“I was ready to walk out, because it sounded like the stupidest thing ever.” — Jeff Waugh on Ubuntu’s origins
It feels utterly silly to be citing myself in QoTD, but this hilariously out of context quote on the cover of Linux Format 87 couldn’t go without mention.
Read the complete interview, including bits not found in the magazine, to see the quote in all its contextual glory. There’s a bunch of good stuff in there about GNOME, usability, early Ubuntu history, and my mother-in-law.
As it happens, the interview was done after OSCON in July 2006, at the end of my final pimpin’ trip for Canonical, and on my very last day at the company.
Bonus quote from LXF87: “Go find a Linux distribution that has done one-tenth the innovation that we have done on the Linux desktop.” — Nat Friedman, apparent victim of Innovator’s Dilemma Syndrome. We wish him a swift recovery!


“Bonus quote from LXF87: “Go find a Linux distribution that has done one-tenth the innovation that we have done on the Linux desktop.†— Nat Friedman, apparent victim of Innovator’s Dilemma Syndrome. We wish him a swift recovery!”
He’s telling the truth. Novell is behind Compiz and so much of the mono stuff. They are paying Kernel developers, like Red Hat. They are the leaders of the desktop market and they pay the developers for it. Red Hat is the leader of the server market adn they pay the developers for it.
What’s the contribution of Ubuntu, anyway. Some crappy installer code and a brown theme ?
My point was in the commentary, not the quote.
That showed up in the Wanneroo Newsagency a few days ago. Read it. Laughed. Trust Jeff to get mis-quoted.
Well, actually… trust Jeff to say so much quotable that the reporter chooses the wrong quote to feature. (-:
I think Nat was also factoring Ximian into the equation, and it is hard to disagree with him there.