This comes across as bad but it is actually not that bad.
Those packages are from the universe repo, which includes ~23,000 packages that historically have been best effort maintained (unlike the main repository with ~2,300 packages that have guaranteed maintenance).
Ubuntu continues providing guaranteed maintenance for the main repo for free as it always have.
Now they are adding additional maintenance guarantees for 23,000 packages (which is a positive addition IMO), and making that available via Ububntu Pro
You can opt to not use Ubuntu Pro and you would continue getting the same guarantees as you were getting from Universe as before (which largely tracks Debian)
More details here in the "What's new with the Ubuntu Pro plan" section of https://ubuntu.com/pro
> This comes across as bad but it is actually not that bad.
It's actually pretty bad. If you're running Ubuntu anywhere there's a bit of bureaucracy, like a government or large business, you get backed into a corner.
You can never use any of the packages from 'universe' unless you're buying Ubuntu Pro because if you ever get hit with an exploit where there was a patch available, regardless of the circumstances, you'll get crucified.
The insurance company, admin staff, ambitious peers, security analysts, etc. will bury you for not patching a known vulnerability. This is the end of Ubuntu's 'universe' repo for businesses that can't afford $500/year/server. It's just that no one has realized it yet.
Well, yeah. This has always been the case, but now you can pay to not have this be the case. They're not taking anything away. If you had these concerns about the universe repo before Ubuntu Pro, you should not have been using it in the first place.
They minted 1,000,000 MKR tokens a few years ago and were selling small amounts every month to the public for the past few years. They have less than 500k tokens left right now. Why doesn't that count as an ICO? (btw, it's one of the most promising blockchain projects out there with a real working product that has real usage and usefulness)
I wonder how to test controlling for reciprocity. I.e., If I receive a basic income as part of a pilot/experiment I will feel tempted to "give back" somehow, while if basic income is a baseline all humans receive, that reciprocity will not be present. How can you design an experiment so that somehow people don't feel they are receiving money in an extraordinary way, but rather that's just part of how the world works. Wouldn't that change their motivations and thus the behavior you want to observe?
I think the short answer is you can't. This study is probably less likely to be susceptible to another major problem with philanthropy experiments, which is recipients reporting what they think the survey designers want to hear because they believe they will be further rewarded as a consequence.
(which I think is present and very difficult to avoid in RCT trials in developing countries; a notable example was people reporting that they were less likely to have recently been subjected to domestic violence after their neighbours had received money.)
>If I receive a basic income as part of a pilot/experiment I will feel tempted to "give back" somehow, while if basic income is a baseline all humans receive, that reciprocity will not be present. How can you design an experiment so that somehow people don't feel they are receiving money in an extraordinary way, but rather that's just part of how the world works
FWIW, excepting the actually lazy (which I think comprises a vanishingly small minority of the population), I think most people will feel as though they have to give back. Sure, once everyone gets N dollars/month just for being alive, they will no longer be receiving money in an extraordinary way, but culture is hard to kill. The relentlessly inbred Protestant work ethic provably shapes a panoply of aspects of our society even now (8 hour work days that office drones spend half of on Reddit, etc); there's no reason to think that its influence will suddenly drop away with the advent of "free money". I have little to go on beyond the already extant Canadian study of 'mincome' [0] back in the 70s, but that was generally considered a success, with recipients putting the money to use in building their businesses and communities, rather than sitting on their asses (with the notable exception of new mothers and teenagers [1], for respectively obvious reasons (OTOH teenagers' HS graduation rate improved, possibly due to not feeling pressure to go get a job)).
It comes down to how much Basic Income one can expect to collect. I don't consider myself extraordinarily lazy, and thus do my part working to earn a comfortable living. Really though I'm the type who hasn't found my "dream job", so working 9-5, 40 hour weeks, is something I don't particularly enjoy, and it sucks the life out of me.
Existing social assistance where I am doesn't even cover the cheapest rent in the city, requiring you to live with at least two others who are also on welfare in a studio apartment that deserves to be condemned as being unsuitable for human habitation. So long as "basic income" means bottom-of-the-barrel minimum income that requires you to rent in the slums with roommates, while barely having enough money to eat... I will remain employed. If "basic income" ever provides more than that, I could see myself being tempted into joining the ranks. Particularly if you are allowed to keep income from a part-time minimum wage job without any clawbacks to the basic income.
Somehow this sounds like starting with the easy case. It may well be, that people who get basic income in a pilot study behave better than people who get basic income as a right, however this seems to accentuate the benefits of basic income, so that you can at least study one half of the argument. And the complicated parts can then wait for a follow up study.
I am not sure that is possible in an experiment. You can however eventually (or even now within society) create systems that lead to people becoming better humans, more compassionate; education and social interaction opportunities would be the main ones that come to mind. Basic Income is a better foundation to start from anyhow.
It is technologically feasible today within a distance radius of 200 miles or so if the internet infrastructure around you is solid[1]. But as I mentioned in another comment, synchronous collaboration has a lot of friction, so I think while this is really cool, it's sort of an icing in the cake type of experience more than the most used scenario. Asynchronous is more convenient. And Bandhub has a sort of "live" feel since it has video and most tracks are recorded in one take (so there could be some slight mistakes or imperfections that make it feel very "real"). If you haven't tried it yet you should. The "live" feel to it was a pleasant surprise.
[1]NOTE: Most of the latency is actually in the audio processing components (internal audio device, driver and application buffers). There is some specialized hardware that minimizes this latency, making it work well across <200miles distance (or so). After that, speed of light + internet router buffers add way too much latency and it starts to not work so well.
Feature-wise Bandhub can be thought of as a combination of Facebook and YouTube with added specialized features for music collaboration.
(1) COMMUNITY FEATURES: Each user has a profile, you can follow/be followed, there is a news-feed, etc. The "posts" are exclusively music collabs, so you stay up to date on collabs your Bandhub friends are making, what's new, etc; you can comment and so on. You can search for collabs ( e.g., artists/styles/etc ) and create/share playlists. Also, there are interest groups ( e.g., "punk rock style covers" ). And there are added features specific to music collaboration ( e.g., "my list of collabs to participate" )
(2) THE MUSIC COLLABORATION SOFTWARE: There are two parts to it
(a) A collaborative GarageBand with video. When you open a collab in "STUDIO MODE" you get to a web-based multitrack audio/video editor - with many of the features of a DAW, but way simpler to digest. You can send/receive individual audio-video tracks, set the audio mix, enhance it with effects, determine which tracks stay/go, etc.
(b) Bandhub Recording App: when you want to record a part (called 'tracks') for a collab (e.g., the bass part), you use our Bandhub Recording App ( native app available for PC and Mac ). You connect your mic or instrument to the computer and using the computer's webacam you record audio+video through it. While recoding, you will hear the other parts of the collab (e.g., the drums and guitar) as backing tracks so you can play on top of them and stay in sync. When you are done, the track gets inserted in the collab in draft mode. You don't have to edit timelines for synchronization or use complex audio/video editing software at all. It's actually super super easy to use.
It's very high. We are not doing anything scientific around it but talk to the users constantly and I can tell you they are very very happy. The phrase "changed my life" is recurrent.
The ability to connect with other people and develop deep relationships around something as intimate as profound as music making is very powerful. Making new friends is life changing.
When you say applying it to a wider audience do you mean (i) to people who are not musicians or (ii) to musicians not in our focus segment ( e.g., people who play less frequently/more casually)
I'd want to talk to the current focus segment in depth, find out what makes them happiest about what they're doing with your product and look for ways to both increase the opportunities for those things and make them more accessible.
Is that making sense?
I think your current focus segment knows there's a rewarding feeling in return for the effort, and maybe group (ii) isn't as aware, or doesn't know how to get there...
I think there is a lot of truth in what you say. Most of our users in our target focus segment ( i.e., people who already play 2hs a day ) feel very confident in learning, practicing, playing/recording songs. Making music is hard after all, requires a lot of dedication. A lot of people aspire to get there, but they are not confident, or know how to get there. That's why lessons are so important in this hobby.
Since our initial focused segment is big enough for us to get traction, we are not currently focused on expanding, but we will do so in the future and asking ourselves/our users the questions you suggest seems to be a good idea.
Those packages are from the universe repo, which includes ~23,000 packages that historically have been best effort maintained (unlike the main repository with ~2,300 packages that have guaranteed maintenance).
Ubuntu continues providing guaranteed maintenance for the main repo for free as it always have.
Now they are adding additional maintenance guarantees for 23,000 packages (which is a positive addition IMO), and making that available via Ububntu Pro
You can opt to not use Ubuntu Pro and you would continue getting the same guarantees as you were getting from Universe as before (which largely tracks Debian)
More details here in the "What's new with the Ubuntu Pro plan" section of https://ubuntu.com/pro