[Video] Microsoft's TPM Position is a Wake-up Call About Canonical (Which Helps Microsoft Push and Promote TPM)
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Rewarding Real Community Distros
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SIX days ago we wrote about Canonical failing to take advantage of "The Wintel Duopoly Plan[ning] to Send 240 Million PCs to the Landfill" (TPM, which Canonical is promoting). It's neither an accident nor an oversight; it's intentional. Canonical has positioned itself as a Microsoft partner and Ubuntu is fast becoming just some "app" for Windows, the way Canonical sees it...
Don't let them get away with it. Don't help them increase their userbase. Instead, support distros of GNU/Linux that aren't in bed with Microsoft.
The video above makes that point by highlighting what Ubuntu has become technically, running a whole bunch of daemonised stuff like snapd and adding bloat (some distros do that with containerd). Is the sole or main goal to get people to buy bigger and newer machines, as we noted last night? Should we add the kitchen sink, too? Bloat isn't the principal concern though; freedom is.
Canonical gets you to Microsoft.
Community distros get you away from Microsoft.
One reader moaned and groaned about "infiltration by Microsofters" at Canonical and Ubuntu (the company and the distro, not exactly the same thing). The reader said "both IBM and Canonical are absolutely quite on the topic" of Microsoft dismantling "old" machines. "They are both missing an absolutely enormous opportunity here, because of the Microsofters on their payrolls," the reader asserted.
The Microsofters were named here in the past. One of them is Jono Bacon, who a decade ago accused me of "paranoia about MS" (Microsoft was viciously attacking us even back then and Ballmer was the CEO).
And now Mr. Bacon works for Microsoft on "consulting". The context of the above remarks however, was us pointing out that Canonical had hired Microsoft employees to run Canonical. The effects were immediately visible and the CEO casually promotes Microsoft.
About Mr. Bacon, the reader said he "always was a [redacted] and I hated that Canonical put him in place of a real community manager. That [redacted] did so much damage in that role and acted as corporate spinmeister and never once as a community liaison."
And this is what made him so "successful", even as the community perished and he got a book contract, hailing him as such a "success story" despite the collapse of the Ubuntu community. Well, both MSs (Mark Shuttleworth and MSFT) loved what he did and they rewarded him for it.
"Community was 100% irrelevant to him and his activities and, apparently, goals," our reader continued. "What he did was alienate and freeze out the community while sucking up and selling out his boss to Microsoft. I wonder if the MotU scandal is mostly because of him. I cannot recall the timing."
Over the years I spoke to him a lot and he was regularly in our IRC channel (for a number of years), either spying or trying to influence us. He did an interview with me for Linux Format and invited me to be on the FLOSS Weekly show, albeit it felt more like an ambush than a genuine interest in my message.
"Back on the complaint against Jono Bacon and the harm he did to the community," the reader concluded, "the Ubuntu Forums where thriving when Canonical decided to partially suppress them and pivot to a top-down model at Ask Ubuntu instead."
"I would not be surprised if it came to light that Microsoft Jono had a hand in tearing down and de-emphasizing the forums."
As his own Web pages show, he still reaps the mutual benefits of swimming close to the money, even if that means swarming with sharks:
MS (Mark Shuttleworth) was never a populist. He left some comments here and we chatted over E-mail, albeit he was typically hiding behind his personal assistant. No, not Jono Bacon.
I remain highly suspicious of Canonical while at the same time recognising that many GNU/Linux users are on Ubuntu (which isn't a bad thing, but they'd be better off using another distro; collectively we'd be better off that way). █