[Bradford] Ubuntu

[Mohammed Djavanroodi]

Hi Nick,

Sounds like your attitude towards Ubuntu is very similar to mine, although
I have to admit I don't have much experience with Ubuntu on the server as I
work with .Net which in the corporate environment at the moment means I
work with Windows and Visual Studio and the like.

I think the "problem" at the moment is that we're in the wait and see phase
of the changes which Canonical are introducing. That always leads to a
certain amount of uncertainty, which is never good when you have to use an
OS on a daily basis. Obviously sticking with the LTS version does make
things a little more certain. I think the "problem" with Mir is the same.
Things are still up in the air, and we're not sure about proprietary
graphics vendors supporting Mir so it means that people just aren't sure
how things are going to play out. Getting it ready to be the default by
14.04 is certainly a bold and ambitious move!

I agree wholeheartedly about Unity. If they had just waited until 12.04
before making Unity the default I think the backlash would have been much
smaller. Unity has become a very stable and easy to use DE. And I've
recently started taking much better advantage of the lenses and scopes to
search things like iPlayer, GitHub, and Wikipedia and I think they
definitely have their uses. If the amazon search stuff had been installed
as a separate scope rather than being included in the home lens again I
believe the backlash would've been much smaller and there would have been
far fewer people removing it (I know quite a lot of people who did end up
removing it because the results were just annoying and not relevant).

As for convergence I know this is going to be the next big thing. Working
on websites I know that since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 the
number of people browsing the web via mobiles has gone through the roof,
and with smartphones pretty much becoming ubiquitous and more powerful it's
only natural that they're going to become as capable as a netbook (which I
think is the market they should be aiming for).  Admittedly Canonical
aren't the first people to think of this idea, Motorola attempted it with
the Atrix in 2011, which was a very interesting idea, but totally hampered
by Motorola's lackluster "desktop" OS, which although was based on Ubuntu
(I believe) was just the Firefox web browser and was completely useless.
But IF Canonical's implementation lives up to expectations and the hype I
think it could really be a great OS for these hybrid devices. But they do
need to make sure that the Desktop OS isn't full of too many compromises.
Take Windows 8 as an example. I use Windows 8 at work and I can honestly
say that if you ignore the whole Metro/Modern/Windows 8/whatever UI it is
actually one of Microsoft's most accomplished versions of Windows. The
focus on mobile has meant that it's quick, and lightweight, and works on a
huge range of devices. But what Microsoft have done is they've made too
many compromises on the desktop. I use a 3 widescreen setup and when you're
in a metro app there's just too much wasted space. Maybe 8.1 will redress
this somewhat, but who knows. If Canonical can maintain Ubuntu's  desktop
experience without making too many compromises then I don't see why
convergence couldn't work.

Well it looks like the Ubuntu Edge campaign isn't going to hit its $32M
target, but the more I think about it (and maybe this is the cynic in me
coming out) I don't really think this was ever about making this device.
Sure if they hit the target they would make the phone, but what I really
think this was all about was a *relatively* cheap marketing campaign. Just
look at the amount of press it's received! I think this article sums up why
Canonical has attempted this:
http://www.zdnet.com/canonical-will-win-even-if-ubuntu-edge-doesnt-make-its-32-million-7000019241/.
Personally I believe that ChromeOS is pretty well suited to these devices,
to the point where I believe Google has totally missed a trick:
http://mohammed.djavanroodi.co.uk/2013/06/18/has-google-missed-a-trick/.

M
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