lex naturalis - txwikinger's blog Free Software - Law - Politics

Why don't you tell this to Miguel? The Ubuntu site is not to exclude others, it is to create a need for an existing community.

On the other hand, Miguel has attack the Ubuntu community. He claims that the Ubuntu community only takes and does not contribute. Here we are trying to contribute and he wants to tell us the terms on how to do that.

There is a difference between accepting the existence of tribes, that work together when appropriate and respect each others work, and tribalism which attacks particular tribes and ranks them or their work as not as much work as that of others. That is exactly what Miguel is doing, intentionally, or because of ignorance, it does not matter.

It is also the way Miguel tries to force the issue. He did not approach the Ubuntu community trying to convince with arguments. He did not give it time (at least for the public beta period). He e-mailed Jeff Atwood trying to put his opinion over the wishes of the community which is working hard building something up.

Please get your facts straight. I have never talked against working together. In fact, if you look on the Unix stackexchange site, I contribute in the Top 10. I will continue to do so. I also organise the local events for the Software Freedom Day, together with people using all kinds of other distros. So why should I accept this accusation of tribalism? However, our community wishes to have their own site, Miguel should accept this too, if he does not wish to practice tribalism.

I have read Mark's blog. I don't know what his opinion to ubuntu.stackexchange.com is. This was driven by the Ubuntu community, not by Mark or Canonical. However, neither the site, nor my opinion issued have anything to do with tribalism, but solely with the fact that in every good community, you will have sections that want to do things differently on occasion, and will work together when they feel fit. I believe this is proper and helpful for the bigger community. Otherwise, maybe we should call for only one unified Linux distribution and call anybody who strays from that a tribalist.

At first, I am far to old to be called a "dude". If you are the average age of the members of the Linux community, I could probably be your parent.

Secondly, who cares about fragmentation. Fragmentation does not solely have negative effects. We can experiment. We can look what works better over longer time frames, because we are fragmented and have lots of software projects that do similar things, and different distros.

In fact, often it is not fragmentation but addition. Look at Ubuntu's relationship to Debian. We appreciate and respect what Debian does. However, Debian does not work for everybody. I could not use plain Debian and use it with my parents-in-law. I can with Ubuntu. Now both, Debian and Ubuntu have done something to allow them to use Linux.

Another word for fragmentation is diversity. We live in diverse societies. That is scary for a lot of people. However, that is how it is. I personally love diverse society. As more diverse, as more I like it. Everybody has a place in it. Therefore, it is good.

Let's start to see how this diversity actually is our strength. I strongly believe that this diversity will make the difference that will move us from being a minority player to by the majority in the plurality that it needs. E pluribum unum - in our diversity, we are one.

I do not know when this decision was made, I do not know what the circumstances were. However, I believe stackoverflow is too big. Every time, I open the page, I see all the questions I am not interested in, and none that I am. Furthermore, I have several tumbleweeds flying around, so it seems my questions are not seen either.

In any case, the question of pooling resources is also a question of setting different tones. Our community (Linux) is big enough to have hundreds of distros. Why then can't we have to stackexchange sites if the people who contribute to it wish so (I am actually very active on both sites. 1st in points in Ubuntu and in the Top 10 in Unix. I am very happy to contribute to both).

At this point of time, there does not seem to be a problem with the resources. On both sites the questions asked are answered in the high 90%. Where is the problem?

Why the rush to merge at this time? Only because Miguel complains? Does he dictate how the Linux community should behave, and what they should do? I think not. The beauty of all of this is, that we can have different opinions, have multiple sites, and can reach more people than if we would be uniform and all act in the same way.

At least let both sites go through the public beta phases and look how the participation is over a longer time frame before making rushed decision based on speculations and the loud voice of a single member of the Linux community.

I do not think it is relevant at all what business model anybody has. This has nothing to do with business models, at least not for me. Miguel is ranting over who is contributing what. It is absolutely not the truth that the majority have code shipped in a RedHat release is developed by RedHat.

And even if, it is irrelevant. Nobody is violating any licence. Nobody at Ubuntu says, if you don't use Ubuntu you cannot use any of our answers that we give as support to our users. Open Source is more than only software. Ubuntu is so successful because we are working very hard to develop a strong community. We do not excommunicate anybody that is part of our community who uses other distros.

My point is, in a community that is based on sharing, which is the principle of Open Source, accept that different people and different groups have different talents that they bring to the table. Therefore, lets respect what each group does. If our contribution is community and user support then this counts as much as lines of code.

At first. I am not a press reporter, and hence have not limited myself to stating facts in this blog. This is rather an editorial if you want to use the analogy, and hence I am allowed to present my opinion.

Secondly, I have extensively linked to the places that I refer to. Hence, anyone can just look themselves what Miguel said and what he did not say.

Furthermore, there is nothing that I need to take back. Miguel has used slanted statistics trying to proof a point that is mood in the first place. RedHat does not develop Linux either. They use Open Source projects like anybody else. The difference is they sell the code that they have not developed, Canonical does not. Ubuntu is driven by the community not by Canonical alone. Furthermore, developing software is not the only thing that contributors to Open Source software contribute. I spend probably as much time planning and organizing community events that benefit all of the Linux community, as other spend to write software or fix bugs.

Maybe Miguel needs to think about what he should take back about what he says about Ubuntu and the Ubuntu community which I am a member of. He basically says, that it would be ok to have two different stackexchange sites, as long as one is not named Ubuntu. That is what the real deal is. On the other hand he defends a separate Apple site. In my opinion this is in consistent.

He is perfectly allowed to have this opinion, however, I do not accept the methods he uses trying to claim that the Ubuntu community does not contribute as the others do. As long as he things he is superior to us, I will tolerate him, but I will speak out against just sentiments, the same way as I speak out against someone who insults me wife or son, only because the have a different complexion than the majority of people in this country.

Well.. why don't you look at his remarks in a discussion if there is space for both sites.

What do the contributions to Gnome have to do when we talk about support? Why does he cite something he knows very well is taken out of context and does not reveal the right numbers in the first place?

I appreciate what Miguel does, even I disagree that it is good to use Mono, a technology heavily patented by Microsoft, who we know has in the past sued Linux users. This kind of disagreement makes us strong. However, we need to stay with the issue.

Do you mean he is right in everything he ever says?