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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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From what I understand and to continue your example of Ubuntu-based distros:
As you say, Ubuntu itself is corporate-driven, so there are things in there that exist pretty much solely to benefit Canonical (e.g the telemetry they recently introduced if i recall correctly)
Most of the time when basing distros off of others, I think it's to keep a lot of features - either to save dev time or because they only want to tweak a small portion of the distro and not write a new one from scratch.
Because devs can modify the entire codebase, they can remove features that are corporate-driven (telemetry and such) and effectively create something fully (or mostly) compatible yet without such features.
Another major example imo is the removal of snaps, which most people (myself included) strongly dislike - as far as I'm aware removing them in Ubuntu itself is quite a difficult process as it's baked into the distro itself. I imagine a lot of people want something like Ubuntu as it is quite friendly and has one of the lower bars of entry for Linux, but object to corporate things like telemetry and the overall monstrosity that is snaps.
Apologies, i went down a bit of a tangent, but I hope that roughly answers your question!
Cheers – the "snap tangent" is something I wanted to understand as well.
This is something I posted in another thread, it works under the assumption snaps are a far inferior technology when compared to flatpak, it leaves implicit Canonical's unreasonable approach at pushing snap and doesn't even mention the fact snap has a proprietary server component. Really? Why? Why would a linux corporation NOT publish server code? It's ridiculous, isn't it?
Now on to the post:
Companies like Red Hat, OpenSUSE and Canonical are not only trying to sell support but also convince others that they are innovating. Red Hat kickstarted Flatpak and then Canonical, who didn’t want to “lose” decided to push their own thing, Snap with the strength of ten thousand suns. Naturally, this is a simplified explanation, Snap already was in development at the time but if we truly followed the spirit of open source, Canonical would have dropped it and adopted Flatpak instead.
OpenSUSE has quite a few products in the kubernetes sector, even Oracle has its own things they can brag about. Canonical has basically nothing and this is why they’re pushing snap as if their lives depended on it.
Remember, Linus didn’t write an OS because the GNU folks were writing one, GNU didn’t write a new kernel after theirs failed, because Linus had a working one. This is the nature of free software, Canonical has completely forgotten about it. Red Hat now too.
I know it’s an oversight, but openSUSE and SUSE are not the same entity. openSUSE is a community project, they are sponsored by multiple corporations and individuals including SUSE (somewhat different than Fedora which is only sponsored by Red Hat).
Oversight indeed, habits.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that. Both flatpak and snaps use similar technologies but have divergent visions on the user experience. It's not like RedHat fell in line and adopted upstart rather than developing systemd. There has to be space for competing approaches to the same problems rather than forcing everyone into an open source monoculture. I know people decry the wasted effort but it's not like you can force open source developers to work on your preferred solution.
Open source developers? I'm talking about Canonical Ltd. employees.
Cheers, I had absolutely no idea about these marketing/competition sides of snaps and flatpaks...
Would you be able to keep going on your snap tanget? I'm mainly a windows dude and only dabble in Linux, so I'm curious as to the strong feelings there.
Motivations by the company have been explained far better than I could by the other replies, but from both mine and other people's experience, some software when installed via snaps seems to perform badly compared to any other method of installation (notably chrome and firefox i think). Also snap isn't really bringing anything special to the table whereas flatpak has a more interesting containerised approach from what I'm aware.
In any case with the way ubuntu's going I'm really not over the moon with anything canonical (and i don't think I'm alone)