It’s remarkable what one can learn on the Internet. Really, who would have suspected this? Oh wait, it’s clearly been the plan all along? An evil conspiracy in plain sight!
I agree that Shuttleworth’s actions have appeared high handed at times. Unity didn’t make much sense to me and I disliked it and switched to Mint. Subsequently the plan has become clearer and I’ve become much more favourably disposed. I hope to switch to a phone running this before the year is out.

The Mir story is one that looks to me like Shuttleworth backing his people, right or wrong, and in this case possibly wrong (I am not best qualified to judge and suspect that, as with Unity, there is more to the plan than first appears).

Personally, I fancy Mr Shuttleworth’s chances of putting a dent in the universe and I know that he won’t succeed without attracting some of the hostility we have seen. Clearly he is doing something right.

I recall, years ago, being — as an IT professional — about as condescending as it was possible to be about Apple and Apple products (around the time Microsoft kept the company alive to stave off anti-trust actions). Very little would have persuaded me that Jobs was a person to be taken seriously. I remain philosophically opposed but I respect what he achieved and I use an iPad (for now) and I have purchased them as gifts. I have a hunch that some of Mr Shuttleworth’s detractors may get to reconsider in time. He may not be as benevolent as claimed but what matters, surely, is that he succeeds. Who is right about Mir or any other detail is irrelevant if the result is not the fixing of bug number 1.

Wouldn’t it be better to “canonize” Mr Shuttleworth and shower him with the most extravagant praise. We should refer to him with North Korean levels of adulation and try to touch his cloak. A few years of this and he’d need a new liver.