Response to the Response to my Response to “9 features Ubuntu should implement” (This is getting out of hand)

I’ve come across the Linux Hater’s Redux blog before, and not really thought much about it.

But now they’re talking about me, and, in true Internet style, I feel obligated to talk back.

An excerpt:

Lusers have been flipping out over someone suggesting ten ways Ubuntu could improve. Most of these suggestions, especially the inclusion of a media center are pretty good [f]ing ideas, which means lusers are going to get pissed over anyone bringing them up. A particularly freetarded response tried to take the author to task for his suggestions and just ended up making a fool of himself. Most of his nipticks boil down to ‘oh, there is this utility you can install that kinda sorta does what you want, but you first have to know that it exists and then jump through hoops installing and configuring it’, or ‘that feature is in development and will be available in Zesty Zebra’ or ‘media center, we don’t need no stinkin’ media center!’

First quote–using external utilities: I’ll admit that did come up a lot (though it wasn’t all of them), but I kind of feel like he’s missing the point of Linux: Tiny core, powerful plugins. Maybe he’d like me to send him a remastered .iso called “Ubuntu Bloated Edition: All the Pretty, Mildly-Useful Junk you could Ever Want”?

Second quote–it’s in development: Wasn’t that the point of the original post? To get features into development? What does LHR want–one day Ubuntu doesn’t have something, the next day POOF! there it is? And by Zesty Zebra he must mean 2009 (which is a much snappier release cycle than whatever he’s using…).

Third quote–we don’t need it: Watch your quoting, man–I said I don’t want a media center, not we don’t need a media center. I, Timmy Macdonald, really couldn’t care less about media centers, and feel like their inclusion in a vanilla Ubuntu release would contribute to bloat. See my first point. However, I also realize that some people do in fact want a media center, and, instead of saying they should install one themselves, suggested Mythbuntu (aka “Ubuntu-With-A-Media_Center”). Isn’t that a perfectly reasonable compromise?