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So op thought "I want to develop Linux" and applied to Canonical? That's like wanting to make it as a painter and going to your local highschool to study.

Yes, nobody wants to work with Shuttleworth, it's a pain. Yes, Canonical has insane interview processes, which is partly why it doesn't attract talent.

But Canonical is at fractional scale compared to even SUSE, let alone Red Hat and IBM. If you want to "develop linux," Canonical is not the place to go to. You might be better off joining Google than Canonical, honestly.

If you see it as an opportunity, that's almost a couple dozen pages--including a cover page, appendix, and index, of course--to reflect on yourself for free.

No reason it could not be expanded later to motivate other projects.

Literally people are asking to read something you wrote, as a captive audience. Already made the sale (at least the first few pages).

I would have had the same knee-jerk reaction a decade ago, when words were cheap and life long. Now there is less time for everything.

I have an opportunity to cut down about an acre of scrub trees, if you're interested.

Healthy physical activity, in the lovely summer weather, with a chance to closely observe the flora and fauna of a vigorous subtropical jungle environment.

You're a prolific commenter and I always appreciate your insight. Hopefully I will have something more substantial someday--not just a comment, but an honest, tech-worthy submission :)
if i may advise: hunt for passion before audience. find something that moves you to write well, then it becomes much easier to see who might want to read it.
How is it "for free?" Do you need Canonical and 20-page essay to reflect about your high school achievements? Or can I bill canonical for my work on the insane 10+ round interview process?
The exercise of writing the work has intrinsic value.

Having kept a blog or journal, material could be collected from that.

> bill Canonical... insane...

Well, that's a separate question. I'm not sure. But 10+ rounds seems excessive.

> The exercise of writing the work has intrinsic value.

Nobody's disputing that. But why do I need Canonical to do it? And why do I need to submit the work to Canonical for my interview?

To me, this'd be an indicator of how Canonical is going to treat my time in the future. If they don't care about me doing hours of free work for their silly interview games (while I have a full-time job, family, and daily responsibilities), I can infer that they most likely won't care about my well-being if faced with overtime on site.

So he switched to Windows because of Canonical... Lame.
Ubuntu loses talent, and it is no longer a Linux anyone would recommend for any reason.
I don’t get it.
I think the screenshot shows an MS Windows desktop, that's how disgusted he was with the requirement for a "20-page essay about my life, aspirations, philosophy".

He seems to have concluded that Canonical has lost the plot so much that there is no hope.

I got that, I didn't get how you go from that to windows.
> He seems to have concluded that Canonical has lost the plot so much that there is no hope.

I despise Canonical just as much I despise Microsoft. I still use Linux though.

this dude is an annoying hot take artist