© 2004
Canonical Ltd.
•
Terms of use
•
Data privacy
•
Contact Launchpad Support
•
Blog
•
Careers
•
System status
•
bbfa235
(Get the code!)
The subtle and disruptive suggestion in this thread is that the backports and universe sections are unnecessary legacy baggage, and certain important things like the web browser and office suite should not be in the main section.
From the customer perspective, application software is the profit center and the exciting reason to use Ubuntu. Things that are used daily, like the web browser and office suite, should always be current and therefore provided by a rolling channel.
From the customer perspective, everything else is a cost center and hygiene factor. They don't care about the components in main unless their laptop doesn't sleep, or their audio is garbled, or they can't play their favorite flash game.
Furthermore, a smaller and tighter main section might have prevented or mitigated some earlier Ubuntu release mistakes, especially those caused by Canonical staffers wedging unfinished product into distribution to hit bonus targets. Things like MetaTracker and PulseAudio would have been less frustrating if they were quickly iterated in a rolling channel.