Ukuu, or Ubuntu Kernel Update Utility, a fairly popular unofficial GUI tool for easily installing the latest mainline Linux kernel on Ubuntu-based distributions, has moved to a paid ($11) licensing model with its latest 19.01 release.
Ukuu displays the list of kernels available in the Ubuntu Mainline kernel website, allowing users to easily download and install the desired version. The utility can also remove installed kernels, display the changes in the selected Linux version, display notifications when new kernels are available, and so on.
With the 19.01 release of Ukuu, the application requires a personal license which costs $11, and the source code is no longer available. Tony George, the application developer, notes the reason for this being the lack of donations, with alternatives being stopping the development or requiring a paid license:
"The last version of this app (v18.9) had 60,000 downloads, yet only 12 users have donated over the last 2 years. It was not possible for me to continue working on this application for free, and making it paid seemed like a better alternative than discontinuing the project."
https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/01/ubuntu-kernel-update-utility-ukuu-moves.html
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday February 09 2019, @04:41PM (2 children)
I can tell Tony's a winner. He made the Cyber Tool, he let folks try it for free. And built a huge buzz from "free." Now the time for "free" is over, it's time for Tony to rake in that dough. And he's getting great coverage in our News Media. Smells like success!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @06:54PM (1 child)
Yeah... Charging for something that's already free. Smells like rotten fish to me.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:34AM
If you don't like it you can code your own. That's the beauty of Linux. Now get crackin', hotshot.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @04:50PM (1 child)
You should never rely on donations in the first place. Sounds like a greedy jew
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @05:16PM
Isn't that the other way around? A Jew would have charged from day 1 and/or offered an ad supported version. And by Jew I mean anyone with common sense. And by common sense I mean that thing almost everyone else has and you make fun of.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @04:55PM (2 children)
unfortunately, it is more likely that this tool will also be removed due to a lack of incentive. Someone else with a different mousetrap may eventually arrive, everyone will hail that person as a hero, and then he (or she) too will learn that praise only pays so many bills. A 'crude' tool will be the free one that remains free.
the difference between ubuntu and windows will be that windows updates whether you want it to or not and ubuntu simply won't unless you pay a ransom.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:50PM (1 child)
There are several errors in your assessment of this story. Firstly, Ubuntu aren't charging anything. Ubuntu software will continue to update for free as it always has done.
Secondly, this is a private individual who has produced something which was initially free and now he has decided to charge for it. The 'advantage' of the private offering is that it is a GUI for those who are more pointy/clicky oriented.
Thirdly, there are other ways of doing exactly the same thing from the command line by typing "sudo purge-old-kernels" at the command line, using a utility which is entirely free and supplied by Ubuntu. How much you think that the GUI is worth is entirely up to the user.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday February 11 2019, @01:44AM
It's been awhile but there used to be a relatively easy way to make a versioned kernel deb package as well. It did mean compiling it yourself.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @05:07PM (2 children)
Sure, they have to keep the lights on, but have they really added any value to the community with their bastardized version of Debian?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @06:38PM (1 child)
Not to pick on you, but since you so blatantly volunteered ... This person has certainly added more value to the community than you have. Now back to your bridge, troll.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @12:44AM
Since you dont know who i am, you are speaking out of your ass.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Saturday February 09 2019, @05:21PM (4 children)
I never used or heard of this tool. But it sounds to me like a glorified shell script. Can someone comment on why such a utility was so time consuming to maintain?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @10:37PM (2 children)
It becomes like the SSH fiasco - one guy who got maybe a few hundred dollars a year for support was left maintaining something the world relies on. This is the problem - large corporations like Sony, Tesla, etc use Linux. A LOT of Linux. Cameras, car infotainment and management systems - but these billion-dollar giants put very little if anything back in the pot. Linux is free, so great for the bottom line. Much cheaper than bribing Redmond to embed Win10 in your camera / car / dvd player. In the end you will see more and more of this - already some distros like Zorin or Elementary are trying to monetize more openly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @12:46AM
While true, and you would hope donations would flood in for something that critical in the world as compensation, but at the same time hes not *stuck* supporting it.
You really can walk away from a project.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @05:41PM
s/ssh/ssl/
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:53PM
There is already a script to do exactly this - see my comments here [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 09 2019, @05:24PM (6 children)
I've done "donationware" and that ratio of payments to downloads seems about right.
With a little promotion and putting it out there "you have to pay to use this product" you can get dramatically better ratios - people will still pirate, but the ratio moves from 1/5000 closer to 1/5.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @05:55PM (5 children)
It's not unauthorized copying if the license explicitly permits redistribution.
Unless you mean to imply that you wrote non-free software, in which case please rot in hell.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 09 2019, @06:28PM (4 children)
I've worked mostly writing software since 1985 - and been paid over $3M to-date for my software writing and related efforts. The people who paid me to write that software did not always give it away for free, and when I do my own for hobby work, I don't always give it away either.
Some things are appropriate to GPL or LGPL, some things just aren't. Maybe when UBI is a real thing, "free" software for niche uses can finally take off.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday February 09 2019, @07:44PM (3 children)
It's the business model problem. A typical Linux distro has a few thousand packages. There's a core of a few hundred that most users will use, and they may have no idea that most of those packages even exist. Donations to Slackware or Debian or whoever, how much of that is passed on to the authors and maintainers of the little projects, the glue stuff? Big, prominent apps such as LibreOffice and Mozilla Firefox can solicit donations, and maybe get enough to operate, but a utility app such as this kernel updater is almost entirely under the hood.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:06AM (2 children)
Poking up and demanding ransom is one way to get noticed.
At one time, big corps like IBM and Intel would sponsor programmers to work on FOSS...(the parts that benefit them, of course) not sure if that is tracked anywhere, but I'm sure it still goes on to some extent.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:46PM (1 child)
I've put five years into soggy jobs, three of them full-time.
My neurological problems have receded enough that I could code for clients until they return, but I get no warning until they do, it's like five minutes and I call 9-1-1, ten and I'm incapable of doing so.
Soggy Jobs' Indiegogo launch is Wednesday the 20th - a week and a half. I'm asking for $75k [soggy.jobs], forty for myself, thirty-five for business expenses.
Presently the _entire_ set is hand-coded HTML 5 and CSS2. There's just one Javascript for the listing table Tiger Striping.
My $40k salary will go mostly into Python and PostgreSQL queries. There will be more javascript to do stuff like the following. Consider my listing for Apple's headquarters:
| Apple | Jobs | Contact | Cupertino |
If you click on "Cupertino" you'll get a drop down with Austin, Portland, Seattle and the like. For multinationals - Apple's engineering isn't really multinational, just sales and support - You'll get heirarchical by country, state or province, county if you have counties, then city.
I have lots more truly _useful_ and _minimalistic_ features in mind, but would rather underpromise and overdeliver.
Thank you for contributing to my continued development of Soggy Jobs' software.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 10 2019, @03:17PM
I wish you all the best - it sounds like a fair and equitable deal.
Unfortunately, in this world, fair and equitable doesn't count for as much as maybe it should.
If you can fill a need that somebody truly desires, better and/or cheaper than the available alternatives, and the desirous somebody has cash they are willing to part with - that's how you get paid in this world, in any profession from the oldest through blue and white collar up to CEOs.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by loonycyborg on Saturday February 09 2019, @05:28PM (7 children)
If you look on it from user's point of view then shelling out even $11 for a little app can be road to hell. They add up really fast if you expect users to buy small things like this. So nothing except free to use will fly in grand scheme of things. I bet he will make even less money on it than before on donations.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 09 2019, @06:33PM (4 children)
What did those 12 people donate?
In the Palm Pilot days, I wrote a little game. I asked for a $9 donation for it (on the cheap side - most Palm Pilot games ran closer to $20). Nobody donated. Then, when PalmGearHQ put it in their promotion rotation, with slightly misleading copy implying that it cost $9 instead of asked for an optional $9 donation, it sold dozens of copies within a week...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by loonycyborg on Saturday February 09 2019, @10:13PM (3 children)
I guess marketing is more important here, promotion rotation that is.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:31PM (2 children)
Sales is more important than marketing.
Have you ever been paid to write code for a private for-profit corporation?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:05PM (1 child)
Well corps are free to set their goals whatever they wish, but if coding is not a priority then software won't be of best quality. In fact that's the only reason any sort of opensource projects even exist: simply because sales based business models don't work in software and only insane dose of marketing can create short lived illusion of them working. With time marketing will increasingly lose its effectiveness since any effects from it are by their nature temporary.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 10 2019, @10:15PM
The code from profitable corporations I've worked for tending to look ugly but work well:
void *SW_alloc( int size )
{
return 12 + malloc( size );
}
"Dave, all SW_alloc does is add twelve to its allocated size. Why is that?"
"So Spellswell would stop crashing."
Live Picture could have eliminated photoshop had they known how to sell and market it.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 09 2019, @06:53PM (1 child)
That is a concern. Some years ago, someone came out with an on-line kernel updater. It was cool, I played with it through several updates. Nice. Then, the developer closed it up, and offered only a paid subscription. I lost interest. Not that I couldn't afford it, but if more and more applications or whatever go that route, Linux may soon become more expensive to run than Apple or Microsoft. I appreciated the opportunity to play with the application, but when it became a paid service, I bailed.
Had to look it up - think it was Ksplice. Looks like Oracle bought them out - https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37670_01/E37355/html/admin-ksplice-overview.html [oracle.com]
Or, maybe it was a different application. Oracle's description looks very much like what I was using, but it doesn't seem quite "right".
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @09:26PM
There are a couple of online kernel updaters, the biggest being ksplice, kGraft, and kpatch. All three were free when initially made, but eventually closed shop. There are lesser ones now in KernelCare and Ubuntu's livepatch service. A formal solution was eventually mainlined into the kernel, and many of the mechanisms (free and paid) now just wrap that interface.
One thing to note about live patching the kernel or kexec: Those are not replacements for rebooting the system, only delaying it. Each live-patched function or time you kexec to a new kernel, it introduces a performance hit and leaves the whole thing in an interesting state. So please people, remember to reboot your machine during some downtime.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Saturday February 09 2019, @05:36PM (4 children)
Arch has a kernel installer: keep old kernels, install new ones, install experimental ones..... free.
Still using Arch (Manjaro). Still
McLoving it.Sorry... i hate McD's... i LOVE Arch.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @08:10PM (1 child)
Given that manually installing a kernel package, or rolling your own, is trivial also in debian, and the package creates/removes the grub entries. Really don't see the point of a specialized GUI to duplicate a package manager functionality, but I don't see the point of a lot of stuff going on in IT either.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:55PM
I think it is aimed at those that cannot do anything unless they can point and click.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Saturday February 09 2019, @09:48PM (1 child)
Same over here in PCLinuxOS, built right into the official repository and thus easily accessible via the usual package managers. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that also applies to every other Linux distro I've used long-term in the past decade... I wonder what the deal is with Ubuntu in this case.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday February 11 2019, @01:52AM
Sometimes people want the latest or newer (beta) and Ubuntu etc are months or more behind?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @06:22PM (1 child)
Guy charges suckers for an app that anyone with basic knowledge can write in a few minutes. Why the hell people would use such an app in the first place is beyond me, but if anyone pays for it I would be seriously surprised.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:27PM
First paid job was fortran astro data analysis over the summer of 1983.
First real - and very complex - C code over the summer of 1983. I was also a project manage for a team of ten coders.
Full time in 1987, salaried in 1988.
Peak hourly contracting pay of $120 in Y2K just before the crash, and authorized to bill as many hours as I damn well pleased.
First Linux install was Yggdrasil in 1984. When Yggdrasil went off the market, I'm pretty sure I installed Patrick's very first Slackware CD.
Highest salary was $130k in 2007.
I've been a coder for thirty years, so I assert that I do have "basic knowledge".
That app would take me a week to write. I invite me to write it better than I possibly could. Let me know when you write your first line of code, and I'll start my iPhone's stopwatch app.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by LVDOVICVS on Saturday February 09 2019, @06:33PM (5 children)
Whatever shall he do with himself now that he's a $132-aire?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 09 2019, @06:40PM (3 children)
To me, the point is that he sinks X hours per year into making this thing that apparently thousands of people use, and if he's not compensated, he's got better things to do with his time.
If there's another volunteer out there who wants to pick up the torch and continue a free fork, more power to them - I hope that the world has enough people like that to continue maintaining all the useful software tools forever.
On the other hand, if 2% of his 60,000 users will pony up $11, that's $13K - maybe enough to warrant him continuing to spend X hours per year into maintaining this tool at the level he's been doing it. It's certainly more efficient than other people who don't have the experience spending 3X hours coming up to speed in how to do it, and, heaven forbid, 20X hours putting it into an open-source project governance structure. Also, $13K - even per year, is too small for a commercial company to even think about... if there's a commercial user out there who really values what he's doing, they might just come out and pay him a stipend to continue his work for them.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Saturday February 09 2019, @11:22PM (2 children)
60,000 downloads != 60,000 users. I probably use only 20% of stuff I download, having found out it doesn't work, or doesn't do what I expected, or only works with a gigabyte of extra crap I would need to download, or thinking about it I find a better way to do what I wanted, or it is the loser in a beauty contest with two or three equivalent apps I try it against. I suspect that the ratio is even poorer with most other downloaders.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 10 2019, @04:09AM
To be sure, but 2% might come close to an actual download to real user ratio, as opposed to people who download it, try it once and forget it. You know: real users, the ones who derive actual value from the product and use it long term, year after year - the ones who benefit from regular product maintenance, far more than $11.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:22PM
... minimalist, so it doesn't need your gig.
So:
Sixty Thousand Downloads, Six Hundred Thousand Users.
I'll send you his bill in the mail.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday February 09 2019, @11:37PM
Just a bit longer and he can max out his cloits and dloits with the ease of a thousandaire! Assuming he can find one of those cheese-onna-string things somewhere anyway.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @07:11PM (1 child)
That's what is interesting, not the price.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:18PM
Richard is quite clear about that we must support each other.
Unfortunately, Open Source - which misses the point of Free Software - led to not just Free Software being expected to not bear a monetary price, but even highly-valued proprietary that have new Free Software or Open Source alternatives are expected to be free as well.
For example, Apple's garageband is now free. When it was paid for, it only supported sixteen bit audio, so it really was suitable only for actual garagebands.
Nowadays, GarageBand is quite the high end audio editor, comes with a free gigabyte of loops and instrument samples - concert grand, baby grand, honky-tonk and the like, it's absolutely free as in free beer, and it's twenty-four bit.
Open Source's lack of monetary charge has already bankrupted all manner of once-respected civically-minded mom and pop coding shops.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 09 2019, @07:56PM (1 child)
..that someday Poettering will do this to systemd, too.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Saturday February 09 2019, @08:13PM
I really don't know what's stopping him from monetizing systemd. My AI has already determined the sweet spot for prices.
Systemd purchase: free.
Systemd removal: 1300$
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:06PM
I haven't decided on how much loot I want, where I want her ransom dropped, nor - as I cannot drive due to brain seizures - do I yet have a getaway driver, though I _am_ accepting applications.
Something over ten grand though.
When I was at first intending to sell it, I set the price at $3.99, as it put ALL the other conway's life apps completely to shame. Golly is a far, far richer app and does lots of other kinds of cellular automata's other than Conway's original 2/3 Life - survive on two neighbors, newborn with three - but Golly's rich US requires the iPhone.
By contrast, I'm quite the minimalist Philip Glass-Steve Reich kinda minimalistic guy. I even enjoy LaMonte Young's "Cat In A Garbage Tunes" when I'm in the right frame of mind. Have a look at Soggy Jobs' [soggy.jobs] esthetic, because I find myself unable to post anymore without waving my link around.
WarpLife's minimalist esthetic reflects that, however I will point out that it is far, far faster than any other mobile Life implementation other than Golly - and I know all manner of ways to beat the pants off of Golly, but Version One Point O Should Be Fast Enough For Anybody.
Get It From The App Store Real Soon Now.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:32PM (2 children)
Linux mint has a kernel updater built right into the update manager. If he wanted $2 it would be one thing but $11? I mean, I get he wants to get paid but when you start writing a piece of software you should decide: Am I doing this for money or just for the good and fun of it? Whichever you choose requires a different approach, ie demos, marketing, etc. The bait and switch down the line isn't going to work for something like this. He could have just set a donation goal that if not met would end development. Ironically this is what's going to happen anyway as he ends up coding for 10 people instead of his 60k. All it takes is one person to fork and maintain his last version to put down this hissy fit too.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday February 10 2019, @02:59PM
I can't imagine that a simple GUI slapped on top of an almost trivial script requires that much updating or maintenance - unless he wrote a pile of crap in the first place. And in that case why would I want to download and install it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 10 2019, @07:33PM
yeah he should have put a little thought into a busines model. even just being clear and open about what was needed and showing what was coming in right on the site before people download would have likely gotten better results. or just charge $2 a download and let them still have the source. sure, some would share the free source but a certain percentage would pay. this percentage would likely be much higher than what caused this change. just sticking a donation link is not going to work. stop being so fucking lazy!
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Monday February 11 2019, @10:57AM
Um, what's wrong with
or whatever GUI tool Ubuntu has for updating packages?
Even I know about that, even though I come from the RPM side of the Force.