unixmen interviews bacon

As the attention of much the Linux world turns to this week's release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, we find this interesting interview with Canonical's community manager, Jono Bacon: http://www.unixmen.com/interview-with-canonicals-jono-bacon-interview/

If nothing else, check out his reply to the following question:

Many people like to accuse Canonical of being arrogant and not really care about what the current community has to say about the various changes that take place. You are the best person to tell us whether this has valid grounds, or not. Is Canonical aiming for a “different community” turning its back to the current one?

I think the assertion that Canonical turns its back on its community and doesn't listen to its users has always been ridiculous and unfounded, but Bacon's comments probably won't change folks' opinions. 

I also feel that Ubuntu's place in the Linux world is no less important than any of the other leading distros.

Bacon:

At Canonical we have always tried to bring innovation to Ubuntu [...] The challenge with innovation is that innovation fundamentally challenges the norm and in a distributed community this sometimes causes some concerns in our more conservative community members. There are some parts of our community that would be quite happy with us focusing our efforts in making software primarily of interest to Linux enthusiasts and/or purely shipping GNOME 2.x for years and merely revving the applications in each release.

This in my mind defeats the ethos and philosophy of Ubuntu...

A good read, the Bacon interview should spark lots of comments from Linux folks.

Oh, yeah... I liked the photo they included, so I'm adding it here:

Pink Panther on the wall, right? The Essence of Cool. :)