Unity

Bug #882274
Comment #73

Comment 73 for bug 882274

Revision history for this message

Paul Sladen (sladen) wrote on 2011-11-09:

#73

Oliver: it's certainly true that the Unity work has evolved out of and is a continuation of the Ubuntu Netbook Remix interface research work. However, as the substantial user base are desktop users, it's fairly unlikely that Ubuntu would be wishing to upset those existing users intentionally—you note that folks introduced you to Ubuntu, and you yourself encouraged more folks to follow after that. It's likely that you are all desktop users.

I'd like to explore your LTS concern(s). Currently an LTS release is supported for five years on the desktop (it used to be three years on the desktop). That means that what /was/ released, is going to be supported going forward and continue to be usable, in a fully supported fashion, for at least half a decade. You've still obviously got some concerns, or questions, around LTS and the desktop experience. Could you narrow those down specifically and I'll try and respond to them?

I believe at the recent UDS-P in Orlando, it was specifically mentioned in Mark Shuttleworth's keynote that there would be a focus on "power users" during the cycle. The keynote section on power-users starts at the following offset:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bOwyGYTMv8#t=22m38s

Ubuntu's success to-date has generally been around choosing good defaults. You've asked the question "Can I tell it what language I speak?" It's more interesting to thing about the wider issue; eg. "Can the system make a educated, fairly reliable guess at what language(s) I speak?". The positioning of the Launcher is a similar one, it's where it is because that's where other stuff isn't–position shuffling is not that interesting; instead it might be better to investigate from a higher-level design perspective if the Launcher needs to exist at all. Look at the wider puzzle rather than the narrow solution.

Adding options for the sake of it is bit like Henry Ford's "faster horses" quote:

If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse".

Ford successfully produced and marketed a product that the buyers had not imagined before. Suffice to say, horses still exist and have not been wiped out as a result, instead the provision has allowed horses to be optimised for their /current requirements/.

Bazon: What Mint have been doing with the GNOME 3 Shell MGSE extensions is quite interesting and it's pleasing to see additional Linux distributions start to take an interest in desktop design. Ultimately the work that both Mint and Ubuntu have been doing will roll back into a better desktop experience for Free Software desktop users in the long-run, as the various open projects and research cross-percolate.

Oliver: it's certainly true that the Unity work has evolved out of and is a continuation of the Ubuntu Netbook Remix interface research work.  However, as the substantial user base are desktop users, it's fairly unlikely that Ubuntu would be wishing to upset those existing users intentionally—you note that folks introduced you to Ubuntu, and you yourself encouraged more folks to follow after that.  It's likely that you are all desktop users.

I'd like to explore your LTS concern(s).  Currently an LTS release is supported for five years on the desktop (it used to be three years on the desktop).  That means that what /was/ released, is going to be supported going forward and continue to be usable, in a fully supported fashion, for at least half a decade.  You've still obviously got some concerns, or questions, around LTS and the desktop experience.  Could you narrow those down specifically and I'll try and respond to them?

I believe at the recent UDS-P in Orlando, it was specifically mentioned in Mark Shuttleworth's keynote that there would be a focus on "power users" during the cycle.  The keynote section on power-users starts at the following offset:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bOwyGYTMv8#t=22m38s

Ubuntu's success to-date has generally been around choosing good defaults.  You've asked the question "Can I tell it what language I speak?"  It's more interesting to thing about the wider issue;  eg. "Can the system make a educated, fairly reliable guess at what language(s) I speak?".  The positioning of the Launcher is a similar one, it's where it is because that's where other stuff isn't–position shuffling is not that interesting;  instead it might be better to investigate from a higher-level design perspective if the Launcher needs to exist at all.  Look at the wider puzzle rather than the narrow solution.

Adding options for the sake of it is bit like Henry Ford's "faster horses" quote:

If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse".

Ford successfully produced and marketed a product that the buyers had not imagined before.  Suffice to say, horses still exist and have not been wiped out as a result, instead the provision has allowed horses to be optimised for their /current requirements/.

Bazon: What Mint have been doing with the GNOME 3 Shell MGSE extensions is quite interesting and it's pleasing to see additional Linux distributions start to take an interest in desktop design.  Ultimately the work that both Mint and Ubuntu have been doing will roll back into a better desktop experience for Free Software desktop users in the long-run, as the various open projects and research cross-percolate.