On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 8:22 AM Stewart Russell via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
I should really stop running Ubuntu for the good of my health. This morning, my various Ubuntu systems announced that a whole bunch of packages would be unavailable unless I registered for Ubuntu Pro — https://ubuntu.com/pro
Ubuntu Pro is free-of-charge for "personal" users for up to five machines. Otherwise, pay up. I didn't see rates listed: you have to contact Canonical to find out. Whenever I see that, I expect an Oracle-style shakedown in the absence of transparency.
The following packages seem to be under 'esmapps', only available through Ubuntu Pro:
ansible imagemagick imagemagick-6-common imagemagick-6.q16 libimage-magick-perl libimage-magick-q16-perl libjs-jquery-ui libmagick++-6-headers libmagick++-6.q16-8 libmagick++-6.q16-dev libmagickcore-6-headers libmagickcore-6.q16-6 libmagick++-dev libmagickwand-6-headers libmagickwand-6.q16-6 libmaven3-core-java libopenexr25 libopenexr-dev libpython2.7-dbg libpython2.7-minimal libpython2.7-stdlib python2.7 python2.7-dbg python2.7-minimal
Ubuntu Pro also seems to require snapd, my least favourite Canonical 'innovation'. On the system I have it blocked completely it tried and failed to install, hopefully with no hilarious side-effects.
Anyone else experiencing this? I suppose I should've seen it coming with all the little messages that Ubuntu had been peppering into my apt chatter every day.
About 5 years ago I spent some few hundred hours investigated lxd - - - - so I was introduced to snapd as well. I declined that 'joy' and it was incredibly painful to revert - - - - was only possible for me by a total reinstall - - - - a la M$ world, which I still resent. At the time I could think of no reason as to why canonical would want to force a captive audience for their updates. Your news in the other boot dropping. Mr Mark is (and has been) really really wanting to monetize his baby - - - - and he wants an at least Ellison sized grab bag for all 'his' work. I returned to Debian and after frustration with systemd am now presently with Devuan. So far so good - - - - but then I'm not any kind of serious 'under the hood tinkerer' with Linux - - - - so ymmv - - - - I'd be dumping Ubuntu but then I don't like being shoved into a corner and told what to do very much. HTH