Canonical CEO admits Unity was a painful change

[Linuxratty]

Interesting read.


LINUX VENDOR Canonical has acknowledged that Ubuntu's shift to the Unity user interface was painful for many of its users but insisted it hasn't led to a decline in the popularity of the Linux distribution.


http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2154413/canonical-ceo-admits-unity-painful-change

[uRock]

You linked a tabloid? :lolflag:

[grahammechanical]

However Silber's comments strongly suggest that it is unlikely Canonical will want to impose another major and painful change on its users anytime soon.
Source: The Inquirer (http://s.tt/15NOL)

There is no need. 12.04 is there for 5 years.

[castrojo]

No surprises here, at the Ubuntu Developer Summit for 11.04 when Mark announced that he'd like to see Unity shipped by default he mentioned that it would be controversial and some people wouldn't like it.

Here's the video, around 22:00: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUAzicy_01o

[Linuxratty]

You linked a tabloid? :lolflag:

Is that a tabloid!!!?:confused::o:redface::-s I'll never live this down!

[vasa1]

You linked a tabloid? :lolflag:

I don't think it's that (The National Enquirer) tabloid.

[Linuxratty]

I don't think it's that (The National Enquirer) tabloid.

*Whew* :)
I feel much better now!

[LillyDragon]

I kept seeing words like "painful" and "pain" being reused over and over again in that article, from top to bottom. Would it be safe to call it "bias" on the author's part? :P A gut feeling's telling me there was a little personal pain from Unity between the lines, or maybe I'm trying too hard to interpret something that might not be there.

In regards to the article itself, I had a feeling that Conanical knew Unity would receive mixed reviews anyway, but sometimes change is "painful", especially the dramatic kind, and the development team understood that; can't have innovation, good or bad, without it. There's more love than hate for Unity that I have seen, so their big risk must have paid off, if you ask me. Otherwise it wouldn't be going anywhere near the next LTS release.

[click4851]

that's true, but innovating isn't done in a vacuum. History is littered with the carcasses of businesses/organizations that fell by the wayside while innovating.

[forrestcupp]

I love how Jane Silber said that Mint is for people who are "not necessarily concerned about security updates." What a subtle way to try to get people to not use Mint.

[Gremlinzzz]

Canonical CEO admits Unity was a painful change/ yeah as she secretly goes home and uses Windows 7:popcorn:

Thats great think i can shut my spell checker off.

[cariboo]

Canonical CEO admits Unity was a painful change/ yeah as he secretly goes home and uses Windows 7:popcorn:

At least read the article, before commenting, Jane Silber is a he? :)

[aysiu]

Canonical CEO admits Unity was a painful change/ yeah as he secretly goes home and uses Windows 7:popcorn: Isn't Jane Silber a woman?

[KiwiNZ]

No pain, no gain

[winh8r]

I love how Jane Silber said that Mint is for people who are "not necessarily concerned about security updates." What a subtle way to try to get people to not use Mint.
Funny that! I thought exactly the same thing when I read that part.
It was as though she was acknowledging the existence of Mint but almost relegating it to the level of a "pretend" altertnative to a real operating system.

Although it would have been impossible for anyone to write an article entitled "Unity - A roaring success across the board"

We shall wait and see what the next few years bring, but I do believe that a lesson has been learned somewhere in Canonicalville.

[SemiExpert]

I love how Jane Silber said that Mint is for people who are "not necessarily concerned about security updates." What a subtle way to try to get people to not use Mint.

I do think that Mint appeals to "people who want codecs pre-installed." However, the fact that many users are adverse to Unity has impacted the popularity of Mint. From my own experience, Mint sometimes introduces bugs that weren't there with Ubuntu, such as the inability of Mint 12 to support sleep mode on hardware that had worked just fine with Ubuntu 11.10. I don't have a problem with Ubuntu's policy as far as codec support, but I also don't buy into the popular mythology surrounding Mint. I don't see it as being a more polished alternative to Ubuntu. Far from it. My own issues with Unity surround the feature deletions for 12.04.

[JDShu]

I love how Jane Silber said that Mint is for people who are "not necessarily concerned about security updates." What a subtle way to try to get people to not use Mint.

Does anybody know what she is referring to? Do the mint repositories lack package signing the way Arch does?

[Simian Man]

Does anybody know what she is referring to? Do the mint repositories lack package signing the way Arch does?

She's a businesswoman. When has anyone involved with business ever been honest? The things that Mint provides on top of Ubuntu should have no security concerns. All important packages (kernel, ssl, apache etc.) come from Ubuntu's repos. This whole thing is just PR lies.

[JDShu]

She's a businesswoman. When has anyone involved with business ever been honest? The things that Mint provides on top of Ubuntu should have no security concerns. All important packages (kernel, ssl, apache etc.) come from Ubuntu's repos. This whole thing is just PR lies.

Nice, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Shame on her.

[cariboo]

Nice, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Shame on her.

I think you should take both an article from The Reg, and someone that posts in the Cafe with a grain of salt. :)

In the last Ask Mark irc session, Mark Shuttleworth gave Mint a big thumbs up for what they are doing. The above applies to me too :)

[forrestcupp]

I do think that Mint appeals to "people who want codecs pre-installed."

That's always been the case, but I don't really think that's relevant anymore. When I did a clean install of Ubuntu 11.10, there was a place in the installer where I could check a box and have all of the codecs installed. That's barely any harder than just having them installed without asking.

[JDShu]

I think you should take both an article from The Reg, and someone that posts in the Cafe with a grain of salt. :)

Well, there were two things to consider: Did Jane Silber say that Mint has less security than Ubuntu, and is Mint less secure than Ubuntu. The first statement seems to be true, even if it's out of context, and there is no indication that the second statement is true.

[cariboo]

Well, there were two things to consider: Did Jane Silber say that Mint has less security than Ubuntu, and is Mint less secure than Ubuntu. The first statement seems to be true, even if it's out of context, and there is no indication that the second statement is true.

I don't think she is saying Mint is less secure, as that doesn't make sense, because Mint uses the Ubuntu repositories, it's that Mint appeals to users that are more concerned about ease of use, than security.

We've seen that over the years with Ubuntu users too. Many new users, especially windows converts, seem to have a hard time getting their heads around the need for passwords for any administrative tasks, and want to see things as being more Windows like, which Mint appears to do.

[3rdalbum]

We shall wait and see what the next few years bring, but I do believe that a lesson has been learned somewhere in Canonicalville.

"The users don't want change" is not something you can work around in the Linux world.

Perhaps "If you know you'll have to change something, better to change it before the users get too familiar with the old one" might be a better idea?

[forrestcupp]

I don't think she is saying Mint is less secure, as that doesn't make sense, because Mint uses the Ubuntu repositories, it's that Mint appeals to users that are more concerned about ease of use, than security.

We've seen that over the years with Ubuntu users too. Many new users, especially windows converts, seem to have a hard time getting their heads around the need for passwords for any administrative tasks, and want to see things as being more Windows like, which Mint appears to do.

Not to beat this to death, but if Mint is exactly as secure as Ubuntu, then why even mention that at all, unless there is an ulterior motive? That implies that you are sacrificing security for ease of use, which means she is either completely ignorant, blatantly lying, or hopefully, she just accidentally misspoke something without thinking about what she said. What other option is there than those three? The only other option is that the interview was completely fabricated, which means they could get sued for libel.

[Copper Bezel]

Mint does delay Ubuntu's updates, technically, since its release cycle is roughly a month behind. That theoretically makes it marginally less secure, although I can't fathom that it would be a significant enough difference to mention in a context like this one.

So she's kind of FUDding.

[Simian Man]

Mint does delay Ubuntu's updates, technically, since its release cycle is roughly a month behind. That theoretically makes it marginally less secure, although I can't fathom that it would be a significant enough difference to mention in a context like this one.

So she's kind of FUDding.

It delays new versions by a month. If I'm not much mistaken though, it does not delay security updates for supported versions. If what you say is true, then for example 11.10 is way more secure than 10.04 which I don't think is true. This is just FUD no matter how you slice it.

[rg4w]

Anyone who thinks the transition to Unity was painful wasn't a Mac user when that OS went from OS 9 to OS X. ;)

[kevdog]

Ive never tried Mint -- in fact I've never even seen a desktop screenshot. Am I missing something?? I've heard about the Mint menu, but beyond that, is it really different than Ubuntu?

[BigCityCat]

Give Unity a winged launcher already and problem solved. Oh and throw compiz in the trash.