Ubuntu Bug One fixed? Shuttleworth says it is

Opened as the very first bug for Ubuntu, before the release of "Warty Warthog" in 2004, Bug 1, "Microsoft has a majority market share" has now been closed as "Fix Released". The original bug description observed that "Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace", explaining how it was impossible to buy a desktop machine "without any proprietary software" and that what should happen is "A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software".

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth explained in his comment closing the bug that personal computing was a "broader proposition than it was in 2004" and that, if desktop PCs were aggregated with phones, tablets and other devices, Microsoft was no longer dominant. He goes on to point to Android and its Linux kernel as an open source platform that provides "both competition and good representation for open source in personal computing". Noting that Canonical and Ubuntu "have only played a small part in that shift", he says he considers "from Ubuntu's perspective, this bug is now closed".

In comments, some agree with Shuttleworth while others point out that the original problem of desktop PC domination still has yet to be addressed and that the bug should remain open. Free software activist Bradley Kuhn suggested that the bug be marked "Can't Fix" because even counting Android/Linux devices, many of them still come with proprietary software.

The H notes that the Launchpad bug statuses do not include a "Workaround Implemented" status, which some may consider a better description of the reasons for Bug 1's closure.

Shuttleworth is, though, looking forwards and says that "it's better for us to focus our intent on excellence in our own right, rather than our impact on someone else's product", saying the company has already "figured out how to be amazing on the cloud". He follows this with praise for Microsoft's Azure cloud team which is "very focused on having ALL OS's including Linux guests like Ubuntu run extremely well on Azure".

(djwm)