Enough with the mobile stuff...
Am I the only one that wishes that all the effort Canonical is putting into the phone and tablet projects would just into making Ubuntu desktop completely awesome.
Hey, its their business, not mine, so they can do what they want, but I feel like just when Ubuntu was something I could really start to push into my personal network and corporate clients, its slipping away.... Can you feel it? I can...it's like desktop computing is no longer fun for all the cool kids.... I am worried about the future big time here. Ubuntu could be the best desktop OS in the world...I totally believe that. On the other hand, I cannot ever see a time when Ubuntu on the phone is going to beat Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
Sorry for the semi-pointless venting here...
Re: Enough with the mobile stuff...
You are missing the point. In fact you are missing several points.
A blogger recently pointed out that Canonical is technically bankrupt because it is in debt. This is the same as countries being technically bankrupt because governments are spending more than they receive in tax revenue. So, the government borrows but lacks the income to repay the debt.
Canonical needs to make money not just to pay back this debt, which I suspect is owed to Mark Shuttleworth, but to continue supporting Ubuntu. Canonical does not make money from selling different versions of Ubuntu. Unlike other Linux distributions. It makes no difference if we are an individual user or the owner of a large company we are offered the same edition of Ubuntu and at the same price. And we are assured that this policy will not change. Unless Canonical is sold off by Mark Shuttleworth and the new owners decide to do things differently. This could become a distinct possibility if Canonical fails with that mobile stuff.
The look of the Ubuntu 10.10 desktop was not so different from the look of the Windows 98 desktop. which in turn was very similar to the Windows 3 desktop. Whether you preferred that way of doing things or not, is besides the point. That look and way of working had no where to go. What work needed to be done on it, in your opinion? At that point in time all that was needed was for Ubuntu to keep up to date with the latest Linux kernels; Gnome DE and applications developments.
The Gnome developers decided to change the Gnome user interface and Ubuntu had to keep up with that and it does but Canonical took advantage of this change by developing its own user interface. And suddenly many professed Ubuntu lovers became Ubuntu haters.
Desktop sales are falling. Ubuntu is never going to be the best desktop OS in the world. There is an elephant in the room. Have you not noticed? And as regards to mobile devices, there are two elephants in the room. Canonical is not trying to compete with the elephants. Canonical is taking a high risk, high reward strategy of convergence that will be of financial benefit to corporations. By not understanding this you are at risk of doing your corporate clients a disservice.
If you really value the gift of Ubuntu you will be tolerant of Canonical doing all this mobile stuff for 12 - 18 months. Is that such a hard thing to do? The desktop is not being neglected by any means. Unity 8 - Next will be in 13.10 and the whole convergence process should be more or less complete by 14.04. And then we will know if Canonical has a future. How much development work would be done on the Ubuntu desktop distribution if it was completely developed by community volunteers? Just think about that.
Regards.
Re: Enough with the mobile stuff...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
grahammechanical
You are missing the point. In fact you are missing several points.
A blogger recently pointed out that Canonical is technically bankrupt because it is in debt. This is the same as countries being technically bankrupt because governments are spending more than they receive in tax revenue. So, the government borrows but lacks the income to repay the debt.
Canonical needs to make money not just to pay back this debt, which I suspect is owed to Mark Shuttleworth, but to continue supporting Ubuntu. Canonical does not make money from selling different versions of Ubuntu. Unlike other Linux distributions. It makes no difference if we are an individual user or the owner of a large company we are offered the same edition of Ubuntu and at the same price. And we are assured that this policy will not change. Unless Canonical is sold off by Mark Shuttleworth and the new owners decide to do things differently. This could become a distinct possibility if Canonical fails with that mobile stuff.
The look of the Ubuntu 10.10 desktop was not so different from the look of the Windows 98 desktop. which in turn was very similar to the Windows 3 desktop. Whether you preferred that way of doing things or not, is besides the point. That look and way of working had no where to go. What work needed to be done on it, in your opinion? At that point in time all that was needed was for Ubuntu to keep up to date with the latest Linux kernels; Gnome DE and applications developments.
The Gnome developers decided to change the Gnome user interface and Ubuntu had to keep up with that and it does but Canonical took advantage of this change by developing its own user interface. And suddenly many professed Ubuntu lovers became Ubuntu haters.
Desktop sales are falling. Ubuntu is never going to be the best desktop OS in the world. There is an elephant in the room. Have you not noticed? And as regards to mobile devices, there are two elephants in the room. Canonical is not trying to compete with the elephants. Canonical is taking a high risk, high reward strategy of convergence that will be of financial benefit to corporations. By not understanding this you are at risk of doing your corporate clients a disservice.
If you really value the gift of Ubuntu you will be tolerant of Canonical doing all this mobile stuff for 12 - 18 months. Is that such a hard thing to do? The desktop is not being neglected by any means. Unity 8 - Next will be in 13.10 and the whole convergence process should be more or less complete by 14.04. And then we will know if Canonical has a future. How much development work would be done on the Ubuntu desktop distribution if it was completely developed by community volunteers? Just think about that.
Regards.
I think the OPs point was that the chances of the mobile stuff paying off are pretty much zero so all this effort is wasted. 99% of the people on earth dont care about convergence as long as their devices work together. I have no idea what OS is on my TV and dont care. My phone works, thats all I care about. I think most people are similar. Canonical is betting a lot of money on something that even Microsoft is finding wont work.
Re: Enough with the mobile stuff...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
whatthefunk
I think the OPs point was that the chances of the mobile stuff paying off are pretty much zero so all this effort is wasted.
Entirely possible, and even probable, but not certain. Equally, 20 years of Linux has proven that the chances of the desktop stuff paying off IS zero, so absolutely no point wasting effort on that, either. Is there a third way?
Re: Enough with the mobile stuff...
Im quite excited about the mobile stuff, The ability to dock your phone and fire up a full fledged ubuntu desktop? I think that's something worth investing in
Re: Enough with the mobile stuff...
Quote:
Am I the only one that wishes that all the effort Canonical is putting into the phone and tablet projects would just into making Ubuntu desktop completely awesome.
Making Ubuntu work on phones and tablets is part of making the desktop completely awesome, it's just not there yet.
Re: Enough with the mobile stuff...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
castrojo
Making Ubuntu work on phones and tablets is part of making the desktop completely awesome, it's just not there yet.
Thats what Microsoft thought too. Windows 8 sure is doing well...
Re: Enough with the mobile stuff...
While I don't agree that the desktop is dying, but its market has definitely shrinked quit a bit because of mobile. As devices are getting more and more powerful the trend will continue, I think Canonical is quite right to expand into this growing market. While it is true that Android is built on Linux, it is not an open platform. I would like to see a truly FOSS presence in the mobile market (FirefoxOS gets there first but it is aimed at a different segment). Some argue that it is too late, but you never know, getting into the Desktop market in 2004 might have been "late" too while MicroSoft dominated 90 + % of desktop computing with no sign of declining (it still does, but is declining) I think it is a very bold and visionary move. I hope that more distros would do the same.
Re: Enough with the mobile stuff...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
whatthefunk
Thats what Microsoft thought too. Windows 8 sure is doing well...
Also, as much as Windows 8 gets flamed, it's sold over 60 million copies, Ubuntu has yet to do that well, barely even a third of that number if that.
It's a chance to lead in a market that is still new and where there is no clear winner and we should challenge ourselves to do a better job at it than Microsoft.
Even if you don't care about mobile you still get the performance and footprint improvements that getting Ubuntu to run on slower devices gets you, like this: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ub...ry/036436.html
Re: Enough with the mobile stuff...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
castrojo
Also, as much as Windows 8 gets flamed, it's sold over 60 million copies,
Welll to be fair, it is because Windows8 is preinstalled on most computers. But I disagree with whatthefunk, Unity is very usable on desktops, unlike Win8 which is a mess of confusions.