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As long as you can install your own package you’re fine. If they introduce their own crap to install packages that’s closed source people that use ubuntu are fucked, but the community is strong I believe they will just fork it or switch back to debian or stuff like that.
They just look for additional money from corporate or try to sell to corporations and started from package management because that’s their all knowledge as an open source operating system development company. -
You are running a fucking six year old LTS distro, where free upgrades to first 20.04 and then 22.04 were offered to you, you did not take these offers, and then you complain why they charge money for supporting your ancient setup even longer?!
Dude... get real. Do your fucking upgrades. Maybe not right when the xx.04 comes out, but wait until xx.04.1 (usually in the following October) so that potential kinks are ironed out. -
@Fast-Nop I don't know what you didn't get, but I am updating a dev environment to 22.04. They aren't supporting anything old. This is what they are doing on a new distro. It smells odd.
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@Demolishun Ah, that one. I totally failed to get it. So you're referring to the difference between main and universe, and that universe updates are delivered "by the community". Aka, they are not delivered at all.
However, Ubuntu does not require payment for up to 5 machines, "only" registration, which is already bad enough, though pretty much irrelevant for desktop use.
It's servers where this doesn't fly, and where they want to make a business - and where I'd rather go Debian anyway.
That, and the Snap shit that Canonical is pulling off, is pretty much why I'm waiting when Mint finally declares the Debian based LMDE as ready for prime time, the most important issue being something like HWE kernels. -
@Fast-Nop I should not have mentioned a previous version. It wasn't material to the issue.
Yeah, it just feels odd to go from a value added proposition to a negative value proposition. I get it that they want to make money and maybe this is one way to do it. But honestly the way we use the OS it probably won't matter anyway. We are not a lan or internet facing product in most cases. -
I think that the article is written way too click baity.
In very short:
Packages from universe, which were always not part of a default Installation and handled by community, will be only provided with security updates by Ubuntu Pro subscription.
That is the gist.
While technically right and followed by a bit of explanation of how packaging is a nightmare job, they fail to give numbers.
Google gave me a quick result (unverified):
https://gist.github.com/ThinGuy/...
Roughly 28_000 source packages with 63 GiB of sources.
Get a grip on reality. Thats not just a fuckton of work, but also resources, traffic etc.
Other distributions are suffering tremendously, too. At least Debian gets a bit of help by Ubuntu pro.
I don't like it either. But the "want it all free with no support mentality" has become OpenSources downfall.
Things like BPL made that more than obvious. I fucking hate Ubuntu - but OpenSource needs money. -
@IntrusionCM Then again, Ubuntu takes stuff from Debian anyway. In turn, Debian doesn't have finance issues (they're doing well), but staff issues, and that's because it's just too complicated to become a Debian maintainer.
This is also why Debian gets help from Ubuntu - because people rather contribute to downstream Ubuntu than to Debian's upstream because it's too complicated.
Then again, that gatekeeping is also intentional so that they don't end up with random people committing dumb shit to Debian. -
@IntrusionCM There are several business models for OSS, but withholding security updates is not a good one.
I donate to Linux Mint, but sure as hell not to Ubuntu although that's the basis for my Mint installation. That's because I rather hope that Mint ditches Ubuntu and hence Canonical entirely one day. -
@Fast-Nop yes.
But again - we're talking about universe *only*.
I don't like it either, but imho its a valid choice as it is *not* the main distribution nor the main oackages.
And the Debian - Ubuntu relationship wasn't peachy in the beginning (as in first Ubuntu versions)… but afaik for the last decade it was a good one.
I don't like the direction Ubuntu is going either, but I just felt that the discussion in this rant was far too ignorant of details.
"They're doing well" ... Yes and no. They're not lacking finances, right.
They're lacking staff. The finances they have are mostly for operational stuff, hardware, red tape, meetings, ...
https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Funding
Debian has for example the LTS funding program.
https://lwn.net/Articles/790954/
So yeah, while they have money they're conservative regarding its use. -
@Fast-Nop you often miss stuff but you're a nice lad
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@retoor I object to both points. :)
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@Fast-Nop lol
Another dev on my team just got a new machine. Before he came in today I made two separate USB installers and ...
So I had to update my OS to Ubuntu 22.04 to support some newer software. I had been running 18.04. One of the things I notice is Ubuntu restricting security updates to Ubuntu Pro users. WTF is this shit? I look into it a bit more:
https://flu0r1ne.net/logs/...
and a long discussion with people for and against:
https://lobste.rs/s/h2dszz/...
Okay, great, Ubuntu is employing some hostage style manipulation to get people to pay for using the OS. Probably an exaggeration, but feels very slimy. But that part is NOT what bothers me about this.
What bothers me the most about this is Ubuntu will now have a list of computers that have or do not have specific security patches. This is valuable information if someone wants to sell this to a third party. Maybe Ubuntu would not do that, but they can always get bought by someone who would do that. This feels dirty like something Microsoft or Google would do.
I probably don't know the complete story. But the misunderstanding still leads me to want to avoid Canonical.
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