Edythemighty (dot) com

There has been a lot of talk about Canonical's new product, Ubuntu One. There are already several great write-ups and walkthroughs such as this piece by Ars Technica, so I won't bother dazzling you with my screenshot prowess. Instead, I'm aiming at the heart of the controversy, that being Ubuntu One's proprietary server-side software.

First, let's clearly define what is Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a GNU/Linux distribution produced by Canonical, a company founded by Mark Shuttleworth, supermillionair South African playboy. Ubuntu One is their new file-sync service. It is composed of the Ubuntu One client software which runs on your computer, and their proprietary server-side I mentioned already. The client is open source, and the protocol specifications are open for anything to engineer their own service based on this, as pointed out by Ars.

Now, we step into nebulous waters. Is it right of Canonical, a company, to keep the server-side of the equation closed? Let's think about what "the cloud" means for the end-user. Yes, I hate that buzzword sometimes, but it must be addressed. Even when critics disagree what the cloud is, we can make a clear distinction between client-side, and server-side. Client-side software is everything I interact with directly, and runs on my machine. Server-side is the software which the Googles, MSNs and Yahoos of this world run on their servers.

There is an implicit trust bond between you and whatever service provider you choose. Canonical has made everything within your reach free and open source software. It is this commitment to the community which has made them one of the biggest names in Linux, and inspires trust. I trust Canonical with my computing. Even if you have access to the software itself, you still don't have access to the physical location of your data in the cloud. This is something which idealists in the free software world either get, or choose to ignore. On this point, I respect rms for looking at the bigger picture and refusing to use these services.

If the Ubuntu One's client and protocols used are available, then it would be trivial for the Linux users to get together to quickly code a backend, AGPL it and modify the client to connect to this new backend, if necessary. As long as Canonical provides the source for the client, and make their protocol's workings common knowledge, I firmly believe they are still holding true to their commitment to the community, while still keeping a healthy dose of pragmatism necessary for any comapny to survive. It is this commitment and level-headedness that I trust, and fully back. Let us not forget that Canonical is a company, and like any company, they must strive to remain profitable, while providing some service to their users to distinguish them from the competition.