Ubuntu One's Demise a Bad Omen? Alternative?

[dave2001]

I certainly hope it's not, I love Ubuntu as a distro (as long as I can put KDE on it). It does worry me a bit though... the whole "ubuntu edge" phone thing has been a bit of a flop. Also now that Ubuntu Touch for mobile devices is out, the bootloaders for smartphones are becoming increasingly difficult to unlock on regular consumer versions.

There are a lot of cloud storage options out there. If anyone is looking for something to replace Ubuntu One, I can recommend the no-cost Dropbox application:

https://db.tt/jSD2Lgq --Shameless plug, if you use this link to sign up I get a little bit more storage on my own account. However, If I'm not mistaken, anyone signing up through a "refer a friend" link like the one above also gives the new account you create a bit a more storage than you'd start with otherwise.

I like Dropbox because it's multi-platform, runs on Linux, Windows, MacOSX, Android. You can also access your account and files on a cloud server through any internet browser.

Anyway back to the real topic... does the shutdown of Ubuntu One signal the beginning of the end for canonical and Ubuntu? Combined with the recent loss of Kubuntu as an "official" flavor of Ubuntu, I'm a bit worried things might be going downhill for Canonical and Ubuntu. Even after saying all of that, I have been very impressed with the 13.10 release of Kubuntu. I think it's one best versions of Kubuntu (and Ubuntu of course) to come out in quite a while.

What do some of you use besides Ubuntu One for cloud storage?

[GreyGeek]

Following Snowhog's recommendation I moved to MEGA. https://mega.co.nz
45GB for free. But, more important, it's browser run and when setting up your account MEGA is very particular about your password and the 2048 byte RSA key that you generate with it.
The key is on your end. Your files are encrypted at your end when you post them and decrypted at your end when you download them.

This site arose because of Mega kim.com's problems with the raid on his home a couple years ago. He's sued the New Zealand government:
http://www.wired.com/2013/09/dotcom-lawsuit/

The New Zealand government appealed a ruling last year that granted Dotcom the right to sue, but lost last March. Court documents filed in the High Court earlier this year, but not made public until this week, lay out Dotcom’s case that the police were excessively invasive and aggressive in conducting the raid, and used NSA-like spy systems to place him under covert surveillance.
“The case will show how the Five-Eyes spy cloud, X-Keyscore and PRISM were utilized in our copyright case,” Dotcom tells WIRED. “Remember, I’m not a terrorist.”
Dotcom’s mansion was illegally raided on January 20, 2012 by heavily armed police officers from the elite Special Tactics Group and Armed Offenders Squad, arriving in helicopters and vans. Some of the officers wore uniforms; others were dressed in civilian clothes without any police insignia or similar identification.

The US used NSA stuff in support of Hollywood's claim that they lost mega millions because of downloads of copyrighted films. That claim of loss has been repeated hundreds of times by Hollywood to justify their abuse of citizens rights, and has been refuted by analysis of actual losses.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...per-year.shtml
http://www.cato.org/blog/how-copyrig...s-con-congress

As far as Ubuntu's survivability I've posted several times that dropping support for several of its step-children, moving the 12.04 Ubuntui release to a five year LTS, and dropping GNOME to focus on Unity and the small form factor market (tablets and smartphones) indicated to me that Shuttlesworth has given Canonical just five year, till around April of 2017, to make a profit/dent in the smartphone market. I believe he sees the PC market as lost because of 1) Microsoft's continued hegemony, and 2) the decline in PC sales as consumers move to Smartphones and tablets. So far, two years out, Ubuntu has not made a significant dent in the smartphone or tablet market, but they plan to release "Ubuntu Touch" on a smartphone sometime this fall.

Tablets running Ubuntu will hit the market ‘simultaneously’ with the first Ubuntu smartphones, Mark Shuttleworth has said.
The former CEO of Canonical explained that early discussions with mobile networks through the Carrier Advisory Group had led his company to ‘push back’ on their original plans for the phone in order to factor in development of a tablet interface — a move that in effect brought plans for it forward.
The current Ubuntu 14.04 development cycle has been heavily focused on bringing the tablet spec up-to-spec for a v1.0 release this April, while work on honing the Mir display server to handle the adaptive convergent needs of larger screens has also progressed at speed.
But hearing that devices will hit the market in the latter half of this year is a surprise. Speaking to Steve Costello for MWL TV, Shuttleworth stated:

“[Tablets] will arrive pretty much simultaneously with phones. Q3, middle of this year we’ll see both phones and tablets running Ubuntu on the market.”

That will give Shuttlesworth three years to reverse the cash flow at Canonical and start generating more profits than losses. Smartphones and tablets are the only market where Microsoft hasn't been able to create a hegemony, and is the only one where Shuttlesworth has even a ghost of a chance of breaking in. Android controls that market, followed closely by Apple. I don't know what percentage of market share that Shuttlesworth needs to turn a profit for Canonical, but I'll bet that he does, and if he doesn't meet it Canonical will be history by April 2017, if not sooner. But, even if he does turn Canonical around in the tablet and smartphone market that doesn't mean he will continue to allow bleeding of cash in the PC market, from which he makes little, if any, money. The fact that he is shuttering UbuntuOne implies that even it was not turning a profit and cost more to operate than the revenues it generated. So, personally, my guesstimate for Canonical's survival is about one chance out of 100. That is why I posted a year or so ago my opinion that sooner or later, hopefully sooner, Kubuntu will be forced to switch to Debian as their base. If Canonical continues to move Ubuntu away from the PC architecture, or drops it entirely, it will be come to laborious for Kubuntu developers to continue trying to twist the Ubuntu base around to so that KDE will fit on it.

[dequire]

What do some of you use besides Ubuntu One for cloud storage?

I used UbuntuOne exclusively. I'm in the process of moving to OwnCloud. IMHO there's nothing else out there like it. I'm paying $39.00 (US) to have it hosted. In Germany. I don't mind paying for guaranteed security.

I like Dropbox because it's multi-platform, runs on Linux, Windows, MacOSX, Android. You can also access your account and files on a cloud server through any internet browser.

Ditto for OwnCloud. It also syncs calendars, contacts, and bookmarks, thereby allowing me to get away from my dependence on google as well. LOTS of features (http://owncloud.org/six/). You can host yourself if you want, which most people do.
It's a shame about UbuntuOne. As for me, I do not trust free storage solutions hosted in the US. As for Canonical, they'll be just fine. As will Kubuntu.

[SteveRiley]

the whole "ubuntu edge" phone thing has been a bit of a flop

Shuttleworth doesn't understand market saturation. Android and iThing have got the market locked up. There's no room for anything else. Hell, even Microsoft is now no longer charging license fees for Windows on devices with screens less than nine inches and is building Android phones.

Also now that Ubuntu Touch for mobile devices is out, the bootloaders for smartphones are becoming increasingly difficult to unlock on regular consumer versions.

They've always been a challenging to various degrees. The arrival of Ubuntu Touch hasn't changed this.

There are a lot of cloud storage options out there. If anyone is looking for something to replace Ubuntu One, I can recommend the no-cost Dropbox application

I use Dropbox, but I don't trust it at all. It's only out sure laziness that I haven't got my OwnCloud fully functional yet.

Anyway back to the real topic... does the shutdown of Ubuntu One signal the beginning of the end for canonical and Ubuntu?

No. I think it's a good move. More than anything else right now, Canonical needs to focus on a few core projects to keep the business alive. Ubuntu One was a distraction. Getting rid of it was a sound business decision.

Combined with the recent loss of Kubuntu as an "official" flavor of Ubuntu

There was no loss. Ubuntu has always had recognized flavors, of which Kubuntu was one. Kubuntu, alone among the flavors, enjoyed a higher status: one Canonical employee was tasked with managing the distribution. No other flavor received that kind of attention. The change was that Canonical decided to remove this additional status, and equalize Kubuntu with the other flavors. Again, a reasonable business decision. Even though it created a not insignificant amount of angst among our community.