Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

[GreyGeek]

Canonical announced yesterday that Matt Asay was taking over as the new COO.

Matt, whose employment history includes Novell and Alfresco, makes the announcement of his new job on his CNET blog.

To give you an idea of how he thinks this post, Free Software is Dead. Long Live Open Source, should help. It is also very helpful to read the comments to that blog article. In support of his view, Matt quotes Jasen Perlow:

But some people, particularly our free software leaders, are so mired in their hatred of Microsoft and proprietary systems that they will use only free and open source software for the sake of ideological reasons alone....Stallman and the FSF [Free Software Foundation], like his Cretaceous ancestors 65 million years ago, isn't evolved enough to see that his reign is about to come to an end. The open world needs interoperability, not shut itself off from other standards just because they originate from proprietary sources.

Before you jump down Jason's throat, read what he had to say a month ago about Windows 7.

Anyway, I disagree that "interoperability" is a problem created by FOSS & the GPL. Interoperability would not be a problem IF proprietary software houses wrote their software to conform with un-encumbered and truly OPEN software standards, unlike the EMCA 334 & 335 standards that MONO is written to.

Also, Glyn Moody, in the Linux Journal, replied to Matt's article. Glyn's article can be summarized by this quote:

Ultimately, the reason that free software cannot compromise is because we compromise over any freedom at our peril: there is no such thing as 50% free. As history teaches us, freedom is not won by “going mainstream”, but by small numbers of stubborn and often annoying monomaniacs that refuse to compromise until they get what they want. The wonderful thing is that we can all share the freedoms they win, whether or not we helped win them, and whether or not we can live up to their high standards of rigour.

Despite all his work in with various Linux companies, Matt says he is a Mac Fan who claims he "has a bias against" 20th Century proprietary software models, what ever that means.

I've read (but can no longer find the URL in Mark's blog) that Mark Shuttlesworth has spent more than $40 million dollars on Canonical in an attempt to make it financially self supporting. He has done a magnificent job in marketing Ubuntu and making it the world's leading Linux distro, but he hasn't made Canonical self-sustaining. That will be Jane Silber and Matt Asay's job, especially Matt's, because of his marketing background.

My personal prediction is that Matt will continue the MONO push on Ubuntu, perhaps expanding it to incorporate de Icaza's dream of making a Linux desktop built entirely out of MONO/Moonlight (a.k.a. .NET/SilverLight) that talks directly to Linux kernel through the libc6 API. They could even bypass the libc6 in favor of a C# build API that leaves the Linux kernel as the only piece of the distro that remains unencumbered by the threat of a Microsoft IP lawsuit.

I can see Asay thinking that by using .NET applications running under MONO as the application base, he can use Microsoft technology to compete against Microsoft technology. The only fly in that ointment will be when Microsoft does to a MONO desktop what they did to the Apple Mac/iPod MONO application market -- modifying SilverLight 4 to use their patented COM technology, making it incompatible with applications using the previous versions of .NET and SilverLight. The fact that MONO is now incorporating MS IP not in the EMCA 334 & 335 standards will become as a future roadblock when Microsoft decides it is time to "cut off" Canonical's air supply (.NET technology in MONO). This will set back or even destroy Canonical. Besides, it raises a point that Shuttlesworth made about using Windows API on the Linux desktop, quoted in my email sig:

"If Windows API becomes the default on Linux then what is the point of Linux?" -- Mark Shuttlesworth
MONO is Windows API

How does Canonical help Kubuntu? I've never read anything by Canonical that spells out exactly how they manage or help Kubuntu. I imagine that "some" Ubuntu developers split part of their work week between Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Canonical owns the Kubuntu trademark. Canonical pays to send out Kubuntu LiveCD for free to users who request them. But, they don't market Kubuntu the way they do Ubuntu. Canonical pays for the server space for Kubuntu development and downloads. The bandwidth bill can get rather large. They help LoCo teams, but not financially. The Chicago Ubuntu filed Chapter 13 a month ago. While Canonical doesn't appear to spend nearly as much on Kubuntu as they do on Ubuntu, I have no doubt that they could save a good chunk of money by dropping Kubuntu altogether and focusing entirely on Ubuntu/MONO. I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

We'll soon find out.

[dibl]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

That's very interesting -- thanks GG!

I get the impression, by the act of appointing a COO, that Shuttleworth has perhaps tired of his duties at Canonical. I can only imagine -- it's not obvious to me how you turn Canonical into a profit-generator - I wish him luck on that. Whatever. Regardless of all other politics, we owe him a debt of gratitude for dramatically enlarging the base of Linux users over the past 5 years. That's a good thing for all of us ... no matter what the future holds.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

I agree with everything you wrote, Dibl!

His "withdrawal" seems, to me, to be rather sudden. Maybe he has concluded that his skills and experiences are not adequate to reach the goals for Canonical that he had set, once he got into the thick of thing. Or, as you say, perhaps he is tired and needs some R&R for a year or two. I hope he is not experiencing a catastrophic health crisis which is forcing his withdrawal.

Either way, as long as 1) Canonical continues to support Kubuntu as they have and, 2) Kubuntu and its customization of KDE4 will continue to work WITHOUT the MONO libraries, I shall continue to use it. It is still, IMO, the finest Linux distro I have ever run, and KDE4 is a large part of that.

Not wanting to get caught with my pants down, so to speak, it is because of the MONO threat, now possibly combined with a financial crunch that all are feeling, that I keep watching other distros that feature KDE4 to see evaluate how they run and what their future is.

[MoonRise]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

I agree with both of you on those points. That's the hard part of all of what has been going on, time will tell, the waiting. Nail bitting isn't it!

[PhilT]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

I sometimes wonder if we should be prepared to pay (just a little) for our freedom. Like GG I came to Kubuntu about 3 years ago from Mandriva to which I had subscribed for a couple of years (I think about 30 euros a year). I only changed because the Mandriva upgrade (I believe it was 2006 to 2007) just trashed my (then) system (an older HP Pavilion). I could not get it to run, and so I down-loaded the Breezy-Badger Kubuntu iso and it worked "out of the box" - well almost, it needed a bit of tweaking!).

I had been more than happy to contribute a small amount to Mandriva as my contribution to the FOSS cause, as it were, and (I repeat) only changed because of a horribly borked upgrade. Having said that, I agree with GG that KDE/Kubuntu is marginally better; I recently took a look at the latest Mandriva 2010 version (installed on a spare partition on my new box). It looked good but the RPM system crashed a couple of updates so I removed it as I'm very happy with Kubuntu - running 9.10 and experimental 10.4 on separate partitions with a shared data partition.

BUT the thing is - I would now be very happy to pay a modest annual subscription for Kubuntu (say 30 euros as year) if I was guaranteed thereby to have a FOSS distro unencumbered by the creeping MONO, potential M$ trap. I know we can and do make ad hoc donations, but that doesn't provide developers with a sure basis. Should we be prepared to pay for our "freedom"? Perhaps we ought to? Just my point of view. How do others feel?

[Telengard]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

Nail bitting isn't it!

Not for me it isn't. Kubuntu was not my first Linux, and I don't think it will be my last.

I sometimes wonder if we should be prepared to pay (just a little) for our freedom.

I don't think there is any legal or ethical reason Canonical could not charge a subscription fee, but I doubt it will happen. They would have to provide some tangible product or service which consumers would value enough to pay for. Since all the software in the default *buntu install is free of charge, what might that be?

There are more desktop Linux distros to choose from than I can count on all my fingers and toes. They vary on the scales of software freedom and of cost. I can afford to wait and see what Canonical will do while I investigate other options.

My loyalty has never been to Canonical, but is to the Kubuntu community, and is by extension the Ubuntu community at large. Aside for a couple of low value bug reports I doubt Canonical would miss me.

[MoonRise]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

I wonder if Debian would allow any of Canonical's MONO/C# based stuff upstream. I kind of doubt it, I hope. That would be the path I take. Debian and place KDE on top, hoping that KDE themselves remain resolved not to include that crap. Otherwise, maybe XFCE. I wonder what those guys have planed for the future of that DTM?

[blobfish]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

I would now be very happy to pay a modest annual subscription for Kubuntu (say 30 euros as year) if I was guaranteed thereby to have a FOSS distro unencumbered by the creeping MONO, potential M$ trap.

I think there is a substantial number of people that feel the same way. I am just so jaded by corporate greed that I would have to believe in the recipient of my money. I know it is pie in the sky, but I would like to see canonical become a registered non-profit. If I thought all my money was going to go back into the distro, I would be much more likely to donate. I think a donation distribution system is needed. Canonical has and does a lot, but they aren't the only ones. Should we go to dozens of different locations to try and donate for the software we use. How about a donation app that scans the system and disperses your donation based upon currently installed software and some relevance factors. I think you should be able to donate in one easy location for your whole system. On a separate note, I wonder if we set up a pledge page where people could pledge money based on the condition of a MONO free distro. It's clear that Mark, understandably, is going to start cutting the purse strings and canonical is going to have to stand on it's own.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

.....
BUT the thing is - I would now be very happy to pay a modest annual subscription for Kubuntu (say 30 euros as year) if I was guaranteed thereby to have a FOSS distro unencumbered by the creeping MONO, potential M$ trap.
....

I agree. I have no qualms against paying for a subscription to a Linux distro IF that distro remains faithful to the letter AND the SPIRIT of the GPL for the Linux and desktop API. In the past I paid between $25 and $50 for 22 successive boxed sets of SuSE between September of 1998 and the day Novell signed that "deal" with Microsoft. I never regretted a dime of that money because I felt I was getting good value for it. I also considered that money as payment for the proprietary YAST application which made administering SuSE so easy at the time.

I also have no qualms against paying a distro publisher for proprietary licenses for drivers that I CHOOSE to install; things like video drivers, audio drivers, etc. I paid $20 for a proprietary audio driver from 4Front in 1998 and they allowed me to upgrade at no charge until the Linux API shifted from libc5 to libc6, which was reasonable. But, try to force me to use proprietary software, or make the distro I use dependent on it, and I shall leave that distro.

So, if Canonical started asking for, say, $60 (+/- $30) per year for Kubuntu, including access to the repository and updates, I would have no problems ... as long as that money went into Kubuntu's development and Canonical's profits and Kubuntu remained FOSS under the GPL. If Canonical used that money to pay for Ubuntu's development then I'd find another distro.

It would be nice if Canonical made deals with IP holders to write and/or license proprietary drivers or apps that users could choose to buy if they wanted to, but I can see where this would lead to DRM issues and privacy invasions that I would not tolerate. I've used licenses at work where one had to have a web connection so that your license could be verified before it would allow you to use it. If you were off line you were out of luck. The MOST excellent Russian ocr app, ABBYY FineReader, on the other hand, bound itself to the video display serial number of your PC and wrote that number back onto the encrypted "License" floppy the first time you installed it. So, you could use it off line. But, if your display bellied up, or you were upgraded to a new PC, you had to buy a new FineReader license, unless you had purchased a bulk license. Professional licenses were $1,500 each.

Also, a lot of countries do not recognize IP laws nor forbid the free use of IP software, so I doubt that they'd pay for a license to play DVD movies, for example. In that case, nor would I. When I purchase a DVD movie I have a right to view it, and to view it on any media which can play it, as often as I want. That includes the DVDROM in my notebook PC.

So, unlike Microsoft, which has its users by the short hairs, Canonical cannot force Kubuntu users to be bound by a restrictive EULA which violates the GPL, because the GPL is the heart and soul of the software which is the heart and soul of Kubuntu. They may pay programmers to modify the Linux kernel, the libraries and the KDE4 desktop, but they DO NOT pay licenses for the privilege of creating their distro from the GPL core components, and they MUST abide by the GPL when they distribute Kubuntu, or they cannot legally distribute it.

Bridging that gap will be Jane and Matt's biggest task.

[lmilano]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

I just found this very interesting thread. I think, overall, this is bad news.

Matt Asay has no credibility. He's been bitching against Desktop Linux for years. But all in a sudden he gets this gig, and all in a sudden he tries desktop linux (after getting the freakin' job) and now he likes it?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10...bj=TheOpenRoad

Another comment would be about the business model. I don't think paying for software (via subscriptions or whatever) is the way to go. It is way much smarter to make yourself popular (huge install base and mindshare), and then make a profit. Canonical already achieve the first step. Now they can get a piece of the server space, but fundamentally they should explore other revenue streams. I believe corporate desktop installs and support should be a goldmine, and we are already more than ready for that. There is also the cloud, customizing OEM versions for small devices (via contracts with HW manufacturers such as Dell/HP/etc), smartphones, ans so dorthSelling subscriptions to home users, though, is not profitable IMHO. Go ask Mandriva.

Oh, and the most important thing, I also think this is all about the community! If this whole thing falls apart, I hope we can stay in touch with all these wonderful people. If there is consensus on what's the "new Kubuntu" we should have a sub-forum for that distro or something. We'll see. I just wanna keep this nice thing rolling

[lmilano]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

And, back to the original post by GG, and the whole bull in Matt's defenestration of the Free Software movement, I can only say:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither.

[Telengard]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

Oh, and the most important thing, I also think this is all about the community! If this whole thing falls apart, I hope we can stay in touch with all these wonderful people.

We can. Since this forum is not run by Canonical, there is no reason it would have to stop in the unlikely event of Canonical dying. We would just have to expand the forum to support more distros, probably starting with the very ones which Kubuntu old timers move to first. If such a thing were to pass, I would love having Arch, Sidux, Slackware, and other specialized forums here.

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither.

Some truths do seem to apply everywhere, don't they?

[GreyGeek]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

I just found this very interesting thread. I think, overall, this is bad news.

Matt Asay has no credibility. He's been bitching against Desktop Linux for years. But all in a sudden he gets this gig, and all in a sudden he tries desktop linux (after getting the freakin' job) and now he likes it?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10...bj=TheOpenRoad

Another comment would be about the business model. ....There is also the cloud, customizing OEM versions for small devices (via contracts with HW manufacturers such as Dell/HP/etc), smartphones, and so does Selling subscriptions to home users, though, is not profitable IMHO. Go ask Mandriva....

I agree, he does not.

Mandriva's problem wasn't that their business model wasn't profitable. it was. It was their CEOs who put Mandriva into debt because they DID NOT UNDERSTAND Linux and FOSS and pushed unrealistic marketing plans. One Mandriva CEO drove the company $7M into debt before the board let him go, with a bonus! It took them over FIVE years to pay that debt off and return to profitability, and during that time they had little money left over to invest in their development, advertising and so forth, so their business and their distro suffered. When one of their releases burned out optical drives during installation users abandon them in droves and most have not come back. Unhappily, just before I left Mandriva the last time, they had just laid off their most valuable employee, IMO, Adam Williamson, who now works for RedHat. Their new CEO, who laid him and other parts of the "muscle" of the company off, was just as blindly ignorant of Linux and FOSS as their old CEO who burned through $7M was. With the current economic conditions I don't believe Mandria will stay alive, or re-establish itself in any significant way if it does stay alive. PCLinuxOS had already forked it and has moved beyond it in quality and functionality.

While I knew Matt Assay was a Mac fan and user, I did not know that he hadn't been on a Linux box in over three years. That fact sure explains A LOT of his views about the Linux desktop, ease of adding applications, security, stability, etc...

And now, in the URL you cited, I read that he thinks the future for Ubuntu is in India.

Linux offers India and other emerging markets the chance to build an operating system in their own images.

While India is big, it is also very poor. China has 400 Million Internet users, which is 25% more people than live in the USA, and they are a richer country and more progressive than India. Besides, Canonical does not have the MILLIONS to match the "donations" that Microsoft makes to the Indian Education Agencies, the money to create technical centers that train WINDOWS programmers in India, which Microsoft is now using as H1B imports to replace American programmers in Redmond. Assay will wonder around in India burning Canonical cash (and probably saving as much of his income as he can for future living expenses) until the bank accounts are dried up.

The idea that there is a future for Linux in "the cloud" is also a joke. "The Cloud" isn't about FOSS or Linux. It is about proprietary software houses reducing their application programming and maintenance costs by replacing the sales of MILLIONS of packages to individuals with the sale of MILLIONS of monthly license SUBSCRIPTIONS to access those applications which will reside on just a FEW Internet servers, accessed by browsers. AND, adding to their income, is the data lock-in which will occur when you PAY $x/Mb/month to store your data, letters, images, etc., on their servers, so that you don't have to worry about backing up, of course. Ignore the fact that those servers will end up in the country with the lowest costs, which are usually owned and run by tyrants, because their citizens are slaves and their work is slave labor. And you think your data will be safe there, when they have access to the servers? The companies which buy into the "Cloud" will experience a sharp decrease in initial IT costs but it will be soon followed by a large loss of customers as competitors buy their research, market plans and customer lists from the folks who have physical access to the Cloud servers.

The Cloud promoter's idea of a computer will be a cheap mini or an LCD display with an attached keyboard and mouse, no HD, no printer, no USB sticks and housing a BIOS chip that boots directly to a master cloud server where you will be asked to register to a could service or give the name and login password for the service you've already purchased, on a monthly subscription basis, just like a cell phone. In fact, that is what cell phones are becoming. Like cell phones, if you sign up for 2 or 3 years they'll give you the "computer" for free. Expect the initial costs to be around $50-70/month (plus monthly $/mb costs) for 3G connectivity. You won't be able to upload or download (where would you store it?) software, you won't have access to the source code, and "FOSS" software will be banned because it is "pirated" software. (You have the money to prove MS wrong in court?) The goal, to fight Internet viruses, pirates, of course, is to eliminate all servers which are not cloud servers owned by corporations.

Anyway, I digress.

Matt Assay has about three years to prove he can do anything to make Canonical/Ubuntu profitable. I am no prophet. I could be wrong. But all the pressure on the Ubuntu Boards is to make Ubuntu totally dependent on MONO, and they've already made that decree the law of Ubuntu land. Assay has only one way to go and that can only lead to a complete rewrite of GNOME to be a ,NET application, as de Icaza has dreamed, wished, planned and worked for. And when they begin to need more cash, or to redirect the cash they have to the Cloud/.NET GNOME goal, Kubuntu will be dropped. As Prescience would say, it's just economics.

[dibl]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

Two thoughts:

(a) I would NOT want the job of turning Canonical profitable in 6 years, much less 3. You've got a customer base totally trained to expect "free as in beer" -- at least the individual users. They're not gonna pay for anything.

(b) Regarding Mono/.NET/Kubuntu abandonment, KDE4 is running beautifully on Debian, and has been since it came out. I won't be a slave to Canonical's fortunes!

[lmilano]

Re: Matt Asay new COO for Canonical

@GG: I think for Mandriva it was both: bad management and bad business model. You can sell desktop Linux, but not to the end user IMHO, but rather to the hardware manufacturer (preinstalled), and to big corporations (corporate deployments).

@dibl: I agree. Most of the options to Kubuntu I see are niche systems with a small user base, and a small dev team. I'd rather run Debian if Kubuntu went down.