil because of its artwork
* Some believe it is okay to poach developers on other projects mailing lists
* Novell is mostly evil simply for associating with the criminal Microsoft (the details of the deal don’t *really* seem to matter to anyone)
* Novell is evil for taking money (I guess good companies only give money)
* Everything’s work is “Human Knowledge” that should not be owned by any entity

Regarding that last item and free software fanatics (only fanatics):
It seems to me that the “rich western kids” seem to be doing all of the creation of knowledge even though they are using a capitalistic system to feed their families using proceeds from their creations. The poor (eastern?) kids don’t really contribute to “human knowledge” and just want to take every one’s creation for free. So not only do they not produce knowledge, but they can’t feed their families!! I wonder which system is better?? I’ll take the capitalism. If it wasn’t for that, there’d be no computers, and there’d be no internet and certainly no free software. My point is that free software fanatics should be a little more accepting of capitalism, business, and corporations because it would not exist without it. If the anti-corporation people had their way, we’d be waiting for computers to go from trees.

By: LivreSansPage » Mark Shuttleworth dans la liste d’openSUSE : stratégie à laquelle tous ne s’associent pas

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 18:38:35 +0000

[...] Modif au 27 nov. 2006 (2) : Shuttleworth a posté un nouveau billet dans son blog pour clarifier la situation à propos de son annonce. S’il prétend avoir voulu dire ce qu’il affirme dans ce nouveau message, alors il s’y est pris plutôt maladroitement, m’est d’avis. De plus, il amalgame encore openSUSE et Novell, ce qui n’est pas la meilleure chose. [...]

By: Super Mike

Super Mike — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 06:26:32 +0000

I don’t see any problems with what you did. I think it’s an over-reaction.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:47:23 +0000

Mark,

Thank you for all the effort you put in Ubuntu, is really well worth! You are a person of the future!

Best wishes for you and the Ubuntu community.

Regards,
Martin

By: C.R. Conway

C.R. Conway — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 23:33:56 +0000

I have to agree with what you said in this post. I read your post with the invitation to participate and I didn’t read anything into it other than an invitation to look and, if interested, join… and certainly not as an attempt to get SuSe developers to jump ship (so to speak). While not a developer I am a member of a number of different distributions forums, including both Ubuntu and SuSe, and like to participate in any manner I can, if only as a test subject . The one factor that I’ve noticed that every one seems to be overlooking isn’t that Novell is admitting to having MS IP in the Linux-GNU code base but that MS might be trying to get something INTO it that WOULD qualify as MS IP. The whole purpose of the deal is to increase interoperability, yes? How is that supposed to happen? By MS probably providing some type of access to their IP that would allow such interoperability. Now once that happens, how likely is it that MS will claim that code that has made it out to the rest of us (even in a reverse engineered manner) is the result of, if not directly based on, their IP that supposedly only Novell had access to. How likely is THAT scenario to cause trouble?