FOLLOW-UP: General Disillusionment with Ubuntu

Last week, I commented on how many Linux users are turned off by Canonical's seemingly unilateral decisions with regard to the development Ubuntu, the latest (at that time) example of which has been the decision to ship the Unity DE as the default even in the desktop edition, even though it's clear that even the standard netbook version of Unity needs a lot of work. Well, a lot of news outlets have reported that Canonical is going even further with this and that it wants to completely ditch the X/11 Windowing System.
Wow. That's a pretty bold move. Then again, it really does explain the decision to ship Unity, as Canonical probably wants to use that as a testbed for a totally new desktop environment built on the relatively new Wayland system.
So what do I think about this? Well, now I don't oppose the move to Unity as much because now I know it's just part of a bigger plan. That said, I'm not an expert by any means on windowing systems or X/11, but I'm inclined to believe the numerous statements that the reason for this switch is because X/11, dating from the 1980s, isn't getting any more streamlined and it's just getting more bloated with newer versions of desktop environments. Given that, I totally understand and do agree with the switch to Wayland, especially if it is going to be a long-term shift with support for legacy X/11 applications for a while as well. At the same time, I hope that Canonical really means it when they say that the transition to Wayland will be a much longer-term process.
Given all this, I wonder what will happen to Linux Mint and other derivatives of Ubuntu after this. In fact, now that we know that Canonical's future plan is to ship Unity or an evolution of it based on Wayland as the default environment in Ubuntu, what will happen to the official derivatives, like Kubuntu and Xubuntu? Will Canonical actually put effort into helping migrate KDE and Xfce onto Wayland from X/11, or will they just be left out to rot? I'm anxious to see what comes of all this in the coming years.
(UPDATE: The lead developer of Linux Mint has said that Linux Mint will neither adopt Unity nor Wayland in the foreseeable future, though it will remain compatible with Ubuntu. That said, it is also not likely to adopt GNOME Shell; therefore, it will remain essentially in its current state.)

Red Hat: The New Big Monopoly?

Given the presence of Microsoft and Apple, of course Red Hat can't be a monopoly (at least in the desktop market). However, there have been a slew of reports of Oracle rebranding RHEL as Oracle Linux a.k.a. "Unbreakable Linux". This article (Brian Proffitt, ITworld) discusses how that and Amazon Linux AMI (Amazon's Linux distribution built for its own cloud servers) are proof that companies are "stealing" Linux, as Oracle and Amazon are bundling their hardware with their own Linux distributions.
First, I think it's misleading (at best) to say these companies are "stealing" Linux. How is what they are doing any different from what Canonical, Novell, and Red Hat do to Linux? Are they also "stealing" Linux to make their own distribution? I feel like this is the point of free software — allowing anyone to build customized versions of software to fit their own needs; good for Oracle and Amazon for taking full advantage of the benefits of Linux and free software. I don't think Oracle and Amazon are going to prevent loading other Linux distributions; it's just that the bundled distribution will be Oracle Linux or Amazon Linux AMI, as opposed to Microsoft Windows or Ubuntu. Also, isn't this what was supposed to happen to Android — phone makers customizing Android to suit their phones' needs? Isn't this what is happening, at any rate? Saying these companies are "stealing" Linux to suit their needs just seems a bit silly to me.
The bigger problem I have, though, is that both Oracle Linux and Amazon Linux are based off of RHEL. I think it's great that Red Hat has become so successful and so widespread, but this incredible adoption rate worries me at the same time because it could give Red Hat a monopoly over the market similar to the one Microsoft currently has over the desktop market (and I fear similar effects stemming from this). Come on, Canonical and Novell. (I am fully aware that it's easy for me to say this from the comfort of my keyboard.) Learn from Red Hat and give Red Hat some competition. People will have more choice regarding the back-end, and everyone wins from choice and competition.

Does Canonical do Enough for Linux?

Please feel free to have your say on this in the comments section. You don't have to read my opinion on it, but if you choose to do so, read on. I got this topic from this (Sam Varghese, IT Wire (note that the article is split into 2 pages)) article.
I am of the opinion that Canonical does in fact do a lot for Linux, and that this should be appreciated more. Sure, its contributions are not of the technical sort; I have seen the statistic before that Canonical only contributes to 1% of GNOME's development (despite Ubuntu being very much a GNOME-centric distribution; the primary contributors are Red Hat, Novell, and volunteers). The statistics are similar with regard to contributions to the Linux kernel.
But really, the whole argument is undermined by the very first sentence itself:

Ask anyone which GNU/Linux distribution one should recommend to would-be users and the answer is generally always one word: Ubuntu.

They have made Ubuntu the most popular Linux distribution among newbies and have introduced Linux to the masses. Isn't that enough?

Why Open-Source is not Socialism

I was thinking of writing something on this for a few days, but I got lazy. Then, I saw this (Glyn Moody, The H Open) article, and it gave me the perfect motivation to actually write this.
I'll first sum up what he says, as he covers most of the important stuff. Follow the jump to read more about Linux, Microsoft, capitalism, socialism, cars, and the music industry.

Apparently, IP-Protection Exists for Its Own Sake

This article's (Bobbie Johnson, Guardian) news astounds me.
It's no news to me that there are groups that have lobbied vigorously for intellectual monopoly (aka "IP")-protection and against free software.
But, it seems like one particular group based on the US has taken it farther than it has ever gone before.
It is recommending the inclusion of Indonesia on a list of countries to pressure to change IP-protection laws due to the mere encouragement of the use of open-source software.
What?
The funniest (and saddest) part is that this group is supposed to be pro-free market and pro-competition.
This is exemplified in...open-source software. Companies like Red Hat and Canonical have developed new business models around open-source software.
The status quo (i.e. Microsoft) is antithetical to that.
The worst part of its recommendation is that it wants to force stricter IP-protection laws down Indonesia's throat for the sake of...stricter IP-protection. There appears to be no other reason for this - i.e. intellectual monopoly for its own sake.
The author of the article also points out that often, open-source licenses are stricter in ensuring that the license (to promote free use) and original authorship are retained in all derivative works; one could thus argue that a beneficial form of IP-protection (one that actually fosters further creation and use while maintaining attribution to the original author) is what is needed - not the draconian measures of laws like the DMCA.
I would have laughed out loud if I forgot that this was actually happening; I am sick to my stomach and proceed to vom - [bleccccccccch].