[HLUG] Unity divides canonical from the Linux mainstream

[dicegeorge at hotmail dot com]

Seems like ubuntu have made a mistake,
i'll be sticking with 10.04LTS
then maybe move to Mint.
[g]

http://thistleweb.co.uk/blog/21/03/2011/unityd-we-stand

just one of many using Gnome 2, Ubuntu would be one of one. If they are the 
only ones with Unity it makes them very unique.

So back at the main point of this post, is Canonical going alone with Unity 
a good thing or a bad thing?

Keep in mind the benefits of the FOSS model. The value is based around the 
concept of lots of eyeballs crawling over the code, spotting bugs, fixing 
bugs, adding features. It's the sheer number of people that make the 
squashing of bugs quicker, the closing of exploits when found, quick and the 
pace of development faster than proprietary models can compete with. 
Spreading the development costs is another key thing.

If Canonical are the only ones doing Unity, they don't get those benefits. 
It loses that advantage, to the point where it may as well be in-house 
proprietary development. Compare that to Gnome 3, which will be adopted by 
all of the other Gnome based distros. Gnome 3 will have people from Debian, 
Mint, Fedora and a whole lot more all adding features, fixing bugs and 
generally refining the experience. Can Unity keep pace? To do that it means 
Canonical need to pump a lot of development resources into it. They're not 
gonna get any help from the other Gnome distros.

http://thistleweb.co.uk/blog/21/03/2011/unityd-we-stand