I read the news about the launch of Ubuntu User by Linux New Media AG with some sadness. I believe that free software is stronger because of the informal cooperation between different distributions that usually do different jobs. It lets us see what’s growing in our neighbour’s garden. I’m a debian developer, but I don’t subscribe to many debian-specific products or services because I like the broader view.
Also, at a generally-economically-weak time when some more general publications seem to be dying and restarting, concentrating on the Ubuntu users seems like it probably won’t be a big enough audience to sustain a title. The temporary loss of readers could also push other multi-distribution magazines over the brink.
Now, I use and support Ubuntu systems from time to time (among others), but it feels like Ubuntu attracts this sort of anti-social single-distribution concentration more often than any other current one. Its users seem even more fixed on it than Gentoo’s users, which is almost the opposite of what I expect from a distribution which claims “Ubuntu and Free Software are about collaboration and working together”.
So why does this happen? Are any sociologists researching whether there are really narrower horizons among Ubuntu users than others? Have any Ubuntu community leaders questioned the lack of collaboration with Free Software in launching an Ubuntu-only magazine in a recession?
Whilst I take your point and don’t, by any stretch disagree with keeping as broad a view as possible of the various Linux (and BSD) distributions, I suspect that it may be worth looking at this launch from a different angle.
I’ve not read the magazine, and doubt I would purchase it for myself, so may have the wrong view, but I’ve considered this to me more akin to Computer Active for Linux or Linux for the Windows user. New users of Linux often want information to be very specific to their distribution, and once they’ve mastered that some (although not all) will branch out and explore other versions. So although clearly there will be some switch of readers from other publications, I would assume that it is aimed at a new market primarily.
Of course none of this addresses the issue of sustainability of a single distribution publication, or even an additional general Linux publication diluting the market, in todays financial climate.
This has raised a distantly related thought that I think I may blog about rather than add here!
Ubuntu isn’t about censoring media that is fostered by the external community.
As for your “study” I would say users have always been users, just Ubuntu has more of them. Ie Ubuntu has a larger portion of pure users, whereas other distros have user / developers which are used to collaboration.
Nothing to see here really.
“Ubuntu has a larger portion of pure users, whereas other distros have user / developers which are used to collaboration.”
Sorry. That doesn’t explain why those users come to other distribution forums and channels and constantly spam on how Ubuntu is doing it better. If you ask them how, they will talk about Ubuntu specific kernel patches and things like that which are actually major issues of Ubuntu’s non collaboration. Users just dont realize that yet.