Thursday, July 29, 2010

Re: Red Hat, 16%. Canonical, 1%.

While some people are busy complaining that Canonical doesn't contribute as much as others, I'd like for everyone to take a step back and ask themselves, "what would Gunny say?"

I'll tell you what he'd say. He'd say,

Hmm, that's interesting. Do you know what makes me sad? YOU DO! Maybe we should chug on over to mamby-pamby land where maybe we can find some self-confidence for you, you jack-wagon! Want a tissue?

After he finished ripping someone a new one, he'd point out that in that very same GNOME Census slide deck, I am ranked #8 in the top contributors list and I haven't contributed much of anything to any of the core GNOME components in about 5 years.

Yeah, that's right you cry babies, I put all y'all to shame.

On a more serious note, for better or worse, we all knew what we were getting into when we decided to take up the Free Software baton and start running with it. This is just how Free Software works. Don't like it? Cry me a river.

tl;dr

Update: It seems my post here has been misinterpreted. Allow me to try and rectify this. I'm not pissed off at Greg for voicing his opinion. We all do it. I'm just making a mockery of the whole situation because I was itching to trollcat and because I wanted to pat myself on the back for being #8 on the individual contributors list in terms of commits (as meaningless as that is). Also because I was up late last night and saw that Geico commercial with R. Lee Ermey which just cracks me up every time I see it.

8 comments:

Dread Knight said...

Red Hat does a lot of contributions, but Fedora is just bad / weird overall.

Canonical put Linux on the map with Ubuntu, so no dissing for that.
Software Center rocks, indicators rock, notifications rock, launchpad rocks, PPAs rock, Ubuntu rocks, Unity will rock too.
No dissing Canonical please!

Alan said...

The funny thing about Gregs complaint is that while it may be accurate it isn't fair.

I can't see any dates mentioned on the census slides, so I can only assume that they are counting back from the day gnome started. In which case of course Red Hat has contributed much more than any other company - Red Hat has been in the business much longer. What you really want to see is a rolling average every year of who contributes. Maybe Canonical has contributed more per year in the last two years than red hat has in the same period.

Ohrer said...

Dark Knight, two things indicator applet is broken and sucks, and notifications can be improved.

I don't like Canonical or Shuttleworth, but they are making a good job spreading Linux and Free Software. Maybe the aren't contributing directly, but they are doing it in other ways.

I don't care about this wars, but it will get worst with Shuttleworth and all the Ubuntu fanboys flaming around.

Greg said...

Just for the sake of argument, if you were hired by Canonical what would Canonical's contribution % be?

Does it even matter?

Jeffrey Stedfast said...

it'd be 2%!

I actually wouldn't mind working for Red Hat or Canonical if I decide to continue with desktop linux hacking if I ever find myself looking for a new job.

Lately I've been thinking I might want to work on Android, but I don't feel like interviewing with Google *again* (last time I interviewed at Google, I was interviewing for a month and then Miguel asked me if I'd like a job working on MonoDevelop right there on the spot and I said yes).

-jmr said...

Oh Gawd Yes!!! I Love that commercial!! I like the Abe Lincoln one too, but Gunny as a Shrink makes me hurt *Every Single Time I See It*. (Coz I'm laughing so hard, ya jack-wagon.)

Want a tissue???

Crybaby...

I Love It!

Oh and good post on that other meaningless twaddle about who gives best to Gnome.

Gouyoku said...

Red Hat - 70790 commits

Canonical - 4487 commits



Red Hat - 3200 emplyees

Canonical - 350 employees



Red Hat - founded 1993 (we take GNOME - 1999)

Canonical - founded 2004



Red Hat - 2.01 (commits / employee / year)

Canonical - 2.13 (commits / employee / year)



So you tell me - who is giving more to GNOME ?

Martin Wildam said...

I tried Fedora last weekend again.

No go: One of my mobile sticks not working (can't get it to work - tried a few things), Continuously some processes crashing, after turning of WLAN, now way to get it back after turning on again - reboot required and so on and so forth. I did not just try the live-CD - I installed it.

I have some quirks in Ubuntu too but it works far better on my Dell Latitude E-5500.

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