Unity

Bug #668415
Comment #251

Comment 251 for bug 668415

Revision history for this message

John Lea (johnlea) wrote on 2011-12-20:

#251

@s-roesgen; cars are a great example. When designing a car, different manufacturers aim for different markets, different users, different pricepoints, have different development budgets, different strategies, etc, etc... And these different constraints and objectives produce widely differing results, from cars with no doors to cars with 7+ doors. Designing and building a OS is exactly the same, there are many, many different trades we are choosing as we work to divine what we hope will be an optimal strategy. Remember we are trying to compete with Microsoft and Apple, and for all of Apple's talent and success they have been unable to displace Microsoft from their dominant position in the desktop OS market. And Ubuntu has only a fraction of the developers, apps, etc.. that OSX has. So how are we going to succeed where even Apple has failed? By taking a different strategy, making a whole load of different trades, and executing this strategy as efficiently as possible. Think about Ubuntu as a gorilla fighter, it will never win by playing by the conventional army's rules, to win it has to invent its own rules.

So coming back to your car analogy. The strategy we are taking involves making a different set of trades, and these decisions eventually drill down to result in a car coming out of the factory *today* that has only has only two doors. And is electric, goes 0-60 in 2.5 sec, has a range of less then 200 miles, and takes 10 hours to recharge. But this is only looking at the car coming out of the factory door *now*. In two years the car coming out of the factory door will look very different, and in eight years there is a small but fighting chance that this car company could be the the most successful car company in the world, and in the process of making electric cars mainstream brings massive ecological benefits.

So we are taking a very different strategy, and making a different set of trades, and this results in the product we have today being different. But doing this gives us a chance of winning, and in the process represents a chance for fully open sourced GPLed software to become the dominant force in desktop computing. It might or might not work out, but I am very glad to be part of those trying.

@s-roesgen; cars are a great example.  When designing a car, different manufacturers aim for different markets, different users, different pricepoints, have different development budgets, different strategies, etc, etc... And these different constraints and objectives produce widely differing results, from cars with no doors to cars with 7+ doors.  Designing and building a OS is exactly the same, there are many, many different trades we are choosing as we work to divine what we hope will be an optimal strategy.  Remember we are trying to compete with Microsoft and Apple, and for all of Apple's talent and success they have been unable to displace Microsoft from their dominant position in the desktop OS market.  And Ubuntu has only a fraction of the developers, apps, etc.. that OSX has.  So how are we going to succeed where even Apple has failed?  By taking a different strategy, making a whole load of different trades, and executing this strategy as efficiently as possible.  Think about Ubuntu as a gorilla fighter, it will never win by playing by the conventional army's rules, to win it has to invent its own rules.

So coming back to your car analogy.  The strategy we are taking involves making a different set of trades, and these decisions eventually drill down to result in a car coming out of the factory *today* that has only has only two doors.  And is electric, goes 0-60 in 2.5 sec, has a range of less then 200 miles, and takes 10 hours to recharge.  But this is only looking at the car coming out of the factory door *now*.  In two years the car coming out of the factory door will look very different, and in eight years there is a small but fighting chance that this car company could be the the most successful car company in the world, and in the process of making electric cars mainstream brings massive ecological benefits.

So we are taking a very different strategy, and making a different set of trades, and this results in the product we have today being different.  But doing this gives us a chance of winning, and in the process represents a chance for fully open sourced GPLed software to become the dominant force in desktop computing.   It might or might not work out, but I am very glad to be part of those trying.