Foreword to the First Edition
It’s a small celebration for me to write this foreword—almost exactly two years after the first meeting of a small group of free software professionals that turned into the Ubuntu project. A celebration because two years ago none of us would have predicted that our dream would spawn several million CDs, three or four million enthusiastic users, hundreds of commitments of support from companies large and small, a minor prime-time television reference, and now The Official Ubuntu Book.
The dream that brought us together can be simply expressed:
To build a world-class operating system for ordinary desktop computer users, that is genuinely free and freely available, that is immediately useful, and that represents the very best that the free software world can achieve today.
In setting out to build a platform for “ordinary desktop computer users,” I had no idea that I would have the privilege of meeting and working with so many extraordinary desktop computer users. Some of those extraordinary individuals are the authors of this book, people who both understand the importance of the free software movement and have the talent to have been real contributors to its success. Others make up the backbone of the Ubuntu community—the small but dedicated army of a few hundred people that works to produce a new release of Ubuntu every six months. They are at the heart of a network that reaches out through the global free software community—through the world of Debian, an extraordinary project in its own right and without which Ubuntu could not exist, and on out to the thousands of projects, large and small, that produce the code and documentation that we pull together and call Ubuntu.
While this huge extended community can often appear to be fractured and divided along infinitesimal ideological lines, we are all broadly in agreement about four key ideas, and it is those ideas that are central to the Ubuntu promise:
That our software should not come with a license fee. That we should be able to share our software, modify it, and then share our modifications, too.
That this free software should be the best version available, including regular security updates, and not a tease for a better, commercial product.
That full-scale, high-quality commercial support from local and global companies should be available for this free platform.
That this software should be usable in as many languages as possible and usable by as many people as possible regardless of disability.
The 17 of us who met in London two years ago come from a very wide variety of countries and backgrounds, but we all agreed that the goal of producing a platform that could live up to that promise was a worthy one, one that we would devote ourselves to wholeheartedly.
For several months we worked quietly. We wanted to come to the world not only with a manifesto but also with a clear demonstration of work done toward our goals, something that people could test and comment on. We had no name (though industry insiders called us the “Super-Secret Debian Startup”) and, as a result, we hosted most of our work at www.no-name-yet.com. We were looking for a name that could express the beauty of the free software community development process—collaboration, interdependence, sharing, standing gently on the shoulders of giants, and reaching for lofty goals. The only word that comes close to that, of which I’m aware, is the African word ubuntu. It is found in many forms in many different African languages. And so we adopted it as the name of our project.
We knew that our first release would have blemishes—warts—and gave it the codename “The Warty Warthog.” We called ourselves “the warthogs” and coordinated our work on the #warthogs IRC channel. Today, for better or worse, that’s turned into a tradition of codenames such as “Breezy Badger” and “Dapper Drake.” As lighthearted as they sound, these codenames come to embody the spirit of our community as it works toward a particular release. This next one—Dapper—is exactly that: a man emerging from youth, professional, bold, confident, and energetic. This is our first release that is designed to meet the needs of large organizations as much as developers and engineers. In the same way, the Ubuntu community has moved from being something of a rebellion against the “Linux establishment” to a strong and professionally organized group.
What Makes Ubuntu So Popular?
First, this is the time for free software to come to the forefront, and Ubuntu is very much the beneficiary of the vast amount of work that has gone into building up a huge body of work in the GNU/Linux world. That work has been under way for nearly 30 years, in one form or another, but Ubuntu is one way in which it is suddenly becoming “visible” to the nonspecialist computer user. We are in the middle of a great overturning of the industry status quo. The last time that happened, in the mid-1990s, was when the world suddenly found itself connected to itself—by the Internet. Every major company, especially those in the field of technology, had to examine itself and ask the question, “How do we adapt to an Internet world?” Today, every major technology company has to ask itself the question, “How do we adapt to a free software world?”
I would speculate and say that Ubuntu represents an idea whose time has come. We did not invent the free software movement—that honor goes to Richard Stallman and many others who had a vision far more profound at a time when it was hard to see how it could ever become reality. But Ubuntu has perhaps the honor of bringing that vision to a very wide audience in a form that we can all appreciate. I hope that the real visionaries—those who have led the way—will appreciate the decisions and the choices we make in bringing you this project. Some will take exception—I know Linus prefers KDE to GNOME, for example, so he’s likely to be more of a fan of Kubuntu than Ubuntu. But in general, the ideas that others have had, the principles of the free software movement, are well expressed in Ubuntu.
Second, Ubuntu is a project on which you can have a real impact. It has the benefit of deep and reliable financial backing and a corporate team to give it muscle, but it is in every regard an open project, with participation at the highest levels by true volunteers. We work in a fishbowl—our meetings take place online, in a public forum. That can be tricky. Building an operating system is a fast-paced business full of compromise and tough decisions in the face of little information. There are disagreements and dirty laundry, and mistakes are made. (I should know; some of them are mine. You should hear the one about the Warty Warthog desktop artwork.) The transparency of our environment, however, means that we can count on having robust conversations about our options—all of them, even the ones the core team would never have dreamed up. It also means that mistakes are identified, discussed, and ultimately addressed faster than they would be if we lived and worked behind closed doors. You get a better platform as a result.
We work hard as a community to recognize the contributions of all sorts of individuals—advocates, artists, Web forum moderators, channel operators, community event organizers, writers, translators, people who file and triage bugs . . . whatever your particular interest or talent, we will find a way to integrate your contribution.
Perhaps most important is the way our approach to community differentiates Ubuntu from other free software projects with similar vision. We try to do all of this in a way that recognizes that disagreements are important but prevents those disagreements from creating deep divides in our community. Our code of conduct may not be perfect, but it reminds each of us to remember the meaning of the word ubuntu—that each of us has our best impact through the relationships we maintain with one another. Finding common ground and maintaining healthy communication are more important for us as a community in the long run than a particular technical decision or the specific choice of words with which to translate “File” into Spanish. Our community governance structures—our Technical Board and Community Council—exist to ensure that debates don’t become personal and that decisions can be taken after all sides have been heard.
If you are a software professional or curious about Linux, this book and this platform are an excellent choice. You will learn about the world of Ubuntu and, indirectly, Debian and GNU/Linux. These are great foundations for working with the tools that I believe will come to define the “standard,” the everyday computing base upon which we build our homes and offices.
I once heard a proprietary software vendor say, “Linux is more expensive because skilled Linux professionals are more costly.” This is true. It means, of course, that Linux skills are more valuable! It won’t be true forever because the world of Linux is expanding so rapidly that sooner or later we will have to accept a position in the mainstream, and that takes off some of the “geek points” associated with being part of the “future of technology.” But right now, without a doubt, being ahead of the curve on Linux and on Ubuntu is the right place to be. If you’re this far into this foreword, you are clearly going to make it. ;-)
It’s difficult for me to speculate on what the future might hold for the Ubuntu project. I know that I along with many others are loving the opportunity to be at the center of such an exciting initiative and are committed to seeing where it leads us over the coming years. I believe that it will become a pervasive part of our everyday computing environment, so I would like to help make sure that we don’t make too many mistakes along the way! Please, come and join us in the fishbowl to help ensure we do a very, very good job.