This morning I read Ubuntu: “We’re not Linux” a blog post written by Joe Brockmeier about Ubuntu disassociating itself with the term Linux. Joe initial argument begins with the kernel name, the “Ubuntu” kernel. I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with Joe that the kernel is one thing whose name shouldn’t be branded too differently. I’d be fine with Ubuntu Linux kernel, but the Ubuntu kernel just doesn’t seem right.
My first guess was that Canonical was trying to brand Ubuntu to make it seem less scary. But the whole Linux community has already done this long ago – Linux is a lot less scary than when I began with Slackware ’96 (forget Yggdrasil which I think was the very first distro I touched). Linux is the kernel. We’ve screamed that from the tops of houses for a long time. The other collection of software and how they’re put together are the parts that make up the distribution (including branding). Branding shouldn’t extend itself to the kernel, at least not in place of calling the kernel Linux. Can you imagine Microsoft forking the FreeBSD kernel and calling it Windows 2012?
So I went looking on the Ubuntu web site to see if I could find the word Linux mentioned anywhere off the main pages, and I did on the devices page. Paltry mention of Linux. Ubuntu should be proud of its Linux heritage. It seems Mark Shuttleworth is, he praises Linux, Red Hat, GNU, Debian, and IBM, but even his language seems to reflect a differentiation between Ubuntu and Linux – when there is none. The Linux kernel is still the Linux kernel, modified is still the Linux kernel.
And this lead me off on a different tangent when I saw Marks’ challenge “There isn’t another company that I’m aware of which is definitively committed to the free software desktop.” Mark is of course referring to support for end users, but for a moment let’s look at this literally – the Gnome/KDE desktop.
Several arguments have already been made showing Red Hat contributes much more in terms of code to the Gnome project – a fact that Jono Bacon acknowledges in a blog post about Ubuntu and Red Hat Gnome contributions. Without the Gnome desktop and these code contributions there is no desktop. Of course we have KDE, we have Window Maker, Icewm and they myriad of other desktops (go Enlightenment). Yes, Canonical does an amazing job of creating community, there’s no question. But let’s recognize that community as a good part of the larger ecosystem that is the Linux community.
Joe’s correct – Linux is Linux. If Ubuntu and Canonical are going to help Linux, they should be promoting it, not hiding it in shame.
