Re: [Gnu-arch-users] james on Canonical

[James Blackwell]

On Wed, Oct 19, 2005 at 09:57:30AM -0700, Thomas Lord wrote:
>  James> The company is moving completely away from arch.
> 
> Yeah, and that's the irony.
> 
> What it looks like from here is that Arch enabled Canonical
> to bootstrap quickly and relatively efficiently.  Mark even
> cites `tla' as an inspiration for Canonical and it only takes
> a small leap to conclude that my writings on how Arch can 
> improve the distribution business reached his ear directly
> or indirectly (and also, apparently, imperfectly).

This sounds right to me.


> In what is at least graceless and arguably unprofessional
> ways y'all screwed both the users and the upstream project,
> thoroughly.  

I think this is an issue of perception. Personally, I think the company has
done a pretty good job overall, though I can understand why you think
this.

> thoroughly.  Baz-ng, which looks to me to most likely wind
> up as an "also ran", is a poor excuse.  Launchpad's investment
> to value-returned ratio, from all perspectives, doesn't look
> very promising.  To rescue a business model, Canonical's
> technical and community ambitions are likely to contract and
> you'll wind up being a support company for UserLinux-by-another-
> name propped up by a modest number of contracts from people
> uncomfortable buying from a USian company like Novell.
> That's all well and good for paying a bit of rent and
> mortgages but meanwhile:

This is a testable hypothesis. :)

I will be happy to personally bet you $1.00 in the currency of your choice
that within five years the company is making money that is not primarily
(< 50%) supporting end users.

> You've overgrazed the commons, missed larger opportunities
> due to a misguided interest in starting piss fights, and
> your biggest impact is "nothing but driving a good man
> from his home."

I know of noobdy at the company that's interested in picking a fight with
arch. I'm rooting for arch to do well in addition to Bazaar-NG and have
been listing off the things that I think are necessary for that to happen.