Okay… I don’t even like Ubuntu, I’m still pissed at snaps, but I’m going to call it bullshit. OP is being at the very least disingenuous, if not worse (witch hunting).
Ubuntu Pro is a subscription system with the following features:
Extended security maintenance - 10 years of backported features, because enterprise hates dist-upgrade. By then human users upgraded their systems at least once, probably way more.
Live-patching kernel updates - because enterprise hates restart downtime. If it’s your personal machine you simply reboot after installing a new kernel, no biggie.
“Compliance and hardening” - basically a way to ensure that a machine follows a bunch of security protocols irrelevant for human users, and exchanging usability for less surface area in a way that human users wouldn’t want.
Are you noticing the pattern here? It’s junk that enterprise cares about, but you don’t. Canonical is milking corporations.
To make the comparison with airbag vests even worse, Pro is free for personal use, up to 5 machines. So it’s more like Canonical is saying “since we know that stupid bizniz bureaucracy prevents them from regularly replacing airbag vests, we’re willing to repair them for a price. For free if you’re a random nobody, by the way.”
And no, it does not contradict the Ubuntu principle, as your title implies.
And since I can’t be arsed to rebuke this shite being cross-posted to !latestagecapitalism, I’ll do it here. (I apologise to the others for posting politics here.)
The airbag vest part alone would be a good example of late capitalism; the business is clearly seeking to add surplus value to the goods. And since that surplus value cannot come from paying less for the labour of the workers, it comes from the buyers/“subscribers” - transforming the goods into a service, and commodifying personal security.
Ubuntu Pro is not this, as I’ve shown above. But even if it worked somehow like you’re implying that it does, through both threads (i.e. you don’t have ubuntu pro = you don’t get security updates), it would still not be an example of late stage capitalism: security updates are a service by nature, requiring additional labour to be produced, specially when you’re backporting a patch to ancient software.
Down vote away, I don’t care, but they really aren’t though.
Pretty big difference between buying a thing that stops working if you don’t have an active subscription, and using an old LTS and being given the choice of paying for extended support or the free upgrade to the new LTS
Pretty big difference between buying a thing that stops working if you don’t have an active subscription, and using an old LTS and being given the choice of paying for extended support if you’re a corporation, signing up for a free “subscription” if you’re not, or the free upgrade to the new LTS
FTFY, it’s an even bigger difference when the extended support is free for end users.
Even though this has been explained many times since the whole hullabaloo, I’ll assume you’re genuinely unaware and/or perhaps got rage-farmed by someone else’s meme. The current meme implies that Ubuntu/Canonical have actively disabled safety/security features in the form of withholding security updates, unless you pay for Ubuntu Pro subscription. The Ubuntu package support hasn’t changed with the introduction of Ubuntu Pro. The packages that were supported by Canonical prior to this are supported the same way today. The packages that were community supported prior to this are supported the same way today. Without Ununtu Pro. There is net new support by Canonical that covers community-supported packages too which is available with Ubuntu Pro subscription. Therefore Canonical hasn’t removed any existing, previously free security support. In addition, this newly added security support is available for free for up to 5 machines and it lasts for 10 years.
I’m perfectly aware of what Ubuntu Pro is, and the difference between Ubuntu main and universe.
The current meme implies that Ubuntu/Canonical have actively disabled safety/security features in the form of withholding security updates, unless you pay for Ubuntu Pro subscription. The Ubuntu package support hasn’t changed with the introduction of Ubuntu Pro. The packages that were supported by Canonical prior to this are supported the same way today. The packages that were community supported prior to this are supported the same way today. Without Ununtu Pro.
If you think the meme implies that, then surely you must think that the message printed by Ubuntu’s apt upgrade command in the screenshot implies that too, right?
One of the packages listed in this screenshot is libavcodec, which is required by things like VLC (which is in Ubuntu universe, which is enabled by default).
If you think it is perfectly fine for Canonical to do the work to patch that library and then withhold the security update from the vast majority of Ubuntu users who won’t sign up for Ubuntu Pro… we’ll have to agree to disagree.
As a sysadmin that dealt with IBM “helping” CentOS into an early grave, I refuse to give canonical or any for-profit corporation the benefit of the doubt here. After seeing how many products start out free and move towards paid or ad supported models once they think they can get away with it, I doubt this is done out of goodwill, either.
Don’t need to. It’s useful while free for people who wouldn’t otherwise pay for it. If/when we get the rug pulled from under us, mothrrship Debian is right there.
I’m no fan of Ubuntu, but maintaining an LTS release and backporting security updates is actual ongoing work. Most distros don’t even provide an LTS release for that reason.
My update told me as much. OP’s likely did too. But it is usually a lot harder to manufacture outrage when you have a full picture and manufacturing outrage is the best way to get exposure on social media.
Those are community maintained packages in the first place. Canonical offers extended security updates (plus after the 5 year LTS EOL) for a fee, with 5 machines for free for non-commercial uses.
Add comment