I have been pretty pissed at Canonical lately for a number of missteps they have made but a few of them do seem like legitimate mistakes. Mark is not really a PR guy and you can tell - a lot of what he has done has just kind of fanned the flames. I don't think I need to remind you, but even in a sarcastic tone, "open source tea party" and "we have root" are inflammatory things to say. I think he addresses some of these problems pretty well in this post, and I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt here. Think about all that he has accomplished and the amount that Ubuntu has helped the Linux community grow.<p>So kudos to him for having the balls to apologize. I accept that apology, and I think that a lot of people (including myself) have had some venomous things to say about him as well as Canonical which probably weren't fair. So we could probably all back off here and focus on the real issues.<p>...but...<p>He's still not talking about the two elephants in the room.<p>The Unity lens is fundamentally fucked up. It should be opt-in. Period. It's clearly an infringement on users' privacy and totally not in the spirit of libre software or Linux. I can't really trust Canonical - even though they've given us all so much - because of this issue. So long as they don't back down from this I'm going to look at everything they do with a critical and possibly cynical eye... it just <i>clearly</i> looks like they're selling out their users. It is really just sad to see them selling out to Amazon like this, and I wish it didn't have to be this way. I can't really fathom the amount of money Mark has spent on Ubuntu. I don't really know how he can make it work as a business. But the Amazon search in the lens just seems like a morally wrong and short-sighted way to go.<p>The second issue which we all need to address is Mir. The technical arguments are <i>completely over my head</i>, but I feel like Canonical hasn't fully made the case for why they've decided to fragment the community and do their own thing. This could just be me not understanding what's going on, but pretty much everyone who's developing this stuff seems to be on Wayland's side... why is that (and is that)? It's worth considering, but I feel like Canonical should be engaging the community, although with all the flaming that goes on I can see why they don't. We all want the best free software we can get, but some serious thought needs to be devoted to the ramifications and rationale for having two display servers.<p>So that's the end of this long rant - let me know what you think.
OK, great. So Ubuntu only accidentally sent the nasty letter, and didn't mean to offend a lot of people who got offended with the tea party remark.<p>But no addressing of the privacy complaints the fixubuntu site had.<p>And explicitly only apologizing to non-technical critics just reinforces the validity of the complaints that <a href="http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2013/10/thoughts-about-the-open-source-tea-party/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2013/10/thoughts-about...</a> had.
Cool how Shuttleworth also apologized for the tea party remark. Seemed kind of wrong for him to make it. Too bad he didn't address the gist of the fixubuntu site though, he didn't even link to it I think. Avoiding making the Streisand effect worse? Maybe he's already addressed the privacy issues?
I just don't understand all this hate towards Canonical. You can turn it off. Yes it was awkwardly rolled out but you can turn it off. What about google search as you type? Google Analytics, hell even the Ghostery plugin tracks data. Is this just the joy of supporting the underdog then hating them when they succeed? Now I don't work for Ubuntu, I don't use Ubuntu (I do use Mint which is derived from Ubuntu). When I think about the things that Apple and Microsoft have done and do I really think adding remote search is really low on the offense list. I mean they aren't making chemical weapons! Again most of this comment is I just don't get all the hate.
At a high level, I accept Shuttleworth's apology. I do not believe that it is a company policy to use trademark law to silence complaints.<p>Some nuances:
> Judge the policy. In this case Canonical has a trademark
> policy that enables community members to use the marks
> (good) and allows for satire and sucks sites even in
> jurisdictions where the local law does not (great!).
> Failing to have a policy would not be a bonus point in this review :)<p>In the US, anybody (not just community members) has a clear right to use the mark for satire and criticism. However, I'm sure there is some jurisdiction where this is not the case. Shuttleworth is not claiming that the license is needed in the US.<p>I was not aware of Shuttleworth's "tea party" comment; he was right to apologize for making it. Based on his post, he was making an analogy between certain types of unconstructive criticism of Ubuntu -- ad hominems, conspiracy theories, and racism -- and behavior he associated with the tea party. That behavior is, of course, not limited to just the tea party, nor is it true for everyone associated with the tea party.
What was with the crack at Debian?[0]. Given how reliant Ubuntu is on Debian's work and the amount historical animosity that there's been (a lot of which Mark directly caused with the early interactions between the projects), fanning the flames just seems incredibly stupid.<p>[0] "Debian started arguing about whether it should remove all references to the distro-that-shall-not-be-named but then decided to argue about whether it should enforce its own trademarks which lead to an argument about… oh never mind."
Wow, I find it amazing how hard is for him to apologize for the "tea party" remark.<p>It took him almost a month, then he uses another person's mistake as an example, and then in a small remark at the end, he apologizes.<p>I guess it is "better late than never". But it speaks about how little social skills some geeks have(he was programmer before billionaire).
> Please accept my apologies if you [...] felt offended by the label.<p>That's not an apology for using the label, that's a [1].<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-apology_apology</a>
Never Mark Shuttleworth's fault.<p>Someone playing politics with an open source project or some unknown staffer who made a "mistake" - never the culture he built or his over the top response to said open source project not adopting the divine direction that he has taken.<p>Nope, not Mark Shuttleworth's fault.
I tend to think favorably of Canonical and very highly of Shuttleworth, but in this case I'm already pissed of after reading only the first part of the post. This is just highly manipulative PR speak.<p>First there's the repeated suggestion that Canonical is "generous" in allowing all kinds of use of its trademark, where however that kind of use, like satire, is protected by law. It's like saying "look how generous I am to stop for pedestrians at a red light".<p>Second there's the ludicrous analogy between the a bug in the code and the incident. A bug in code, no matter how bad, doesn't compare to an <i>act of aggression</i> aimed at a <i>specific party</i>. The internet did <i>not</i> overreact, it was Canonical that <i>acted</i> with disproportionate aggression. Shuttleworth fails to recognize that and still tries to cover it up by accusing his critics of being unreasonable.
A better technical analogy would not be a bug, but deliberately installing malware.<p>This is not an apology. It's a defense combined with an underhanded attack an Canonical's critics.<p>I wasn't one of the "vocal non-technical critics". Now I am. This attitude stinks.
The fact that Shuttleworth describes fixubuntu.com using the phrase "folks behind a “sucks” site" demonstrates his entirely dismissive attitude of a very important issue, here being raised by ONE person, not in a "sucks" style whatsoever.
'Last week, the less-than-a-month-at-Canonical new guy sent out the toughest template letter to the folks behind a “sucks” site.'<p>This is not an excuse and reflects poorly on all management when you throw the new guy under the bus. The only response to this[1] is "I" not "the new guy". You are the captain of the ship and don't get to hide behind the new guy.<p>1) If there is legal consequences and not PR, then you probably shouldn't state anything about what happened inside and should only speak the absolute truth or the parts your lawyer let's you.
Just stop reading this shit.<p>| I made a mistake myself when I used the label “open source tea party” to refer to the <i>vocal non-technical critics</i> of work that Canonical does<p>He's still sticking with labelling vocal <i>technical</i> critics as the open source tea party. Just read it carefully once again.<p>| That was unnecessary and quite possibly equally offensive to members of the real Tea Party (hi there!) and the people with <i>vocal non-technical criticism</i> of work that Canonical does<p>| Please accept my apologies if you have been a <i>vocal non-technical critic</i> of Canonical’s software and felt offended by the label<p>Well this <i>non-apology apology</i> completely insults the intelligence of anyone reading it.<p>Edit: Formatting
Is this a mistake that was addressed or was this a tell of the policies of Ubuntu? I really doubt that Shuttleworth is going to destroy the trove of commercially-valuable personal information that is Unity and Zeitgeist.<p>Clearly, he didn't address anything. He just backtracked. This isn't about the Ubuntu logo, as much as Shuttleworth wishes it to be.