Really? It doesn’t look that way to me. Maybe on the issue of rolling releases, but on the bigger points about open governance, not at all.

Virtual UDS may or may not provide greater access a Jono Bacon asserts. I’d say it provides greater “read-only” access but curtails “read and write” access almost entirely (see Lawrence Lessig’s “Free Culture for an exploration of this idea). I have to say I’m very disappointed with this development and I believe it signals the final end of any illusions of meaningful input by the “Ubuntu Community” to Canonical. Canonical is openly calling all the shots now. There are some advantages to this Apple-like proprietary approach, but it is truly enemical to the spirit of FLOSS.

I take your point that Mark Shuttleworth is not purely profit-driven. The point that really disturbs me about his behaviour is his lack of receptivity to input from the community, and his failure to ever really truly apologize for any of his off-putting statements and arbitrary actions. I hope he “gets it” soon because he could be such a force for good if he comes around on these two thigs.

Working with the community != making the community work for you

Hah, thanks :)

I happily work with several folks at Canonical in a very honest way, but I do agree that they sometimes do seek to push “everything is always equal!” when that really isn’t the case, and I really wish they’d be more honest about that.

As for vUDS, I’m pretty sure vUDS does a worse job of making sure everyone is able to speak. I rarely had a problem in a physical UDS room getting a word in from the back of the room (exceptions tended to be when there was a particularly strong character in the room who insisted upon talking over everyone). With the vUDS sessions the core speakers are defined prior to the session by the coordinator and everyone else is only able to talk in IRC. I haven’t attended vUDS yet (short notice, and I have a day job) so I’ll be able to speak more to it once I do in a few months.

Am currently at the BerkeleyLUG Mtg sitting near Grant Bowman.

You recently Tweeted @configX Also, Maine represent! (I grew up just outside of Portland).

You also wrote above in your post …if you do you risk the carpet being pulled out from under you in the form of some new announcement that causes all your plans and work to be less valuable (or useless)..

These two writings remind me of two relevant anecdotes; one a New England seafood joke and the other a recurrent theme in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic-strip.

The New England fish joke goes something like this: A traveller who is a huge fan of seafood arrives in Boston for the first time. He leaves the airport and hails a cab. After he gets in, he excitedly says to the cabbie, “Hey, I’m new in town. Can you tell me a good place to go to get scrod?” The cabbie replies [in a thick Boston accent], “Pal, I’ve got to congratulate you. I’ve heard that question a lot over the years, but that’s the first time I’ve ever heard it in the pluperfect subjunctive.”

The recurrent Peanuts theme is the infamous (Football gag). The characters involved in the gag are Charlie Brown and Lucy van Pelt. Lucy tells Charlie Brown that she will hold a football while he kicks it. Charlie Brown usually refuses to kick it at first, not trusting Lucy. Lucy then says something to persuade Charlie Brown to trust her. Charlie Brown runs up to kick the ball, but at the very last second before he can kick it, Lucy removes the ball and Charlie Brown flies into the air, before falling down and hurting himself. The gag usually ends with Lucy pointing out to Charlie Brown that he should not have trusted her.

pleia2, I sincerely hope that you will never figuratively “get scrod” by “having the football pulled away at the last second” through being taken in by Canonical’s ever-changing assurances!

Does Virtual UDS get around the past problems of backroom dealing and explicit control over who even gets to speak or what they are permitted to present in many tracks? Or are these problems now also virtualized?

I am not familiar with the “ubuntu community” concept; got sucked into the discussion. I have been a linux user for many years and the recent events interest me.

As the OP said, the user’s perspective ( also mine) is very different from others. I do not know if ubuntu/linux users are considered part of the ‘community’ but if they are, they clearly make up most of the community, even if they do not contribute much. They also tend to be the least vocal members of such community.

What users like me want is for the vision of canonical to unfold as stated. I am already getting attracted to chrome books but I figure it would take more effort to set them up the way I like them ( installing linux apps on chromeOS for e.g.). Many have moved on to OSX. All for the same reason- though we have made a lot of progress in the last 10 years ( I remember the days when I had to compile modem and sound card drivers) the rate of progress has not caught up with the changing marketplace. That has not gone unnoticed by users as well as businesses who use OSS as their foundation.