Speaker : Fredrik, Jonsson

Presentation at FSCONS : Ubuntu Deployment for Your Enterprise

How did you get involved in Free Software and in what way is it important to you?

I got involved with Free Software when i started my career as an IT-consultant and started to make money.  :) I started to build up my own development and lab enviroment that i still have today. However, i found it very expensive to building up a compelete enviroment based on Microsoft products, and therefor i got help from a friend of mine who has been a Debian admin for many years to make everything run on a complete Debian enviroment. Later on, i discovered Ubuntu and migrated everything from Debian to Ubuntu Server except two machines that still run Debian even this day. They will be migrated… sometime in the future…  ;) But the big difference of Free Software compared to proprietary software is not the price, even though very much Free Software is many times avalible without any cost. The really big difference is the possibility to fully control your own software and not be forced to really on a specific vendor.

What are your thoughts on people not wanting 100% free software and what do you see as your role in Ubuntu regarding that?

My thoughts are that people that do not want 100% free software should at least take a look at the open and free alternatives. After that, people can make their own decisions. You cannot force people to like or use free software. People have a freedom to run free software, but also a freedom not to run it. My role in the Ubuntu community is to automate and simplify installations and integrations of software’s, regardless if they are free or not, on the Ubuntu platform using deployment mechanisms and as well, how to central manage them.

What’s inspiring you to engage in the community around Ubuntu and do speeches all around?

My biggest motivations are two things. First of all my love for the Ubuntu project and the Ubuntu community is of course a great source of inspiration and motivation! My second motivation is my love for complex environments and advanced IT technologies. That is why I have chosen to combined my two motivations in one focus that is best described as "Ubuntu in the Enterprise", in which I focus mainly on enterprise deployment and central management. I feel privileged and happy to be able to share my experience with other people that have the same interests as me and perhaps even be given a chance to inspire and give motivation to other people in the Ubuntu community, regardless if they are developers or users.

Can you describe the relationship between Debian and Ubuntu communities?

Ubuntu and Debian have a very tight relationship, probably more tightly than any other Debian based distribution has upstream. For instance, all bugs that are detected in Ubuntu are immediately submitted upstream to the Debian community while other distributions usually wait until the RTM release and sends everything upstream in one big chunk. Another fun and inspiring fact of the very tight relationship is that many packages in both Ubuntu and Debian have the same developers and maintainers.
What’s the main difference for end users between the two do you think?

I think that Ubuntu is more "ready" for end users such as regular home users or business users. Ubuntu is build on the robust foundation that comes from Debian, but also adds things like regular release cycle, commercial support and enterprise features such as iSCSI, virtualization technologies, integration components, central management solutions and so on. In my humble opinion an Ubuntu desktop is easier to use than a Debian desktop, especially for a non Linux user. I have a Debian background myself and Debian is always distributed with only free software. It is indeed a very admiring goal, especially in the geek culture. However, usually end-users do not care about free software, in the contrary users care more about functionality than if the drivers or software they using are free or proprietary. Especially if the application works fine and is replaced with a free alternative that is less functional or stable. I believe due to that Ubuntu has a rapid growth. Ubuntu makes it easy to install codecs, plugins or proprietary drivers or software if you choose to do so. And yes, you can include them in a deployment process as well…  ;)

Undoubtedly, Ubuntu has brought GNU/Linux to the desktop like no distribution before. Why do you think are there still such large numbers — Or such a vocal minority one might guess — disliking Ubuntu for what it is and accusing it of not giving back something to the community? Is it a fundamental fear of the community of finally becoming mainstream?

I think that many Linux geeks lose, or at least think that they lose their geek image if they run Ubuntu with precompiled binary’s instead of compiling everything on their heavily modified Gentoo box. I strongly disagree when people say that Canonical/Ubuntu is not giving back to the open source community! As I mentioned before, all bugs that are found in Ubuntu are reported upstream to Debian. To show its support for the open source community, Canonical has started both Launchpad as well as Bazaar. Launchpad is a management platform for open source projects including bug and code management. Bazaar is a version control management system, it is also now a part of the GNU project and is even approved by Richard Stallman. Both these platforms are being used for Ubuntu’s internal development as well for other open source projects. As an example of this, MySQL is being developed using Launchpad. Regardless of how "mainstream" Ubuntu might be in some people’s eyes, I think Ubuntu is ready for both home users as well as in business environments. For instance, Dell has started to ship Ubuntu computers for home users. Another example is the French parliament and Google that run Ubuntu in their internal infrastructure. If that’s not proof of that Ubuntu has reached maturity for both home users as well as for business, then I really don’t know what is…
Who’s taking the decisions for the new Ubuntu releases?

Ubuntu is a community driven distribution, no doubts about that! All development of the Ubuntu project is publically available to anyone that wants to get involved at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu . For instance the Ubuntu Server Team encourage people to be present at our official IRC meetings to suggest ideas or just to talk to us, i.e. we are available to get in touch with.
For a little background, can you describe the general topic of your presentation and tell us what is new in the last few months?

My presentation will be about Ubuntu Deployment for Enterprise environments. I will also go through how to fully automate your network based Ubuntu installation regardes if you are deploying servers or desktops. During the last months i have had my focus on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) that will be released on the 30:th of October. My focus has mainly been on the new features in Ubuntu 8.10 and how to manage them in a deployment process. Some other things that i have spent time on, on the server side, has been how to do things that are new in server edition of Ubuntu 8.10, such as making a JeOS installation on a physical server.
Can you give a summary of what you will present? Why should someone choose to come to your presentation?

As mentioned above, my presentation is about how to fully automate your network based Ubuntu installation. This include languages, drivers, firmwares applications and patches aswell as central management technologies and computer specific configuration such as server roles, firewall settings or application tuning. Anyone that are interesting in Ubuntu Deployment or anyone that want to know how to deploy Ubuntu in an Enterprise enviroment should attend.
Especially the community support has proven to be one of the strong parts of Ubuntu, but how do businesses embrace this new player in the business-grade GNU/Linux market?
Ubuntu has a big and encouraging community and I am proud to be a part of it. However, community support is usually not enough for a business user, especially if you have a complex system, or if you require a high uptime. For these customers, Canonical have their excellent support services, providing top of the line support for business end users. For other tasks, such as help with installations, sales, integrations or consultancy services, Canonical also have a large numbers of partners. For instance, the company that I work for (ASCI Sweden AB) is an Ubuntu Certified Solution Provider. We provide consultancy and support services within the Ubuntu platform, not least in the areas of deployment and central management. However, Ubuntu is a relatively new player in the game and it will take some time for people to fully trust it in the same way that people trust Red Hat or Suse. But I think that it is about to change as we speak. Just look at what’s coming into the Ubuntu platform right now. The software for Yahoo! Zimbra Collaboration Services, Unisons Unified Communications Systems, Alfresco Enterprise Content Management System, and so on… We should also not forget the Ubuntu Server JeOS Edition that is developed with Canonicals Gold Partner VMWare. It is optimized to run on both VMWare ESX systems as well as on KVM on Ubuntu. I have also been running JeOS since day one on both Virtual Box and XEN environments and it works like a charm!
Closing in towards end of our (interview) time, before and after holding your speech at FSCONS, which events do you plan to watch or take part in at the conference?

I will do my best to watch as many as possible, but three sessions that attracts at the moment are "Free Software and the Danish Public Sector", "PostgreSQL" and "Skolelinux workshop".

If you had one free wish, whom would you want to speak at FSCONS in the Future, and about what?

If I could choose any one, I would choose Nick Barcet from Canonical. He works as the Product Manager for Ubuntu Server. He is talented and is also an excellent speaker.