I don’t think there is anything stopping anyone from building a competing extension pack which is 100% open source, and includes whatever useful features Oracle’s has (RDP is the most obviously useful; some people would benefit from the PXE support). One could potentially reuse code from other (GPL-compatible) open source projects in doing so.
Also, one could make a fork which just rebrands it and removes all references to non-open source components - a bit like what Oracle themselves do to RHEL.
While I agree with this in principal, I'd guess the folks who have the low-level programming chops to execute such a thing are probably a very small list, and of those finding ones which want to spend their weekends(?) trying to keep up with VirtualBox releases (in Subversion of all things!) would be an even smaller list
I think a “just rebrand it and remove all mention of Oracle’s proprietary extension pack” fork wouldn’t require much “low level programming chops” at all. You could probably even automate a lot of it, with manual intervention only required for branding-related changes (which I assume would be rare). My biggest concern about doing it would be the macOS kexts - will Oracle’s trademark policy allow you to redistribute their kext binaries along with a fork, or force you to rebuild them under a new ID? If the later, will Apple approve it (for any special entitlements it might use)? Not an issue for Linux and Windows builds anyway.
Even stuff like RDP, I haven’t looked at the VirtualBox code in detail, but I assume there would be some interfaces to isolate display clients from the low-level technical details of the graphics card emulation-so it might not actually require as much “low-level chops” as you might think.
But your last point about not many people want to spend their weekends on it is spot-on: I myself am not volunteering to do any of this. Between my day job and a young family, don’t have as much time for personal projects as I used to, and what time I do have I’d rather expend towards other goals.
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I just don't understand all this hate towards Canonical. You can turn it off. Yes it was awkwardly rolled out but you can turn it off. What about google search as you type? Google Analytics, hell even the Ghostery plugin tracks data. Is this just the joy of supporting the underdog then hating them when they succeed? Now I don't work for Ubuntu, I don't use Ubuntu (I do use Mint which is derived from Ubuntu). When I think about the things that Apple and Microsoft have done and do I really think adding remote search is really low on the offense list. I mean they aren't making chemical weapons! Again most of this comment is I just don't get all the hate.
I can understand it. In these days of constant public and private surveillance, some people want a haven and want it to be consistently safe. One of the great selling points of Linux is that it was such a haven. Linux was supposed to be one of the few things left which wasn't trying to make a buck by watching you.
Ubuntu's little Amazon search wasn't very much compared to what Google, Facebook, or the NSA have been up to, but it was still a violation of the spirit of Linux and the unspoken rules and customs many people expect from OSS. For many people, this is a betrayal.
It's not as though they're trying to commit it into the kernel, though. There's about a million other Linux-based operating systems that can be used. Isn't it a healthy thing that they try to take different paths to success? Canonical is trying to monetize the consumer side of their OS. Red Hat sells support to enterprise. If you care about Linux, it should be a good thing that these companies are trying to make some money and be sustainable businesses.
Basically, have you ever stopped using software because it asked to install the Ask! toolbar by default in the installer?
I mean goddamn Java from Oracle does this, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's all those little rejections which slowly wear you down, because it feels like you have to be constantly vigilant.
Ubuntu has a powerful position and a very high number of users in the Linux world. So, when it does something that people believe benefit itself at the expense of users, because it can be fairly sure those users will not flee to another distributes, people will be angry.
That is why people get angry at big large corporations. Because people are locked in, financially, technically, perhaps "merely" psychologically, they really don't like it when they feel abused. Yes, there is always know-it all-who claims its easy to change, but real people know its never ever that simple in reality.
What makes it worse is the knowledge that one is contributing to the power such corporations have by taking out contracts, licences or any other commitment not easily broken.
Not to mention that it's a free product. If it was trying to do something underhanded (eg. actually spy on users) then I could understand, but actually it's just Canonical trying to make some revenue by facilitating the sale of Amazon products. As an Ubuntu user, I want them to be successful as a business, it's a convenient feature, and I could easily turn it off (or not use Ubuntu) if I felt strongly against it. I can't understand why people pour so much energy into being critical of an underdog when there are so many other options.
This is really neat. Its extendeding the concept of screen to the network in a transparent way. I am going to play with it with some of my more unstable hosts located in Beijing.
Prior two Edward Snowden's whistle blowing I think you could perceive the maintainer as paranoid around leaving the project (see linked thread) however now I think you can't discount what, if any, cooperation technology companies have been providing to the NSA.
I am not sure I agree that before Snowden this could have been perceived as paranoid. As part of the discussion on the crypto list Ben Laurie brings up an important point:
"But what's the argument for _not_ mixing their probably-not-backdoored RNG with other entropy?"[1]
Does your answer to this really change that much "pre-Snowden"?
I am not sure if this is the same Panic but there is a company called Panic that makes great Mac Applications: Transmit and Coda are their most famous apps.
Amazon, when I worked there, had the worst meeting discipline of all the companies I have worked for. Meetings normally started 10 minutes late and most people didn't show up until 5 minutes after the start time. Being punctual it drove me up the wall.
This is pretty accurate. Most of the meetings start with reading, and if people arrive a few minutes late, they grab a memo and get to marking it up silently without disrupting everyone.
You can use the extension pack for personal use but any use in a business context requires a license.