Ubuntu and UserLinux

April 6, 2005

This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier.

Despite what you may have heard on Slashdot, UserLinux and Ubuntu aren't going to be merging anytime soon. A few weeks ago, Ubuntu's Jeff Waugh invited the UserLinux project to "collaborate with Ubuntu to build the finest platform and community for FOSS service providers". This was after a discussion about the problems of trying to build UserLinux around Debian when it's taking a long time for a new stable release from Debian. Waugh's invitation generated a fair amount of additional discussion on the UserLinux list, but little comment from UserLinux founder Bruce Perens. It's become clear that Ubuntu and UserLinux will remain separate for the foreseeable future, but we decided to check in with Perens to see what he had to say about the whole thing.

Perens was quick to note that he supports Ubuntu, but doesn't think that Ubuntu's corporate-sponsored model is the way to go for UserLinux.

When Mark [Shuttleworth] started to work on Ubuntu, he called me up and we talked about whether I'd be interested in taking a leadership position in Ubuntu and I decided not to pursue that, because I feel that a non-profit is the correct paradigm for a Linux distribution. A Linux distribution is inherently not a profit-making enterprise and we are seeing [some of] the commercial Linux distributions abuse the open source paradigm because of that fact.

In addition, Perens said that Debian's development process allows anyone to become a developer and run for Project Leader or hold another Debian office, which doesn't exist in other projects. "You can be part of Ubuntu's community or Fedora's community, you don't get the chance to be boss".

Shortly after Waugh's invitation on the UserLinux mailing list, some of the Ubuntu team created experimental UserLinux packages for Ubuntu. The metapackages would allow creating "a sort of Ubuntu-flavored UserLinux". Unfortunately, the packages were also in violation of the UserLinux trademark policy. When we asked about the situation, Perens noted the importance of having a trademark policy, given the abuse of the Debian trademark "in various ways" and that "the UserLinux guys get to say what can be called UserLinux when they do their version of the Debian release." He also said he didn't have a problem with labeling the packages "ul" or something similar to distinguish them from official UserLinux packages. It would appear, after a bit of friction, that the projects are sorting out the trademark issue so Ubuntu can include the metapackages.

But the Ubuntu effort highlights the problem of perceived inertia for UserLinux. Perens announced UserLinux in December of 2003. There was a great deal of interest in the idea at the time, but the wait for a Debian release has certainly had an impact on the momentum of the project.

Perens conceded that there was a perception among the Linux community that UserLinux had stagnated, but said that the perception can be overcome.

A lot of people would have given up now, because the time-to-market is totally blown, but this was never intended to be a start-up business. Having been on board or watching the last five companies that were attempting to commercialize Debian, I have some idea what went wrong and what went right and I think we can make this idea work with businesses.

As far as UserLinux, I think what I would like to do, is once Debian has made a release, have our roster of support companies ready to support it, and to just start giving these things out at Linux-related business events and saying 'here's a system with full support, here's a price sheet, and we're going to give you a lower cost of ownership than Linux. We're going to beat other Linux distributions on TCO and we're going to give you more control because, more than Fedora, more than Ubuntu, you get a chance to determine exactly how the system is built, because it's tracking what the Debian organization does, it's not a Debian variant.

Perens also told LWN that the best way for someone to help with UserLinux is to be involved with Debian.

For people in the community, my main desire is that they work on Debian, okay? We can use some people on the UserLinux project, but the UserLinux policy is when we make software, we do it on Debian teams, and check it into Debian Subversion, don't issue as separate UL packages unless there's a Debian freeze...I think that Debian is a very healthy community, despite the challenges.

To outsiders, however, it may appear at times that the Debian Project is too mired in political disagreements and flame wars to actually get anything done -- which is a significant objection to wanting to be involved with Debian. Perens said that there is a need to convince "a significant portion of 1,000 active developers that your policy is right" when working with Debian, but "that in itself is a quality assurance process".

Perens said he was "heartened" by the recent announcement that Debian will soon be doing a release, and that "when Debian wants to get off the dime, they can". He also said that the Debian developers have been "pretty embarrassed by the long delay of the release" and have bit the bullet to get it out the door. He also predicted that the next Debian release after Sarge will be scheduled, and it will be kept on schedule.

It will be interesting to see what happens after Debian Sarge is released, and whether the UserLinux project can succeed as distribution for "businesses of all sizes".

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to post comments

Ubuntu and UserLinux

Posted Apr 7, 2005 18:46 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] (3 responses)

I just installed Ubuntu and I am glad to say: it rocks. UserLinux, however, doesn't swing at all. Until I can make myself boss, of course.

Yeah, right.

Ubuntu and UserLinux

Posted Apr 8, 2005 16:44 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (2 responses)

So anybody can be boss of UserLinux?

Isn't that what killed Debian?

(Killed off any ability to release timely packages anyway. I happily used Debian from 2000 to 2004. Now I run a mix of Ubuntu and Gentoo.)

Ubuntu and UserLinux

Posted Apr 10, 2005 1:39 UTC (Sun) by hppnq (guest, #14462) [Link] (1 responses)

So anybody can be boss of UserLinux?

No, I don't think so. ;-)

What annoys me is that Bruce can't finish a sentence without stabbing at other Linux distributors that are clearly UserLinux's competitors, Red Hat in particular. What worries me, is that I can't get rid of the feeling that UserLinux is not at all what it pretends to be, and that it might actually harm Open Source.

Look at it closely, and you will find many, many strange contradictions. There is a constant pattern where Bruce is on the moral high ground, and others like Red Hat are the ones abusing the Open Source paradigm. I won't expand on it, because I am reluctant to use LWN as a platform for this kind of criticism. I'll give you a couple of clues though, that are relevant to this article.

There is no UserLinux community. There is a Debian community. There is an Ubuntu community.
The UserLinux organization is *not* a non-profit one, it "will be". (Check userlinux.com; there is no userlinux.org.)
The UserLinux website does not even mention Free Software or Open Source, let alone explain what it is all about. It does mention that the distribution is freely available.

Ubuntu and UserLinux

Posted Apr 11, 2005 18:55 UTC (Mon) by piman (guest, #8957) [Link]

In addition, Bruce has done precious little (in terms of development, or funding development) to help release sarge, which his project apparently desparately needs.

(Bruce, if you're reading this and disagree, please point to sarge release-critical bugs you've submitted patches for, or otherwise coordinated the patches for.)