Canonical Blog

Congratulations to Google on the open sourcing of Google Chrome OS

When Chrome OS was announced in June we saw this as a positive development, bringing choice to the consumer. We considered how open source development is as much about co-operation as it is about competition. Google have made it clear that they are keen to develop Chrome OS openly and we have had the pleasure of hosting a number of the Google team at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Dallas over the last few days where we have been able to see that openness in action.

In the interest of transparency, we should declare that Canonical is contributing engineering to Google under contract.  In our discussions, Sundar Pichai and Linus Upson made it clear that they want , wherever feasible,  to build on existing components and tools from the open source community without unnecessary re-invention.   This clear focus should benefit a wide variety of existing projects and we welcome it.

On the consumer side, people will ask about the positioning of Chrome OS and Ubuntu. While the two operating systems share some core components, Google Chrome OS will provide a very different experience to Ubuntu.  Ubuntu will continue to be a general purpose OS running both web and native applications such as OpenOffice and will not require specialised hardware.

So 2010 looks set to be a very exciting year. In addition to delivering Ubuntu experiences with both existing and new OEM partners, we will be working with Google on Chrome OS based devices.

Chris Kenyon  VP of OEM Services, Canonical

Gavin Clark at the Register recently reported that only 10% of people upgrading to 9.10 had a satisfactory experience. Serdar Yegalup at Information Week then reported that 40% of people upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10 had issues that they considered unfixable. Both of these conclusion were based on a poll on the Ubuntu support forums.

Serdar had the wisdom to point out that the poll is self-selecting (but still reported it). However, and I write this so you heard it here first, I don’t think we will have to wait long for a Microsoft shill to report his figure as fact and reference Information Week as evidence.

So let’s look at this poll. While we don’t have exact figures it is reasonable to assume that hundreds of thousands of people upgraded to 9.10 in the last few days. The quoted poll has a sample of 2158.

The poll is also on a support forum.

I upgraded to 9.10 a while ago. Flawlessly. So I saw little need to go tell a forum. This is where people go when they have problems. Gavin and Serdar were shocked to find people with support issues on a support forum. I have no doubt the help line at Microsoft has taken a lot of calls recently, but I would not extrapolate from that a large percentage of Windows users are having upgrade problems.

Tellingly and almost the last word on this are the polls from our previous releases, none of which were considered or reported as upgrade disasters:

Jaunty Poll

Intrepid Poll `

Hardy Poll

Gutsy Poll

A very useful summary of these findings by Nicholas Ipsen is here. I am linking to these polls not because I want to provide evidence that the Karmic upgrade experience is or was good or bad, there are other more qualified to comment on that, but that there is nothing new here.

All this of course is of little consolation if you are affected by an issue. Which is why we have the forums and Launchpad so that we can gather data, isolate the issues and fix them if they are an issue with Ubuntu or alert someone who can if they are not. We do this all the time with every release and we are doing it with Ubuntu 9.10.

So what we seem to have here is a poll that has existed for some 5 releases being ‘discovered’ and the data used to support a pre-disposed position. As we operate in the open and publish feedback good and bad, this is the risk we take I guess. Gavin and Serdar had some broader points that we could engage on regarding the readiness or otherwise of Linux for mainstream computing. But to base or support their arguments on this poll does little to illuminate and a lot to obfuscate.

Gerry Carr

Head of platform marketing, Canonical

We are hosting a couple of events aimed at large businesses in New York City and London in over the coming weeks. NYC is next Monday and there are still (a few) slots left. Registration is free and it should be a great evening.

The aim is to give an overview of our cloud strategy and introduce businesses to the private cloud and to Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud in particular. Al Gillen of IDC has been kind enough to do the introductory overview. Simon Wardley and John Willis, Canonical’s cloud gurus will give their opinions and, for me, the highlight of the night will be the live demo conducted by Nick Barcet the Ubuntu Server product manager

We have a fantastic audience registered already but if you are free next Monday 26th and working at a business interested in exploring cloud please do join us.

The London event takes place on November 10th in 195 Picadilly. Similar agenda but we are delighted to have James Governor of Redmonk do the introduction. We hope we can accommodate you at that event if you are in the London area.

Gerry Carr, Canonical

The ShipIt program has been at the core of the Ubuntu project since its inception. The goal was to make sure that there are no restrictions, as far as was possible, to people having access to Ubuntu. In the last five years we have shipped millions of CDs and seen Ubuntu’s popularity and reach grow in ways that would be impossible without ShipIt.

And that aim continues. We need to make Ubuntu available to as many people who need it, particularly those for whom the download options are limited. The goal has not been to supply a CD to every Ubuntu user of every version of Ubuntu.  Remember, one of the coolest things about Ubuntu is the way you can upgrade from one version of Ubuntu to another – without the need for a CD!

While these CDs are often referred to as “free CDs”, they are of course not free of cost to Canonical.  We want to continue this programme, but Ubuntu’s growth means that some changes are necessary. Therefore we are adjusting how we handle CD requests to try to find the right balance between availability of CDs and the continued viability of the ShipIt programme.

We will continue to supply CDs to LoCo teams and Ubuntu members.  And we hope to make CDs available to everyone who is just discovering Ubuntu.   And we continue to search for additional ways to make Ubuntu and Ubuntu materials available to everyone. But we are limiting shipments to people that we think have alternative paths of getting Ubuntu.  For instance,

* you can upgrade to the new release without a CD
* you can download your own CD for free
* you will be able to download the CD wallet artwork
* becoming an Ubuntu member by contributing to Ubuntu, and thereby becoming eligible for more CDs
* And finally, you can purchase CDs.

We will change the language on the ShipIt site to make it clearer what we are doing. We hope that you support this effort and realise that the intent is to continue to make Ubuntu available on CD to everyone who needs it.

Jane Silber, Canonical

The Ubuntu One beta is going very well. We have appreciated every bug, IRC message, Launchpad Answers question, and Ubuntu Forums post about the service since the beta launch in early May. This community feedback has been extremely important to the decisions we make and have made in developing the service.

With the release of the Ubuntu 9.10 Beta last week which features Ubuntu One as a default option, we thought we’d share a few more recent updates.

More storage
Ubuntu One offers two subscription plan options: 2 free GB for everyone’s essential storage needs and a $10 USD plan with more capacity. We’re happy to announce that we have increased the size of the paid plan from 10 GB to an incredible 50 GB. Ubuntu One paid subscribers can now backup, sync, and share more of their music, photos, and movies.

Expanded services
Ubuntu One started with files and folders. Now we’re expanding the service to synchronize more desktop applications that people use each day. In Ubuntu 9.10, Ubuntu One will backup and synchronize Tomboy notes, Firefox bookmarks, and Evolution contacts.

Easy setup
Ubuntu 9.10 is the first Ubuntu release with Ubuntu One pre-installed. It now only takes a few clicks to enable automatic file synchronization for your Ubuntu computer or computers.

Subscribe now to try out all of these features and more.

Matt Griffin, Product Manager for Ubuntu One

The inaugural Ubuntu Hardware Summit in Taipei came to an end on Tuesday evening with over 170 delegates in attendance. This was the first time a major Linux OSV has run this type of event in Taiwan, generating real excitement in the press beforehand (some sample coverage for those who read Chinese).

The show was aimed at engineers and technical teams within ODMs in Taiwan. This is part of our programme to improve Linux skills and familiarity in Taiwan to make it easier for manufacturers to ship Linux. Content included detailing the Ubuntu desktop roadmap, kernel device driver development, networking in Ubuntu and working with the Linux kernel community.

Throughout the one-day summit, delegates were updated on all the latest news from Canonical and given first-hand experience working with Ubuntu. Guest speakers were flown in from Europe and the USA, presenting keynote speeches and more in-depth break-out sessions.

The Ubuntu Hardware Summit will be the first of a series. We were delighted to have members of so many leading ODMs and OEMs in attendance as well as members of the local Debian community. Once the details are fixed, we will post notice of the next event on this blog.

John Bernard – OEM Marketing Manager, Canonical

I’m very happy to announce that today we open-sourced Launchpad. This is the fulfilment of a commitment made a year ago, as well as an experiment in involving the community in the development of a hosted service.

Launchpad has long provided the Ubuntu operating system with an edge up on the competition, giving Ubuntu developers a unified platform for tracking code changes and bug reports in upstream software projects, and giving them convenient ways to package those upstreams for inclusion in Ubuntu. Now Launchpad itself is part of that same ecosystem.

But this is more than just a release of code. Launchpad’s strength is in cross-developer and cross-project communication, including communication even with projects hosted elsewhere (see the code imports and multi-project bugs features). On top of that, Launchpad has rich APIs — you don’t have to talk to Launchpad only through its web user interface, you can write programs to talk to it too. The combination of these two things means that opening up Launchpad gives the free software world the beginnings of an open, programmatic interface to its own infrastructure. I’m very curious to see what a software-savvy user community can do with that.

Going open source also positions Launchpad to be extremely responsive as a hosted platform. New Launchpad features already deploy quickly via the continuous beta-testing system, and a new version of Launchpad is rolled out every month. This regular release schedule ensures that new features reach users while still fresh in the developers’ minds, so that feedback is as effective as possible. Open sourcing Launchpad makes that rapid feedback cycle even more effective: now users can send in changes to the code itself, knowing that what they’re working with is very close to what’s running on the site.

Canonical will continue to run the Launchpad servers, taking care of production and deployment issues; opening up the code doesn’t mean burdening the users with all of that stuff. At the same time, we’ll institute processes to shepherd community-contributed code into the system, so that people who have ideas for how to improve Launchpad can quickly turn these ideas into reality. That’s going to involve some give-and-take — no development community ever has 100% agreement on what direction the codebase should go in, and in this case we have the added complication of running the hosted service at the same time. But I think that’ll work out organically. By this point, Launchpad has a pretty clear identity: it’s the platform that emphasizes cross-project and cross-developer information sharing — a social network with a purpose. We’re looking for improvements that increase the ease with which information (code, bug reports, design documents, etc.) moves between people and projects, and that’s probably what Launchpad’s users are looking for as well.

If you want to join that community, find us in the #launchpad-dev IRC channel at irc.freenode.net, or visit dev.launchpad.net. See you there!

Karl Fogel

With numerous new government backed Open Source initiatives kicking off in The Netherlands, we’ve decided to lead the way and ensure that Ubuntu training is widely available. Having training locations in every major Dutch city, AT Computing and Ictivity Training will provide authorised Ubuntu training from this summer. The first Ubuntu Certified Professional class is scheduled to commence in July; for additional dates or inquiries about closed sessions, the following 3 addresses are your key: www.ubuntu.com/training; www.atcomputing.nl.; http://www.ictivitytraining.nl/.

UK based Skills Matter will also offer Ubuntu courses from July 2009. With a strong grass roots community and an industry-wide reputation for bringing the latest in open source technology courses to its customers, Ubuntu has all the ingredients to be the next success story. More about the company and available courses can be found here: www.skillsmatter.com

Instructors from all partners will be attending the Canonical run Train The Trainer event at the end of June.

Computex starts on June 2 in Taipei and, as every year, sees the world’s PC industry come together to discuss the development of the next generation of notebooks, netbooks and soon-to-be-released products. Canonical has been attending for the last three years and now, if the announcements are any indication, is very much at the centre of things.

We will be demonstrating the Moblin v2 version of the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR), which is based on the current beta code from Intel. We are also announcing our intention to develop a version based on the full release of Moblin v2, which we expect will be available very shortly.

Screen grab of Ubuntu Moblin Remix (beta technology; not released)

The Intel collaboration does not stop there. We are also announcing the availability of UNR, tuned specifically for the new Intel classmate PC. The new classmate PCs feature swivel-screens that can be laid flat like tablets. They also support touch and automatically adjust for portrait and landscape depending on how the child orientates the PC. UNR supports all these features and is available as a pre-install option immediately, by contract with Canonical.

Our work with Intel is reasonably well-known so it is an encouraging sign of growth to be included in a number of other announcements from major players in the industry. We will announce the results of collaborative work with SanDisk on its new solid state drives. Our engineering teams have worked to optimise the Ubuntu experience on these drives, which are a key component in the netbook space and increasingly the notebook space too. The seek times we have seen are very impressive compared with the most common hard disk drives found on most notebooks today.

Real Networks is announcing the availability of its Real Player for Mobile Devices for Ubuntu. This media player and codec pack is available to original equipment manufacturers planning to ship Ubuntu on any machine type. A marquee name media player shows the progress Ubuntu has made towards becoming a mainstream choice. There are no plans currently to make this available for consumer purchase.

So, Computex is going to be fun. Our Taiwanese office (based in the rather-tall Taipei 101 building)  continues to grow as do our activities on the island and, indeed, in the People’s Republic of China. It’s going to be a busy show but one that I think will see more progress towards Ubuntu becoming the open platform of choice for industry and consumers alike.

Gerry Carr -  Head of Platform Marketing

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) has recently (April 1^st) updated its LPIC1 objectives significantly to come in line with advancements made over the past four years. This provides Canonical with the opportunity to readdress the Ubuntu Certified Professional (UCP) certification. As such, new UCP certification objectives have been finalised and the two courses, Ubuntu Professional courses 1 and 2, which prepare students to achieve the certification, are being condensed from two five-day courses to one five-day course. The five-day course will focus solely on the Ubuntu elements of the certification and preparation for the Ubuntu 199 exam.

UCP is designed for junior-to-intermediate-level system administrators working in organisations that are about to deploy, or have already deployed, Ubuntu desktops and servers in the office. The condensed (and focused) course will further assist students in quickly acquiring the skills they need to deploy Ubuntu in a corporate environment.

Ubuntu Training Partners will offer classroom-based training for this course from May 2009. An Elearning version of the course will be available from June. If you have been waiting for the right opportunity to get your staff trained on Ubuntu, this is it! For more detailed information about both courses, check out the Ubuntu Training site.