Kroah-Hartman Attacks Canonical
Greg Kroah-Hartman's keynote address at the Linux Plumbers Convention 2008 was officially about the Linux Ecosystem, but started as a direct attack on Ubuntu developer Canonical. He claims that the company contributes next to nothing to kernel development.
Kroah-Hartman complained in his keynote address that Canonical released only 100 patches to the kernel in the last three years. (At a previous Google conference he had mentioned only six patches over five years.) He went on to say that in the same timeframe, a total of 100,000 were made to the kernel, Canonical's contribution therefore amounting to a mere 0.1 percent of the total. The result, he says, is that Canonical ranks in 79th place, way behind Red Hat (first place) and Novell (second place). In subsequent slides he tried to show how little code Ubuntu contributed to the "Linux ecosystem" and then went on to the real subject of his address.
The response from Ubuntu followed promptly: Matt Zimmerman, the Ubuntu CEO, found Kroah-Harman's claims "objectionable" and that his statistical methods were not an "exact science." Zimmerman admitted that Canonical did not contribute as many patches as Red Hat and Novell, but never claimed that it did. The Ubuntu kernel consisted primarily of original Linux kernel code. Zimmerman objected primarily to Kroah-Hartman's definition of "Linux ecosystem," finding it "odd" in that he included GCC, binutils, X.org and Glibc in with the Linux kernel. Also, "He disregards most of the desktop stack (including GNOME and KDE), all desktop and server applications, and most anything else that is recognizable to an end user as 'Linux'." Not least of all, Zimmerman accused Kroah-Hartman of failing to acknowledge his link with Novell, a key Canonical competitor. He suggested opening a dialogue on the keynote address matter in light of the fact that he had never been consulted previously on it.
Kroah-Hartman provoked further reactions in blogs and forums, such as one from Dustin Kirkland. The Linux Plumber Conference attracts developers at the Linux Kernel summit meeting in Portland, Oregon that belong to projects tightly linked to kernel development, such as X.Org and GCC.
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Ubuntu contributions
ubuntu
Kernel contributions... to GPL-Bis?
So maybe kernel should not change so much in a major version live and Ubuntu is right in not adding it's name to this stupid GPL enforcement work: I call it GPL-Bis.
Sure it would be nice if nvidia and others were publishing open source drivers... but they also have the right to protect their code if they find it's their interest... and users who want to have what they paid for (3D graphics here) and being able to use it without the stability problems caused by so many useless contributions to the kernel.
To change people mind is harder than code
It is easy to change code, because computer will do exactly what code instructs it to do. Changing people mind set and preferences is much, much harder. Canonical does a great job in PATCHING people's mind about Linux, promotes it on the market, makes sort of advertising and does not charge Linux community for that, that is a huge contribution. If he will make some money out of it, than good for him and for Linux, in this case no one will say that there is no business case for Linux on the desktop market .
(Sorry for the English, it is not my native language).
Not the only measure
Sick of Knockers
Ubuntu just works
If you do have a problem or a question, the solution is almost always easily found using Google and the Ubuntu forums. You don't see too many "RTFM" responses like with other distros. So I'd say that Ubuntu has contributed a lot in terms on documentation and ease of use.
re:
They did however make forums.ubuntu.com. A place for newbies to ask a question about Linux... and actually have it answered in a decent manner. This seemingly extremely simple thing is one of a kind - if you ask the same thing on Debian forums, you'll be told "RTFM; Go use Ubuntu; Debian isn't for newbs; you don't know how to compile? you aren't allowed near your computer;".
Really, Debian has zero intention of being the most popular desktop distro - at least they show zero signs of such - so I fail to see their anger of ubuntu taking that spot. At all.
ufuntu
Ubuntu --> Debian
Of Grandads (and Grandmas) and Soccer Mums
Actually all my Grandads (and Grandmas) and Soccer Mums - the people I set up with and convert to Linux - use Mandriva Linux, and they seem very happy with it, and think it is very easy to use.
Mud slinging will never win me
I appreciate anyone who spends there time hacking Linux and making it better, but since when did Novell start bashing other linux distros? This tactic seems all to Microsoft to me.
I think Google trends explains it all
http://www.google.com/trend...eo=all&date=all&sort=0
All hype?
I appreciate the fact that the kernel is improving all the time, but other than support for newer hardware I can't think of a single new kernel feature since I started using Linux in 2003 that has impacted my Linux experience significantly. OTOH, improvements to the desktop and install process have been significant.
Take a look at the relative size and revenues of Novell, RedHat, and Canonical. Take a look at their ages. Take a look at how many people each employs. Then tell me why you expect Canonical to have contributed the same amount as the other two.
If you ask me, the Ubuntu-haters are just losers who are ticked off that their l33t status-symbol is being used by grandads and soccer moms.
Canonical is all hype
Reality check?
And the "Linux desktop install base" is important bit.
Anybody who had to deal with kernel development in last five years would found that contributing something to kernel what provides gains on desktop is nearly impossible: if it hurts servers (forte of RH & Novell) it will be immediately blocked by their people. Just recall Kon Colivas "goodbye letter." It's all there.
The conflicts on LKML still happening all the time. Linux as kernel heavily server oriented - because companies who keep most developers on payroll are server companies. And they choose server market because it is possible to make a profit in server market, while in desktop market you face up hill battle against M$ and Apple.
RH and Novell (SUSE) choose easy target where they can compete - Canonical choose much much harder target and yet is delivering good results. So who is coward then??
P.S. And frankly, 95% of kernel contributions of RH and Novell can be filed under category "improved Oracle performance by 0.0001%." To me personally most of their contribution for past years were pretty useless.