Revisiting Linux Part 1: A Look at Ubuntu 8.04
by Ryan Smith on August 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
It's Free – Libre
While the value of “free as in beer” is easy to describe, the value of “free as in speech – otherwise known as libre – is harder to relate. Nonetheless, rather large books have been written on the subject, so we'll try to stick with something condensed.
Virtually everything distributed with Ubuntu is an open source program in some manner. Many of the components of Ubuntu, such as the Linux kernel and the GNU toolset, are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which in a nutshell requires that any software distributed under the GPL license either include the source code with the software or a way to get the source code. Other bits of Ubuntu are under slightly different licenses with slightly different legal requirements, but the outcome is effectively the same. Ubuntu is free - you can get the source code to it and modify/distribute it as you see fit.
But when we're talking about Ubuntu, there's more than just being able to access the source, as most of the development teams that are responsible for the programs included in Ubuntu have their projects open for public participation. So not only can you take the code and modify it, but if your modifications are good enough they can be submitted back to the main project and possibly be included in a future version of the software. The fundamental idea of open source software is that users are empowered to see how software works and to modify it as they see fit. Other lesser benefits also exist, such as protecting authors' rights by preventing people from taking the code and improving it without sharing it (the GPL), and making sure all the authors are properly credited.
This does not always make open source relevant for the user however. The fundamental benefits of open source software are for people that are programmers, but most users are not programmers. Being able to see and edit the code is not necessarily useful if you don't know how to use it. Even with a background in programming, I would be hard pressed to be able to quickly contribute significant code changes to most projects; very few programs are small and simple enough to be able to easily jump into these days.
Still, there are some definite benefits for those of us that can't throw out code like Linux's chief architect Linus Torvalds. The most direct benefit of course is that this software exists at all. Since all of the software in Ubuntu is free as in beer, paid developers do not develop many of the programs. Open source as a default state makes it easier for people to contribute to the development of software, and that means it's easier for such gratis software to be continually developed in the first place.
Open source software is also a benefit for the longevity of software. Since no one person has absolute control over a project, no one can terminate it. This means that someone else can pick up a project and continue should the original developer(s) quit, as is sometimes the case with old software. It also allows for software to be forked, which is to take the code from a project and create a derivative separate from the original project – the benefit being that a forked project can be taken in a different direction than the original developer may want. As proof of the importance of forking, there are a number of programs in Ubuntu that are forks of older projects, such as X11 (otherwise known as just X), Ubuntu's base windowing system.
Finally, open source software is beneficial to overall software security. If you can see the source, you can analyze it for possible bugs. If you can edit the source, you can fix those bugs rather than wait for someone else to do so - and we can't even begin to overstate the importance of this. The direct relevance to the average user is once again limited here since most people cannot read or write code, but it does filter down through benefits such as rapid patching of security vulnerabilities in some cases. The security benefits of Ubuntu being open source are some of the most important reasons we consider Ubuntu to be secure.
In short: even if you can't code you benefit from Ubuntu being a free (libre) operating system.
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zerobug - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link
Regarding benchmarks and Linux-focused hardware roundups, one thing worth of consideration is that while Microsoft places strong resources on O/S development to create features that will require the end users the need to get the latest and greatest powerful hardware, Linux places their efforts in order that the end user will still be able to use their old hardware and get the best user experience while running the latest and greatest software.So,the benchmarks could compare the user experience when running popular software on Microsoft and Linux O/S's, with different powerful machines.
For this, you could pick up some popular open source and proprietary (or their free equivalents) application that can run both Linux and W7. and compare the price, time and power consumption for retrieving, saving, processing, compiling, encrypting,decrypting compacting, extracting, encoding, decoding, backup, restore, nº of frames,etc, with machines in a range of different CPU and memory capacities.
abnderby - Thursday, September 3, 2009 - link
Let me say this, I am a Senior Software QA Engineer, I have been testing windows, windows apps, DB's and web sites for over 10 year now. I am what you could consider an windows guru of sorts.I have off an on always gone and tried linux from red hat 5, 6, ubuntu, suse, fedora etc... Linux is not and has not been ready for mainstream users. Sure simple email, word docs web browsing it is ok.
But in order to do many things I want to do and many advanced windows users the author and many commentors are right. Linux people need to get out of their little shell and wake up.
Linux has such great potential to be a true contenderto windows and OSX. But it lacks simple usability. Out of the box it can come nowhere close to MS or Apple offerings. The out of the box experience is truly horrible.
Hardware drivers? good luck I run RAID cards that have no support. Forget the newest graphics and sound cards. Connecting to shares just as the author mentioned a hassle of a work around.
Again as stated elsewhere Linux needs someone who programs and or scripts to get things done right. I have neitherthe time or patience for such. I use command line when needed. I would rather have 2 or 3 clicks and I am done then have to remember every CLI for every thing I need to do.
Time is money, time is not a commodity. Linus wastes too much time.
It is geting better with each distro true. But It has been 11 years from red hat 5?? and Linux is not a whole lot better than it was then.
What is needed if Linux really wants to make a stand in the desktop space, is a unified pull togeher ofall distro's. Sit down and truly plan out the desktop. Put together a solid platform that out of the box can really put the hurt on MS or Apple.
Look what Apple did with OSX! And how many developers are wrking on it? How many developers are working on Linux all distro's? OSX is a jewel in 7 years it has matured much farther than any *nix distro. And has a following that cannot yet be challenged by any distro available.
Why is it that when win2k came out Linux was claiming to be superior, and yet after 10 years of development it is hardly comparable to XP let alonevista/win 7 or OSX?
You guys really need to wake up and smell the coffee!
Penti - Monday, September 7, 2009 - link
Of course it's not ready for consumer desktops, there are no serious distributions for that.It means no DVD player OOB, no proprietary codecs, no video editing software, no proprietary drivers which works magically. Of course not is SLED and RHEL Desktop ready for normal users it's targeted for Linux admins to set up the environment. Community distributions won't have as easy time to be set up by those. Community distros will also always lack the above mentioned stuff. It's simply not legal for them to offer it OOB. OS X is actually older then Linux and ran on x86 before Apple bought Jobs NeXT company. It's also supported by an OEM. (OEM = Themselves). Which no Linux dist is. It also uses many GNU technologies like GCC, X11 (optional but included on disc), bash shell and so on, and of course SAMBA for SMB/CIFS, on the server edition they use a modified openldap server, dovecot and postfix for mail, Apache, PHP, Perl, MySQL etc. Stuff thats developed on Linux and has matured thanks to it.
There's a lot of problems with having just community supported stuff, but that doesn't mean it's useless or sucks. Sure the kernel aren't really helping getting drivers in there, by locking out closed source stuff but they end up useless if they are proprietary and not updated any way. For the servers just buy RHEL or SLES certified stuff and you get all the hardware support-needed. But on the other hand you wouldn't be much successful in running 7 year old video drivers in Windows either. Community distros definitively don't need to cease existing for the creation of a commercial one. But there will never be one linux and that's really the beauty of it not the course. It wasn't meant to be something rivaling windows and the kernel developers has no desire to create a distro. That's why we can see Linux in stuff like Android and Maemo. And from home routers to mainframes and supercomputers. For a commercial entity targeting that many devices wouldn't be possible. Not with the same basic code and libraries. There are definitively some top notch products and solutions based on Linux and GNU. But Linux doesn't want anything as it's not an entity. And it's really up to GNOME and KDE to create the desktop environment. It's not the distros that shape them and write all the libraries that software developers use to create their software. As there are no major consumer desktop distro maker there is also no one that can really steer them by sponsoring work and holding discussions either. Not towards a unified desktop environment for normal non-tech users anyway. Also GNOME and KDE has no desire to create a exclusive platform around their software. OS X is a innovative 20 year old OS (since commercial release) and is actually based on work before then (BSD code). OS X UI is really 20 years into it's making and builds heavily on the next/openstep framework. On other Unixes there hasn't been any such heritage to build on, X was an total mess on commercial Unixes and I would actually say it's a lot better and more streamline now. There's just Xorg now, sure there are a lot of window managers but only two major environments now so it's still better then when all the vendors had it's own and couldn't make up it's mind on which direction to go and standardize on. In the middle of the 90's there where like at least 4 major Unix vendors that all had their own workstations.
fazer150 - Friday, September 4, 2009 - link
which Linux distro have you tried? did you try the PCLinuxOS which is atleast as usable as windows xp, 2003?nilepez - Sunday, August 30, 2009 - link
Most end users are not comfortable with the command line. Linux, even Ubuntu, is still not ready for the masses. This shouldn't be confused with the quality of the OS. It's mostly GUI issue. I've also had some issues with installers failing. Some were solved from an xterm and others just didn't work.It wasn't a big deal in most cases, because there's generally another program that can get the job done, but for the typical home user, it's a deal killer. Nevertheless, I must give credit where credit is due, and Ubuntu has made huge strides in the right direction. The UI isn't close to Windows 7 and I suspect it's not close to OS X either, but Canonical is moving in the right direction.
Etern205 - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link
See this is the problem with some of linux users, you guys are some what always closed in a nutshell. What you may think is easy does not mean the rest of the world will agree with you. In this day and age, people what to get things done quickly and use the least amount of time as possible. For Mac OS X and Windows getting a simple task done takes like 3 simple clicks, for Ubuntu performing the same tasks requires the user to do extensive amount of research just to complete it.I'm glad this article was written by a author who has not head into linux terriroty before and it shows the true side of linux from the perspective of a new user.
If you like to do ramen coding and so forth does not mean the others will. If linux want's to become mainstream, then they really need to stand in the shoes of Joe or Jane.
forkd - Saturday, October 31, 2009 - link
I use mac, windows and linux and I must disagree with your assessment of "this is the problem with some linux users"This article, and this site for that matter, comes from the perspective of a windows (and some mac) user looking at linux. More specifically Ubuntu. From this point of view of course Linux is difficult. A person who is linux focused thinks windows is difficult at first too and is likely to criticize. If you take the time to learn something instead of just criticizing something because it is different you may be a lot happier.
fepple - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link
Check out all the usability studies the Gnome Project does, then come back and make some more generalization :)SoCalBoomer - Thursday, August 27, 2009 - link
Again - those are done by Linux people. His points are right on. . .someone a while ago did a "Mom" test, which is closer to what is needed, not people who know computers doing studies on usability.