Apparently still troubled over the backlash sparked by Dave Neary's report of top (and bottom) GNOME contributors given at July's GUADEC convention, Mark Shuttleworth, posted his "Reflections on Ubuntu, Canonical and the march to free software adoption." As I reported previously on that report, Ubuntu was found to contribute less to GNOME than just about any other organization in the Open Source world. In response, Shuttleworth, et al., explained all the contributions Ubuntu makes to the community in other ways. The controversy had faded into the background and was almost forgotten, until the above-mentioned September 14 blog post.

In this post, Shuttleworth shared two stories of Ubuntu use that triggered the foundation of what he feels he and Ubuntu should contribute back. One was parents teaching their children to use a computer through Ubuntu and the other was the support contract for a large company deploying tens of thousands Ubuntu installations.

Shuttleworth acknowledges all those developers and companies who bring the open-source projects used in Ubuntu to life and says giving Ubuntu to the world for free is his contribution back to these companies and namely the GNOME Project. Ubuntu wasn't founded to write code, he explained, but to deliver Linux to the masses.

Shuttleworth continues to list how hard the Ubuntu team works for the idea of free software and how important their work is. He points to the Papercuts Project, which formed to simplify the interface and fix as many bugs as possible. He mentions their cutting-edge design department and how they (and he) are shaping the desktops of tomorrow. He points out that Ubuntu is where the action is.

In conclusion, Shuttleworth again praises projects from each corner of the community and urges members not to argue with each other because that is counterproductive.