A re-evaluation of Canonical

Off the Beat: Bruce Byfield's Blog

Like many people, I've always thought of Canonical as a FOSS company. Recently, though, I realize that I've been guilty of a category error. Unlike Red Hat, Canonical does not have an open source business model. Rather, like Novell or Google, it's a company with a mixed business model in which free software and proprietary practices mix as convenient.

Nothing's wrong with a mixed business model, no matter how disappointed it makes me. As much as I'm tempted, I can't even bring myself to call it immoral, although I would say it's not part of best practices.

But I do wonder about the mistake in my thinking. I spend hours every day tracking what's happening in the free and open source software community. So how could I miss something so simple and obvious?

In self-defense, I can only say that I'm not alone in my assumption. In fact, thousands make the same mistake. But why?

A failure of expectations

Probably the first reason for the mistake is that Canonical contributes what must be a good proportion of its resources to developing Ubuntu, which genuinely is a FOSS product. Many Ubuntu leaders are Canonical employees, and Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of both Canonical and Ubuntu, has the last word about Ubuntu's direction as much as he does about Canonical's.

Under these circumstances, it's not always clear in what capacity Shuttleworth (or any other Ubuntu contributors at Canonical) are speaking and acting. Are they speaking in as Ubuntu contributors, or Canonical employees?

In a cynical mood, I might wonder if the distinction isn't sometimes deliberately blurred. There's no denying that Canonical benefits hugely from being perceived as a FOSS-based company -- much more so than it suffers when members of the greater community complain about its apparently inconsistent behavior. The obvious comparison is between Canonical and Ubuntu and Google and Android, although Ubuntu remains far freer than Android.

Certainly, there's no denying that Canonical has often gone to some lengths to cultivate the FOSS community. For instance, if you look at the early entries in Mark Shuttleworth's blog, you'll find Shuttleworth talking as though he were a developer instead of a company CEO -- just another member of the community You'll find him expressing his opinion on one FOSS issue after another, as though he nothing else to think about.

I don't question for a moment that his interests are genuine, but his emphasis on them, rather than any aspect of business do suggest an effort to demonstrate that Canonical is good citizen of the community.

Nor, given Canonical's contributions to the desktop, was there ever much questioning of the image being projected. Dissenting voices exist, but, for the most part the community was content to take Canonical at its own self-proclaimed worth.

The community wanted to believe in the eccentric multi-millionaire who was apparently altruistically accelerating FOSS development. Most of its members ignored any early signs to the contrary, such as the slowness with which the Launchpad code was released.

So far as I know, Canonical never declared itself a FOSS company in so many words, but it was more than willing to be perceived as one. Quite possibly, in the early years of the company, the intent really was to be one.

However, in the last couple of years, the signs that proprietary practices were also part of Canonical have become impossible to ignore. Its websites -- at least in the top-level pages -- began to talk about Ubuntu as an operating system in its own right, and to eliminated any mention of GNU/Linux. Proprietary services, such as Ubuntu One, and a Software Center with non-free items, started to become standards parts of Ubuntu.

For complex reasons, Canonical began to prefer in-house projects it could dominate (like Unity), rather than working with other existing FOSS projects (like GNOME). Canonical began to be interested in contributors' agreements that allowed it to relicense code contributions however it wanted. Instead of trying to improve relations with other projects, it began to look for contributors for its projects.

Such changes may reflect the growing urgency to make Canonical profitable. But at each one, the FOSS community -- and I am no exception -- has screamed betrayal. However, perhaps what we should have been doing is re-evaluating our original perceptions.

The end of the honeymoon

Looking back, I realize that, in looking askance at Canonical, what I and almost everyone else have been doing is reacting to our own expectations as much as what anyone at Canonical has said or done. When we have condemned Canonical hypocritical, we have been voicing frustrations over our unfulfilled expectations as much as objecting to inconsistent behavior.

To state the obvious, Canonical does not exist to meet our expectations. Like any other company, it exists to make a profit.

Yes, Canonical falls short of our hopes and ideals. Perhaps, though, we should stop waiting for Canonical and Ubuntu to lead us into the promised land of universal acceptance, and regard it as just another company using FOSS for its own purposes. At times, it will be an ally of the community. At other times, it will do what's best for it alone.

Such an attitude may not be as much fun as unchecked outrage. But it would definitely be much fairer.

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