October 28th, 2008
Why I don't like Canonical
Very important to preface this with: it's my own personal opinion, written on my own personal
blog. This obviously relates to Mandriva and is informed by my own
experience working there, but it is not the official opinion of
Mandriva, and please don't read it as such. If you want Mandriva's
opinion, ask our PR folks for an official statement, and it will not
look like this. 
So, I've just been (implicitly) quoted bashing the Mark Shuttleworth / Canonical business model. (The rating on my ZDnet post is a stunning -21 as I write - my most negatively rated comment anywhere ever - but, strangely enough, no-one's replied to refute my argument). I thought it was worth expanding my point from my own tiny pulpit.
I've written before about what I think about Ubuntu. It's a good distribution. It does a lot of stuff right. Around 2004 it was better than MDK / MDV in many ways. I don't think it was ever better in every way, and I think MDV is a better product now, but that's by the by. This is about Canonical, and Mr. Shuttleworth.
First, the facts:Full story
This is an interesting opinion piece. It is true that Canonical has nothing but expenses and it poses a good question--what happens if Canonical's benefactor Mark Shuttleworth decides to leave? Where's the stability in that? Companies like RedHat and Novell SuSE have a business plan to follow and are publicly traded profit-oriented companies vs. ill-defined expense-oriented Foundations.
Your thoughts?
--Dietrich
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