Who's a die-hard Mozilla fan?

People who love Ubuntu, tend to love Ubuntu.

A very long hiring process pretty much ensures the only ones still waiting around are the ones who really want to work at Canonical.

This is not exclusively true. You will get people who are willing to jump through a lot of hoops to get hired. Some of them may have strong affinity for Canonical, some may just really really need a job and have no other options.

The folks who really really need a job are probably not the people Canonical is looking to hire.

They are being extremely deliberate with their length hiring process.

However it is true, it's not a universal thing of course.

i installed ubuntu or kubuntu on most of my new machines since it came out, but for my newest install i picked debian instead, especially since the softening of the debian social contract eliminated most of the install hassles

because i usually use xpdf for pdf files and ubuntu dropped it https://askubuntu.com/questions/1245518/how-to-install-xpdf-...

i was skeptical about ubuntu's business prospects when mark pitched me on it at the ceo conference in 02004 (he was attending, i wasn't) but i've always thought the distribution was pretty decent, and the company's behavior has also been excellent. a couple of my friends have worked there and had no complaints. i would have no hesitation about working there unless i had a better offer on the table

but i'm definitely not a die-hard ubuntu fan

If you were looking for a new job today, would you tolerate an 81 day process like the OP did? My guess is probably not, unless you were just in love with Canonical and their mission (ie. it was your dream job).

Most available top-tier talent can land a job in much less than 81 days with much less effort at much more prestigious places... and they won't wait around for an average offer like what will come from Canonical.

By dragging out their process, Canonical either intentionally or unintentionally limits themselves to people who really just love Canonical and it's mission (and/or people like Mark). Additionally, this lengthy process ensures the most desirable candidates self-eliminate from the pool due to accepting offers elsewhere in the meantime.

yeah, i would, unless i were desperate to get some income (as in fact i am right now, but almost never have been)

like, yeah, if i had just been laid off and i was trying to get two or three offers on the table at the same time so i could choose between them, getting me an offer in a couple of weeks instead of three months would be crucial

but usually when i've interviewed for a job, i've already had another job

Well, consider if you had a job, were looking for another job, and had put some time/effort into a couple places. If you received say 1-3 offers, and Canonical was still 2+ months away (and you had no idea if an offer would even be made) - would you wait (meaning decline your other offers)?

Probably not. Unless you really just wanted to work at Canonical (the dream job opportunity thing).

None of this is to say Canonical isn't a fantastic workspace. It's just a comment on their hiring process and possibly missed opportunities. If you're looking for top-tier talent, it would behoove you to move fast.

agreed, but they're probably hoping to hire people whose job search isn't very active, rather than people who are desperate to work there

> because i usually use xpdf for pdf files and ubuntu dropped it

FWIW, Ubuntu only didn't ship xpdf in 20.04. It's back in 22.04. Looking at the history of the package in Debian, it looks like it was on "life support" for a while in Debian by people I recognise as Ubuntu developers, but then also got removed from Debian testing for the same reason. However Debian didn't have a release at all in 2020, so it didn't miss a Debian release like it missed an Ubuntu release, and a new maintainer arrived to look after it again after that so it got fixed in time for Debian's 2021 release.

IOW, it was just a matter of timing of releases and the absence of a maintainer in both distributions for a while, rather than some weird Ubuntu decision.

Having said that, Ubuntu does tend to focus on evince, so that would explain why it didn't attract a replacement maintainer quickly from the Ubuntu end.

It seems a bit of a weird reason to change distribution over anyway, which is why I thought I'd explain the details :-)

i have 20.04 installed here (should i confess that publicly?) and the absence of xpdf has been a irritation literally every day for months

a more rational person would have compiled xpdf from source obviously

You could probably grab the next version that was published to Debian (3.04-14), throw it into a PPA to build against 20.04 and it would probably work. People have also published this kind of thing as an update in the official repositories in the past in this sort of case where the fix wasn't available at the time of release so it's missing from just one release.

I appreciate that this is all a non-trivial exercise for someone not familiar with the tooling though.

i don't really have that excuse, just this evening i compiled qemacs and jove from source, in the latter case from the debian source package

You might be right but gosh, what a terrible way to treat your most faithful supporters.

I was extremely passionate about Ubuntu some 15 years ago. I would receive live CD-roms and distribute them in my campus, and teach people to install Ubuntu. Would show up things like Beryl or whatever weird stuff you could do with Linux at the time. Organized free software meetups too.

Today? I couldn't care less about whatever Canonical is up to. I don't know if the tipping point was when they put ads in the frigging desktop or if it was just a slow but persistent decline in quality

It seems to me that Canonical doesn't care about desktop anymore (does anyone remember bug #1?) but is focused all in on servers. Which I suppose pays the bills, but resulted in Canonical burning an immense amount of goodwill the last decade+

Strike Ubuntu, insert "Linux", or "desktop Linux". Yeah, there will be a few who'd consider it quite awesome working on it full time and getting paid, and who wouldn't mind doing that Ubuntu-flavored. And it's not far off if they consider themselves attractive enough that they can skip everybody who's idle and looking for a seat to fill, and instead focus on those who are already employed but consider a change.