The Canonical/Ubuntu Business Cult


Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 01:09:21 +0200
From: Philippe Landau
To: Ubuntu Help and User Discussions <ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com>

Subject: Re: World Domination?


There is only one well defined decision making power
in Ubuntu: Mark Shuttleworth decides.
He documents this rather well on the main site:
http://ubuntu.com/community/processes/governance
"Mark Shuttleworth, as SABDFL, plays a happily undemocratic role".
SABDFL meaning "Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator For Life".

And here is how you can become a member
of the Canonical/Ubuntu business cult:

http://ubuntu.com/community/processes/newmember
"Member and Maintainer Appointment

This document describes the current official process for the appointment
of new activists, members, maintainers in the Ubuntu community.
Membership in the Ubuntu community recognises participants for a variety
of contributions, from code to translations and organisational skills.

There are several different levels at which individuals can become
involved in the Ubuntu community. Each of these levels confers certain
rights and responsibilities. These levels include:

Ubuntites (Ubuntu Activists)
An activist is a person in the Ubuntu community who has committed to
observe the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. Ubuntites are self nominated and
confirmed. All you need to do to become an Ubuntite is sign the Ubuntu
Code of Conduct (digitally or in paper version), publish that signature
or send it to Benjamin Mako Hill [...]"

http://ubuntu.com/community/conduct
"knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole."
-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu"
"nobody is expected to be perfect in the Ubuntu community
(except of course the SABDFL)."

Dominance



To: Ubuntu Help and User Discussions <ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com>
Subject: Re: World Domination?

>>- A single united goal of inter-project and inter-distribution
>>collaboration and Total World Domination.
>>* We aim to be a commercial *and* community project

> Are you serious?
> We are currently in a situation where there is
> near total world dominance and I do not like it.
> That is why I have had a MS free computer for a couple of years now.
>
> Surely you mean a world where everyone has a choice.
>
> If you or Ubuntu ever threaten to become 'totally world dominant'
> Then you will be the enemy and I shall do
> all I can to cut you back to a reasonable size.
>
> Sincerely
>
> John Montgomery

Good to hear you, John.

They are playing with these words,
making it look like it's all just jokes,
but you just have to look at the power structure
of Canonical/Ubuntu to know that they don't shell out
20 million dollars in 2 years just for a joke.

Software has become a dominant factor in our world
and while trying to replace Windows seems great,
few are waking up to the fact that
we are being steered towards new monopolies.

Mark Shuttleworth is calling it the "battle for the desktop".
And those not laughing in the chorus and swallowing
"humanity towards others" sugar coating, while the general
directs his troops and our computers, are excommunicated.

To Dominate the Desktop


To: Ubuntu Help and User Discussions <ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com>
Subject: Re: World Domination?

there definitely is a power struggle going on.
a rush for future dominance in a crucial market about to emerge.
dominate the desktop and you dominate
the media and communications of the future.
that is where the power lies.
fascism is based on controlling communication and propaganda.
it was always funded and driven by corporations like IBM.

> Philippe, as somebody in the thread said, you are excommunicating yourself.
a community welcomes critical views.
a cult excommunicates people articulating them.

> May be you are right, maybe it is just sugar coating, but it doesn't
> have to be there for us to choose Ubuntu and we don't have to eat it if
> it is given to us. This is the basic idea, to have a choice ...
we are beginning to have a choice.
if we are careful, we will have one in the future too.

> ... you could start your own distro and talk about the reasons for it
> being true choice, no frills, no dogmas. It wouldn't take a long time
> for somebody coming up with similar criticisms you are posting here.
the criticism becomes pointed not because Ubuntu is full of
bugs and fundamental design errors,
but because of the power structure driving it
and the attitude it imposes on a community
increasingly being shaped into a cult.

Preparing the Handover from Microsoft to Ubuntu


Subject: loving software religions, power wars
(Re: After years at the top.... the mighty have fallen.
Newsgroups: gmane.linux.mandrake.expert
Date: 2005-04-11 14:39:06 GMT

Greg Meyer wrote:
> On Monday 11 April 2005 02:45 am, James Sparenberg wrote:
>> Ubuntu Linux (the one without a graphical install or user
>> friendly tools .... but really cool wallpaper.) has overtaken us as
>> the most often requested (information wise) distro at distro watch.
> Well, there has been a well orchestrated effort to have that happen,
> and Ladislav reports on that in the Distrowatch weekly.
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20050404#1
"Of course, there have been concerted efforts by several Ubuntu user
communities around the world to drive their favourite distribution to
the top as fast as possible"

> Every article it seems points out how fast it is moving up
> the DW rankings and contains a link to the page, Lad mentions that
> many groups are making a coordinated effort to increase page hits.
> I bet if you analyze the ip addresses in his logs, you
> will see a lot of the same addresses coming back every day.
http://interviews.slashdot.org/interviews/05/04/04/1859255.shtml
Mark Shuttleworth's interview explains Mark's often used alias:
SABDFL "Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator For Life".
His corporation, "Canonical Inc." is organising Ubuntu like a cult
(canon is the dogma of the catholic church/pope, the "right" way),
everyone is judged by how adoring of Ubuntu he/she is.
A typical developer in their pay will say
"I'm one of the universe maintainers (Masters of the Universe,
or MOTU)." without even thinking of irony.
And many are working without pay for months, for the love of
a community that solely exists to promote one product.
On the mailinglists, anyone not apologising for mentioning
things that don't work is ostracised attacked and officially ignored.
Of course in the canon Ubuntu means "humanity towards others".
But these slogans are worth as much as Soros or Gates "philanthropy"
when it comes to Mark's "battle for the future of the desktop."
I have no doubt that he means it when throwing 20 million dollars
for two years to buy everyone off.

> If you ask me, Ubuntu is all hype. They did a nice job cleaning up
> Debian Sid but with the amount of money behind it, it really isn't that big
> of a feat. The real accomplishment is the torrent of positive PR
> that they have been able to garner. The Net is flooded with Ubuntu articles.
>
> I've tried it and in reality, it is nothing special
> and I find it harder to use than Mandrake
> because of the lack of administrative tools.
> Plus it is GNOME based (yes, I know about Kubuntu)
> and I am not a very big GNOME fan, although I do load that
> once in a while to see what all the fuss is about.
Ubuntu is advertised as "it just works" but is not meant to be ready
until April 2006. The much propagandised releases now are tactically
important to catch as big a market segment as possible until then.
Mark Shuttleworth is highly connected in the same circles where
Gates too holds his regular gatherings with world leaders.

Kind regards Philippe

--

http://helping.net/p2p/

Totalitarian Aspects of Ubuntu


From a private exchange following:
Subject: Re: Semantics and Ubuntu

A "Ubuntite" wrote publicly on the list without subsequent protests:
>>> A benevolent dictator provides the most stable form of government,
>>> in theory. Obviously the biggest problems are in maintaining
>>> both their benevolence and their dictatorship.
to which i commented in private:
>> we never stop learning, right ? :-)
> This statement stunned me, especially, if I recall correctly,
> it came from the UK. I would think that obedience
> to the wishes of it's citizens and transparency in operation
> would be desired above stability in government.
> Zimbabwe seems to have a very stable government
> as did the USSR under Stalin.
they are ready again in every country ...
and most around us absolutely don't want to see/hear it.
besides, the UK rulers play an important part in the
engineering and financing of fascism since its early beginnings.

>> if it was that easy Shuttleworth wouldn't have spent
>> 20 million dollars just to get his distribution started.
> I agree and I really do feel that there is a hidden agenda here.
>
> I have been doing some surfing for Ubuhtu items
> (The philosophy not the distribution).
> There is an essay here which seems to categorize it
> as more a religion than philosophy.
> http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Afri/AfriLouw.htm
this is very interesting,
although i feel it is trying to put a specific spin on it.
there seem to be two kinds of Ubuntu:

> Traditional African democracy operates in the form of
> (sometimes extremely lengthy) discussions [...]
> every person gets an equal chance to speak up
> until some kind of an agreement,
> consensus or group cohesion is reached.
which does not appear to be what Canonical/Ubuntu is trying to do,
and:

> "totalitarian communalism":
> Group psychology, though parochially and narrowly based...,
> nonetheless pretends universality. This mentality,
> this psychology is stronger on belief than on reason;
> on sameness than on difference. Discursive rationality
> is overwhelmed by emotional identity,
> by the obsession to identify with and by the longing to conform to.
> To agree is more important than to disagree;
> conformity is cherished more than innovation.
> Tradition is venerated, continuity revered, change feared and
> difference shunned.
> Heresies [...] are not tolerated in such communities.
which for me pretty much describes what they are
showing on the list.

> My feeling of this is that it is a ready made platform
> on which to base a cult.
> Perhaps the real target of Shuttleworth is Linus Torvalds.
> The aim - SABDFL of all of Linux.

Linus is portrayed in the mass media as a hero,
there are even movies glorifying him as a revolutionary.
But in reality he is very well integrated in the establishment.
The same establishment that may be aiming for the
replacement of Microsoft Windows by Canonical Ubuntu.
You may not have seen my email to the Mandrake mailinglist,
where i point to the fact that Mark Shuttleworth
is well connected in the same circles where
Bill Gates holds his regular meetings with world leaders.
http://archives.mandrivalinux.com/expert/2005-04/msg00514.php