Tal Beno wrote:
> I wish to comment please on Steve's original mail as well as on the overall
> reply that Steve got from Mr. Emmet Hikory.
Although I've been replying to a number of these mails, it's not
that I'm someone particularly special when it comes to Ubuntu Mobile:
I'm just a user who was unsatisfied with both Ubuntu MID and Ubuntu
Desktop on my Kohjinsha SR. Oliver credits me with some help with the
installer, but that truly belongs to the many contributors to the
installer technologies used, some originating in Ubuntu, and some in
Debian. I may be an Ubuntu Developer, but that's just because I've
been an Ubuntu user and contributor for long enough that someone
granted me upload rights (I have not checked to see if any of my
patches are in Ubuntu Mobile). Nothing I'm saying represents anything
other than my opinion, and shouldn't be taken as a statement of policy
of any sort.
> But as many analysts are claiming the Linux landscape is way too fractured
> in general and on the mobile front, so to make this one stand out of the
> crowd and give MS a real fight (as with the desktop edition) Canonical can't
> throw it on the community as a prime resource, at least not at this stage.
> I beg to argue that this is all a big waste of time if you don't intend
> realizing the huge potential you have in your hands, and invest much more
> resources on its success. The community will follow only when seeing your
> own initial commitment ...
I take great issue with this assertion. Ubuntu is developed by a
large and diverse community, and that Ubuntu Mobile is developed
entirely within and as part of Ubuntu is surely a good means by which
to ensure that the work done includes the work of the largest number
of interested parties. While is it certainly true that Canonical
offers significant support to Ubuntu, including almost all of the
infrastructure and funding for a number of the developers (I believe
it to be over 10%, including more than a third of the most active
developers, although I could be mistaken), for which much appreciation
is deserved, it is not the case that Ubuntu Mobile is something which
Canonical is "throwing on the community", nor is it the case that
Ubuntu Mobile being community created and community supported
necessarily means that nobody associated with Canonical will be
involved in that community.
While Oliver has created the initial preview image for Ubuntu
Mobile, the idea originates from the UDS held in Prague, has been
discussed in the #ubuntu-mobile channel in freenode for some time, and
relies heavily on the work of the entire Ubuntu community in order to
function as well as it does. The Ubuntu Mobile community is expected
to support this new flavour (as is true for the community surrounding
any Ubuntu flavour), and that community consists of interested people
from many sources, including Canonical. If there are no interested
individuals, then there is no community, and there is no point in
having such a flavour of Ubuntu. I know I'm interested, and judging
from the mail here, the comments to Oliver's blog entry, and the
comments to Steve's article, I'm fairly certain I'm not alone.
There's no reason we can't make Ubuntu Mobile great, but it's not
right to frame this as a competition between corporate entities, or to
try to fit some analyst's model: the key idea is to make something
that we want to use, and to seek out any resources we need to make it
as good as it can be.
--
Emmet HIKORY
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