Dear Matt Asay,
It is great that you are now COO of the worlds leading Free Software company. We look forward to Canonical growing and changing over the next few years. Canonical has a world class management team, an epic engineering staff and the support of a huge and amazing community.
LONDON, February 5, 2010 – Canonical Ltd., the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, announced today that open source industry veteran Matt Asay has joined the company as chief operating officer (COO) — responsible for aligning strategic goals and operational activities, the optimization of day-to-day operations, and leadership of Canonical marketing and back-office functions.
Part of your role appears to be figuring out how to help a Free Software company make money (monetise is not a great word). We don’t think “Open Core” is the right way. That might work for a proprietary company that just wants to leverage a community to do free marketing for them. We would like Canonical to be a Free Software company – and for it to make money.
Here are some ideas we think offer good potential for a reasonably quick return on investment.
Please take a long hard look at the partner ecosystem and programmes. There has been staggering amounts of effort put into community building around Ubuntu, but really not much of this has been directed at companies who want to support and participate in Ubuntu. There is no Launchpad group for partners. No mailing list. No IRC channel. There are just three other partners apart from ourselves in the UK. We would like to see lots of UK partners, and we would like to see them talking to each other; doing joint marketing events, subbing business out to each other as they run out of capacity to meet the growing market demands, you know the kind of thing. Creating a community of partners is one sure way to get your messages across faster and more consistently.
We’d like Canonical to produce more business-focussed events where you show off some of the cool things you and your customers are doing with Ubuntu like Landscape and the Eucalyptus private enterprise cloud. Talk about some of the amazing business-centric applications that run on Ubuntu like OpenERP, Asterisk, Alfresco etc. With a strong partner network getting bums-on-seats is less of a chore and you are more likely to get quality delegates too.
Please encourage and promote the whole “opportunistic developer” thing that is going on with Quickly, Launchpad and Ground Control. This is really fantastic stuff and could be a big differentiator. Our opportunity is to show businesses how:
- They can use Quickly to develop internal applications hosted on launchpad and then with Ground Control they can empower all their staff to improve the tools they work with.
- Quickly and Launchpad and the Ubuntu One CouchDB back end can be used to develop internal applications that work online and offline and share information between desktopcouchdb instances.
- Quickly and CouchDB have all the security and authentication and workflow of Lotus Notes without the clunky UI widgets and general user interface direness. Couchdb can do that at the back end and Quickly/GTK can take care of the UI.
One last thing, get Alfresco back in the repositories. It was in the partner repo for 9.04 and was nearly great, just a few minor issues. In 9.10 and 10.04 it isn’t present. Simply not there. As it is in the partner repo and not one of the Canonical or community maintained repos there is very little we can do to help, much as we would like to. You know how great Alfresco is, you know how great Ubuntu is. They belong together. Jump up and down until it happens. If Canonical/Alfresco will commit to not putting it in the partner repo that is a perfectly acceptable alternative, it is GPL licensed Free Software, we will work with others in the community to get it in the Universe repo and maintain it there.
Good luck Matt, we very much look forward to working with you and Canonical over the coming years,
Alan Bell & Alan Lord
The Open Learning Centre
Sam Varghese Got It Wrong?
On the 10th of February I updated my original “Is Canonical becoming the new Microsoft?” post to make it clearer that what I was actually asking was about whether the company is becoming the next organisation that we love to hate because of the increasing level of criticism aimed at it and it’s flagship product Ubuntu.
Today, the 15th February, Sam Varghese has written about a conversation iTWire have had with Mark Shuttleworth regarding my original post. Unfortunately not only does he seem to have missed the point of that original post, but he also writes as though I was making an accusation or statement rather than asking a question:
“He was responding to queries from iTWire about a recent blog post that has claimed Canonical is becoming the new Microsoft.”
He goes on to list some of the points I made:
The blog post had listed a number of reasons why the writer thought Ubuntu was allegedly becoming the new Microsoft: the inclusion of Mono as a default; the creation of Ubuntu One, a proprietary software repository; removing the GIMP and other applications from Ubuntu; changing the default search engine to Yahoo!; discussion about what proprietary applications should be included in the Ubuntu repositories; and the appointment of Matt Asay as chief operating officer.
Please, let’s get this straight. I have noteworthy opinions on one or two of the points I mentioned, but that was not the point of the post. They were supposed to be taken as examples of a collection of decisions that are apparently, in various quarters, providing the fuel for an increase of criticism overall.
Personally I really am not bothered about the Gimp being removed (it is easy to install), nor OpenOffice.org from the UNR (I actually install the desktop edition on my netbook anyway), nor am I upset about Ubuntu One; it’s an interesting solution, I use it sometimes myself and I’m sure a Windows version will be most welcome by many around the globe. Neither am I bothered about the Yahoo search thing (If Canonical can get money from Microsoft then that’s just funny IMHO), and I was actually pleased about Matt Asay’s appointment; he will bring a wealth of commercial experience, a good dose of much needed sales & marketing skills to the operation and I’m sure much more besides.
Sam also didn’t mention any of this from my original post:
I really like Ubuntu. I use it everywhere, I help in the Ubuntu-uk irc channel when I can and we [our company] promote Ubuntu to our customers and I [as an individual] to friends and family.
What concerns me is not any particular item in the list above: some I care about, others I do not; as I am sure many of you will do too. It is the increasing volume of criticism and vitriol as a whole. It is getting louder. This, I believe, is indicative of a turning tide that, if we are not careful, will result in Ubuntu losing popularity and more of the FOSS community exercising it’s freedom.
I did not claim Canonical was becoming the new Microsoft. I asked if it might be. I also (admittedly not very clearly on my first pass) was interested in the reasons why Canonical/Ubuntu is getting more criticism directed at it at a time when it is becoming more successful and more important and was hoping to solicit some ideas and opinion as to how we could stop that increasing criticism and prevent what seems to be a fairly common occurrence with big and successful companies; we are even seeing it with Google now. Ubuntu/Canonical is built on very different principles to traditional commercial enterprises, so could we, as the community, come up with any ideas to prevent the “love-to-hate” syndrome?
I don’t read iTWire much. I only noticed this post from Sam as I had a couple of referred clicks to this blog today and was interested in where they were coming from.
Sam, your article paints me with a brush which I do not believe to be fair or accurate.
Is Canonical Becoming The New Microsoft? [Updated]
[Update: It seems I made my point very badly. Please read this follow-up post where I try to explain what I was asking].
Whoah! Hold on everyone. Let me don my asbestos suit first will you.
Thanks.
Right then. I have been thinking about this post for some time and I think the time is probably right for pressing the old “publish” button.
I am not trying to incite riots or wars in the halls of residence or corridors of power but Canonical/Ubuntu is starting to catch more “bad karma” than is healthy for it IMHO.
- Let’s start with Mono. Yep. It’s been a prickly thorn for many and the concerns expressed are not going away. There’s no point in raking over the old ground; it is just one of the bad-karma attractants in a growing list.
- Then we have Ubuntu One. Proprietary, closed, caused much debate and friction when announced and now the possibility of a Windows version too.
- Next comes dumping GIMP, OOo and other much-loved applications from the default installation of versions of the forthcoming distribution.
- Then the discussion about what closed/proprietary applications should be made available in the Ubuntu repositories.
- Then we have the change of the default search engine from Google to
MicrosoftYahoo. - Then Matt Asay joins as COO which should be, and probably is, good news. Matt is well known, respected and experienced, yet some of his prodigious public commentary tugs at the heartstrings of many a Freedom Fighter.
I don’t really want to comment on the individual points above; the point is that this list is growing…
I really like Ubuntu. I use it everywhere, I help in the Ubuntu-uk irc channel when I can and we [our company] promote Ubuntu to our customers and I [as an individual] to friends and family.
What concerns me is not any particular item in the list above: some I care about, others I do not; as I am sure many of you will do too. It is the increasing volume of criticism and vitriol as a whole. It is getting louder. This, I believe, is indicative of a turning tide that, if we are not careful, will result in Ubuntu losing popularity and more of the FOSS community exercising it’s freedom.
I’m pretty thick-skinned (I think I will need to be with this post!) so if you think I am barking up the wrong tree, or just plain barking, then say so. But I am noticing increasing criticism and anti-Ubuntu rhetoric which is not just because it is becoming more popular, although that is certainly one factor.
Something is changing and I am not sure it is for the good of Ubuntu or our community.
Did Microsoft make Firefox?
This post by Matt Assay discussing how we got to a competitive browser market got me thinking. (Dangerous I know, but bear with me.)
… I suppose the truly intriguing thing is not that we have a competitive market for Web browsers again, but how it happened. Baker told me recently that Firefox is “an anomaly” because it managed to beat back overwhelming Microsoft market share. Can we do it again?
What was the tipping point when Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team finally had to start paying attention to Mozilla’s Firefox browser? And when did Google decide that it couldn’t subsist on Firefox’s roadmap and instead had to forge its own browser, Chrome?
My own take on this is it was all Microsoft’s own doing. Think about it. Their browser, Internet Explorer [and more specifically IE6], was locked into the operating system that ran an almost every PC sold. So for Mozilla’s Firefox browser to take more than a 20% market share is pretty staggering. If you use Windows (as certainly a few years ago almost everyone did) you already have a browser on that Windows PC so why go and download another one? It isn’t quite the same for OpenOffice.org or Gimp for example. You are having to make a decision about acquiring an Office Application Suite or an Image Editor; whether you pay for commercial code or use FOSS is your choice. But with the browser, you already have one.
My conclusion to Matt’s question is that it comes down to just how bad IE6 really was. If it had been a half decent browser with acceptable support for the standards it was supposed to support then I don’t think Firefox, and possibly the entire FOSS ecosystem, would be as strong as it is today.
Presumably Microsoft could have patched and updated IE6 during the course of it’s life but they chose not to, and instead stuck to delivering a half-baked, non-compliant browser full of leaks and security holes and proprietary features that lead many unfortunate souls to build sites that only worked with Microsoft’s browser.
I think that it was the web development community that started this movement. Being professionally involved in helping Graphic Designers make websites work across browsers, I know just how BAD IE6 really is when it comes to supporting standards. If it hadn’t been so terrible, or even got fixed, I don’t think the web developer community would have started using Firefox in the numbers that they did and then espousing it’s virtues with quite the same level of gusto.
Of course, as well as being a decent browser, there were many new and innovative ideas and features in Firefox, a huge extension and plug-in library and cross platform support too. But as “most” users of a browser are simply surfing, then if IE wasn’t such a pile of steaming poo in the first place I don’t think many consumers would have been inclined to change at all.
What do you think?
Really Desperate Times for Fortify
I had to say something about this, and this, and this. Because it is getting on my bloody nerves!
We have a [ahem] story about how the Tories are unwise to promote Open Source because of, apparently, some inherent security flaws:
But Kirk said Fortify’s own research has shown that OSS exposes users to “significant and unnecessary business risk”. This is because security is often “overlooked,” according to Kirk, which makes users more vulnerable to security breaches.
Glyn Moody explains that this research from Fortify, was actually on just “11 of the most common Java open source packages”. Big deal. The research was from July of last year too and was discussed at that time.
I won’t dwell on the merits, or not, of the research itself. There are many excellent reports in the public domain that quite clearly demonstrate the strengths of the Open Source Software production model. Between proprietary and OSS methods I know which I believe is inherently more secure, and more robust too. Just recall on the last couple of months of Microsoft security holes.
But this whole saga really gets-my-goat because it isn’t news; it is an old story, and not even a good one, wrapped up in the shiny new cellophane of the Conservatives’ recent public commentary. And why? Because I can only believe that companies like Fortify are running shit-scared as they are seeing their profits dwindle to nothing and are being constantly beaten in competitive sales situations by the better, and cheaper, product.
Sowing some FUD and getting some cheap publicity doesn’t fool anyone anymore.
Matt Assay has an unusually succinct post on his blog today that sums it up nicely:
Jeffrey Hammond, principal analyst at Forrester, just Twittered something that is about to hit the traditional software world like a ton of bricks:
Just got off the phone with a client who’s been mandated to use [open-source software] because licensing costs are killing them.
Call it the beginning of the end, if you like, but it’s coming.
Spot on Matt.
Blogging for traffic?
I generally enjoy Matt Assay’s blog and I would say that the majority, i.e. more than half, of his prolific output (how does he find the time to do his day job as well as write 3-6 posts/day?) is either interesting, insightful or occasionally both. However, he wrote a post today that completely baffles me.
The post in question is titled “Richard Stallman’s not-so-finest hour”. And it refers to an article Richard Stallman (RMS) wrote – on request – for the BBC in which RMS talks his usual talk. To be honest there isn’t much new in what RMS penned here. Having heard him talk in Manchester a couple of months ago, this BBC article is basically the summary of his thesis that has stood the test of time and has given the world the Free Software Foundation, GNU and the GPL and much , much more – a new way of thinking and an ideal. Basically he derides M$ for being, well, M$ really. A convicted monopolist and anti-competitive software vendor that has used every legal trick in the book to lock it’s customers into a spiral of upgrades and new purchases of what is pretty uninspiring software.
To pay so much attention to Bill Gates’ retirement is missing the point. What really matters is not Gates, nor Microsoft, but the unethical system of restrictions that Microsoft, like many other software companies, imposes on its customers.
So Matt Assay took one small paragraph from this to generate his headline and thrust for his post:
Gates’ philanthropy for health care for poor countries has won some people’s good opinion. The LA Times reported that his foundation spends five to 10% of its money annually and invests the rest, sometimes in companies it suggests cause environmental degradation and illness in the same poor countries.
What I fail to see is why this made Matt “cringe”? He (RMS) only mentioned a well known and reported article published and investigated by the L.A Times back in January 2007!. But that is the only part of the whole BBC article where RMS mentions the Gates Foundation and he does so only to expose an interesting story to the great unread who are simply blinded by Gate’s presence (remember Tony Blair?).
If Matt had bothered to read the article in the LA Times he would find snippets such as:
Using the most recent data available, a Times tally showed that hundreds of Gates Foundation investments — totaling at least $8.7 billion, or 41% of its assets, not including U.S. and foreign government securities — have been in companies that countered the foundation’s charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.
or:
… In 2005, the foundation held nearly $1.5 billion worth of stock in drug companies whose practices have been widely criticized as restricting the flow of key medicines to poor people in developing nations.
If you are prepared to read a bit, there is a great deal of smelly fish surrounding the activities of the investment side of the foundation.
Matt concludes:
He may be right. He’s probably wrong. Regardless, it just demonstrates poor judgment and bad taste to try to kick Gates on his way out, especially for the charitable work that Gates and his wife do.
Ahhh, poor old Bill on his way out. What a crass statement that is. The guy is still the richest man on the planet and deserves to be scrutinised. RMS didn’t “kick Gates”, he just noted some of Bill’s past deeds – and accurately I might add. Why didn’t you mention the many companies Gates has crushed in the past Matt?
So I really don’t get what Matt has found that is so disingenuous to a man who has stolen ideas from other companies, crushed competition by using illegal and anti-competitive practices, and created the world’s largest convicted monopolist.
Perhaps Matt isn’t really being stupid or blind. Perhaps he gets paid to generate lots of traffic for CNET? I don’t know. But this is nearly as smelly as The Gate Foundation’s investment strategies…
My personal opinion to the readers of this or Matt’s piece would be to believe a man who has spent his adult life giving stuff away, and preaching that giving is a good thing, and who has created one of the most powerful movements for change in recent history. Rather than to believe a man who has done none of the above and is called Bill.
