Why is Ubuntu (Canonical) viewed differently from Windows or macOS while being corporate-owned?
Posted by sammyhjax123@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 50 comments
I’m trying to understand something and would like yall's opinions.
A lot of Linux users criticize Windows and macOS for being controlled by for-profit companies, which makes sense given the restrictions and closed ecosystems.
But at the same time, Ubuntu is developed and heavily guided by Canonical, which is also a for profit company.
although ubuntu is much better as an operating system itself why doesn't anyone have an issue with it being owned by a large company unlike Arch or Gentoo?
lelddit97@reddit
I see irrational hatred of one of the biggest contributors to the FOSS ecosystem and providing a critical entry point for normies (Canonical) and I suspect you're one too!!!
We all live in capitalist or relatively-capitalist countries. Building something and getting critical mass (e.g. strong support models) don't come for free. As much as I love the world, I have bills to pay and retirement to worry about while the world runs on money. Canonical is definitely the biggest distro for corporate desktop Linux users which is actually a great way to get new Linux daily-drivers and it's because my company pays Canonical (not much) for support.
Would love to see any data on the harm Canonical is actually making by providing a globally free product with paid support on top. I'll wait!
Visikde@reddit
"Canonical is definitely the biggest distro for corporate desktop Linux users"
Never heard of Redhat?
lelddit97@reddit
I've not seen redhat except in servers for the past ~10 or so years. Red hat is definitely a massive contributor and for a long long time they were definitely the biggest contributor. Maybe they still are today.
Business_Reindeer910@reddit
they definitely still are.
lelddit97@reddit
Never said they did. Canonical brings users and is one of the biggest contributors.
Natural_Night9957@reddit
What is a relatively-capitalist country? I'm curious. I know the USA has no real left, but I must know what means this neologism.
lelddit97@reddit
"neologism" yes try to use fancy words to win online arguments!!
It's being too lazy to look up whether market economy is the correct term.
Natural_Night9957@reddit
Don't bother
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AiwendilH@reddit
Most of the ubuntu stuff is open source...if wanted you could just cut out ubuntu without loosing access.
It's not really comparable to companies distributing close source software and having full control over it.
corruptboomerang@reddit
I'd like to point out, Apple having Mac OS closed source and actually running open source software underneath is a special kind of dick move. For all it's flaws at least Windows is Windows, not just Linux wearing a fancy hat.
sCeege@reddit
Obligatory “BSD isn’t Linux” aside, would open sourcing Darwin help significantly with what the Asahi project is trying to do? Isn’t this partially why people praise BSD licensing like the MINIX thread the other day?
gordonmessmer@reddit
> would open sourcing Darwin help
Darwin *is* open source: https://opensource.apple.com/releases/
sCeege@reddit
that's only a partial release right? they used to publish the entire BSD base.
gordonmessmer@reddit
I'm not aware of anything they've stopped publishing.
The kernel is "xnu", the C lib is "libc", there are a few "\*_cmds" repos for groups of POSIX standard utilities, as well as some that are in their own projects, like "bc" and "awk" and "bash".
tinix0@reddit
Darwin is open source and AFAIK it being open source helped a lot with the initial bootstrap of asahi.
Quietus87@reddit
*BSD wearing a fancy hat.
burimo@reddit
That is a great idea! We can cut out cannonical from ubuntu! This distro will be mint!
AiwendilH@reddit
Well...you have to provide the devs/maintainer for the repositories usually managed by ubuntu then to get rid of Canonical.
To "stay in business" with open source you have to provide a value (and can't depend on vendor lock-in) and must not piss off your users/customer enough to actually take over that "value generation" part themselves.
burimo@reddit
that was a joke about linux mint, I am not going to do that personally :D
mwyvr@reddit
I do not dislike Ubuntu because it is developed by for-profit Canonical.
If you dislike all for-profit contributions to Linux and the ecosystem, and choose to avoid all such contributions, you won't have much software to run. Contributions from for-profit companies have a lot to do with the astounding success of Linux and the vast ecosystem of software around it.
More informed folks may legitimately dislike Ubuntu because of certain decisions they've made, such as their walled garden snap/snapstore.
Or they dislike Red Hat because of certain product line choices.
But far more like and appreciate Canonical and Red Hat for all of their choices.
Greenlit_Hightower@reddit
Dude, comparing Canonical at least in the current year to Apple or Microsoft is insane.
scum_interactive@reddit
I am mildly disappointed I settled on Ubuntu for two out of three PCs in the house, but it's just a pretty good distro that works well out of the box and supports a lot of hardware. It's also got good software support; one of two distros recommended by Epic for developing UE5 on Linux for example.
SecretSense8563@reddit
canonical still has to play nice with upstream and can't just lock everything down like the other two - plus you can always fork ubuntu if they get too weird about things
Desertcow@reddit
Being corporate owned is not necessarily a bad thing, being proprietary spyware slop is. Snaps are hated for being proprietary, but most of what Canonical does is open source so you can rip out what you don't like
mrtruthiness@reddit
snaps aren't proprietary. But to understand the nuances here, one must clarify:
The actual programs one installs are sometimes proprietary (e.g. Spotify). But most of the snaps one downloads are not proprietary.
Everything in the snap ecosystem that you run on your machine are Free: snap, snapd, snapcraft.
The server/repository that snapd communicates with is proprietary. However, the specification for that server is Free. If one wanted to replace it, one could.
BigHeadTonyT@reddit
You mean Ubuntu, AKA Windows on Linux? Personally I think, if you switch from Windows to Ubuntu, you like pain and sucky OS's. Addicted to it. "Oh well, it is not so bad". Dude, you are boiling in the kettle. Boiling the frog analogy. Canonical makes one bad decision after another. You think Windows was first at getting money from ads in the OS? Dude, Ubuntu did it 15 years ago, with the Amazon integration...let's just say it was not well-liked.
The list is almost endless and Canonical keeps making it longer. Read about Canonicals hiring practices...you would expect it to be illegal. Really, in comparison, Redhat has been doing a lot better job at everything. Well, maybe not the kicking of senior caucasian employees.
Natural_Night9957@reddit
Ubuntu isn't viewed differently
Comet7971@reddit
I have Ubuntu. The OS is still free of charge and open source, meaning you can do anything you want with it and look at the code if you want to.
Whether it has a company behind it or not is irrelevant (PopOS is also made by a company IIRC).
They are noob friendly and don't require a lot of tinkering after setup. They aren't rolling releases and updates are generally reliable afaik.
KnowZeroX@reddit
While there will always be people who don't like for profit companies controlling stuff, most of the linux community doesn't care about if it is run by a for profit or not.
What the linux community cares more about is what they do with that power and if what they provide is open source or closed source.
The notion that Canonical doesn't face criticism is nonsense, every time they make a power play like the locked down Snaps, add ads or spyware or when they introduce something new that is clearly to lock down linux or only for their distro ignoring everyone else, they face plenty of criticism just like windows and mac. Just being closed source and totalitarian gives more room for criticism of windows and mac, that is all.
beatbox9@reddit
One thing is: Ubuntu is free and open source. So it’s not controlled by Canonical.
Canonical primarily makes their money from support contracts, and they use that money to develop Ubuntu (and the larger Linux ecosystem, including things that benefit Arch and Gentoo) and make it free for regular users.
This is completely unlike Windows or Mac.
fek47@reddit
This is the key fact. I'm surprised I had to scroll down this far before I saw someone mention it. +1
SpeedDaemon1969@reddit
Are these "Linux users" in the room with you?
Either you're going on a very biased sample, or you're making a strawman argument that assumes that Linux = communism. Both are wrong.
Speaking personally, my criticism of Apple and Microsoft isn't at all about their tax status, it's about their products and business practices. Over the years I've paid for and used Red Hat Linux, Caldera, Mandrake, Mandriva and SuSE Linux, all products of for-profit companies. Again, it was about the product, not the tax status.
Apprehensive_Milk520@reddit
Canonical has always brought to mind, at least for me, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Now, Redhat has always screamed enterprise. Never really followed the adventures of Redhat in depth, wasn't my cup of tea when I did work with RHEL way back in the dinosaur days.
Other distros now seem to be swaying in rather uncomfortable directions with some of their choices... not particularly keen on those, either... but it's a free world last I checked (or maybe not, given current events) and those are their creations so they have a right to do whatever they want with them... even if that means selling out...
InTheNameOfScheddi@reddit
Tons of people dislike Ubuntu for the exact reason you mentioned. I think you are referring to two different groups of people: those that would recommend ubuntu (because they don't realise the implications of corporate ownership), and those that wouldn't recommend it (because they do).
Especially in this sub there are a lot of people against Canonical.
siddhi_parakh07@reddit
I think the big difference is control and transparency. With Ubuntu you can still see what is happening under the hood and switch away if you do not like the direction that Canonical is going. The thing about Ubuntu is that it gives you control and transparency. You can see what Ubuntu is doing. You can switch to something else if you do not like the direction that Canonical is taking with Ubuntu. This is not really an option, with Windows or macOS because with Windows and macOS you can not see what is happening under the hood like you can with Ubuntu.
NinStars@reddit
People do have issues with some of Canonical's decisions, like them not wanting to make snap truly open source, but despite that, Canonical aren't leeches and can't be put on the same level as those other companies.
Zatujit@reddit
Canonical is literally criticised all the time on Linux subs.
kolpator@reddit
Its open source, they are not asking money to use it, you can pick your hardware. If you have skill and knowledge you can change it as you see fit. Some enterpise entities( canonical suse redhat) must exist so other businesses can use their paid and supported services for longtime.
So even canonical redhat etc, are profit oriented in the end they are still much better than ms or apple.
Im not using ubuntu but also i have no hate for canonical. But microsoft its something else... for me their entire product portfolio malicious harmfull toxic mess... these tech giants exploiting end user to their bones thx to useless laws for customer protection.
DR--SEX5577@reddit
from a windows and mac guy they see linux community prasing canonical and redhat
but in reality linux users curse them every waking moment
Shap6@reddit
Are you sure it’s the same people criticizing windows and macOS for being corporate owned also recommending Ubuntu? This feels like a bit of a straw man
Infinity-of-Thoughts@reddit
Because, aside from the Snap store backend, everything is open source.
Secondly, this sub complains about Canonical and Red Hat all the time. And while Canonical is certainly deserving of criticism, comparing them to Microsoft, or Apple is .. A huge fucking stretch.
just_here_for_place@reddit
We must be living in two seperate realities. I see criticism of Canonical and Red Hat all the time here.
BeautifulMundane4786@reddit
Is that why you are using Fedora a is created by RHEL 🤦♂️?People need to start thinking shit through before saying anything.
mikeymop@reddit
I always saw the sentiment around Ubuntu to be the NIH infested Apple of the Linux world
kaida27@reddit
Have you been living under a rock ? I see ubuntu hate at least twice a day if I'm on reddit
Miserable-Wolf2688@reddit
Critiche ci sono, ma se dobbiamo essere obbiettivi se Linux è uscito dagli scantinati è anche grazie ad aziende come canonical, redhat che hanno messe i soldi veri
Slight_Manufacturer6@reddit
The control is different. Ubuntu is still open source and we can see and modify the code all we want… Windows and MacOS are not.
niteninja1@reddit
because as much as people bitch about ownership structures the vast vast majority actually dont care.
what they really mean is “it runs on my hardware (not mac os) and its free (not windows)
ankhseraph@reddit
It isn't, that's why it's often among the most hated Linux distros. People don't like snaps nor Canonical