• Lvxferre@mander.xyz
    591·
    6 months ago

    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@lemmygrad.ml, 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.

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
    261·
    6 months ago

    Memes are cool. Blatant misinformation in the form of a meme to manufacture outrage, not so much.

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
        182·
        6 months ago

        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.

        More info here: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-pro-faq/34042

        • zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev
          11·
          6 months ago

          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.

          • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
            3·
            6 months ago

            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.

  • shrugal@lemm.ee
    2·
    6 months ago

    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.

  • BiggestBulb@kbin.run
    31·
    6 months ago

    If you happen to be new to Linux, do yourself a favor and start on Linux Mint.

    There are no snaps, you can still install pretty much everything you can with Ubuntu, the Cinnamon Desktop is nice (better than Gnome in my opinion, but then again, I haven’t used Gnome that much) and you don’t have to deal with ads in the terminal. Mint is the distro most people should start on.

    • Pantherina@feddit.de
      1·
      6 months ago

      Ubuntu is completely free lol. This is only about the community repo. Like if RHEL would also support EPEL which they dont

    • Arthur Besse@lemmy.mlOP
      02·
      6 months ago

      Meh, how’s this different from RH?

      It took Canonical about four times as long (twenty years vs five) to start doing this.

      Dissatisfaction with RedHat’s introduction of RHN (in 2000) was arguably a significant factor contributing to Ubuntu’s rapid growth when it was first released (in 2004).

    • Pantherina@feddit.de
      3·
      6 months ago

      Its universe, the community repo. Basically you can pay them to also supply you with community updates, a service. The official repos stay untouched.

      People always want free software, but free ≠ free beer?