Ubuntu Celebrates Its Ninth Birthday Amid Controversy

It was on this day nine years ago that Mark Shuttleworh announced the first Ubuntu Linux release, Ubuntu 4.10 "Warty Warthog", but the conversation this weekend hasn't been about how Ubuntu has advanced the Linux desktop and its adoption for nearly the past decade but rather Mark's comments about anti-Mir Linux users and the disgruntled open-source users/developers as a result.

Mark's Mir comments from Friday about the "Open-Source Tea Party" and others suffering from "NIH" seem to dominate the open-source discussion this weekend on Phoronix and other tech sites. In our forums alone are nearly 130 comments to Mark's blog post and another 70 comments in another thread so far.

Anyhow, getting back on track, it was on 20 October 2004 that Mark announced the Ubuntu 4.10 release.

Mark wrote back then in the original Ubuntu announcement, "The warm-hearted Warthogs of the Warty Team are proud to present thevery first release of Ubuntu! Ubuntu is a new Linux distribution that brings together the extraordinary breadth of Debian with a fast and easy install, regular releases (every six months), a tight selection of excellent packages installed by default and a commitment to security updates with 18 months of security and technical support for every release."

This past Thursday marked the release of the Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" along with the first official release of Ubuntu Touch for mobile phones / tablet devices.