In association with heise online

The top-down desktop

Ubuntu has had some big deployments, both on the desktop and in the server space. But Shuttleworth's aim is to capture the new users who are coming to computers through smartphones, tablets and pads, and who see the world differently. For an increasing number of users the desktop is little more than a point of entry to the world of images, talk, text and music that is the web, and for Shuttleworth the job of a future desktop is to blur the distinction between the web and desktop, and the realisation of this dream is Unity.

"It's increasingly obvious that global users don't just use desktops," he told attendees at the 2011 Ubuntu Developer Summit. "We need to look forward and need to target other devices where the next 2 billion humans will be. The future doesn't just belong to the desktop, it belongs to an array of smart screens."

The issue for existing users is whether the minimalistic demands of a netbook or smartphone interface, which may use a keyboard, a click or a touchscreen, are equal to the demands of a conventional desktop user with a different set of priorities. A workbench user asks a different set of questions to the user whose primary interest is connectivity with the outside world, and the challenge for a universal interface is to provide a smooth transition between the workbench and the web, without compromising the virtues of either.

The touchstone by which Shuttleworth has chosen to measure the success or failure of the free desktop is Apple. Apple's strengths are simplicity and conformity. Apple can impose a style because it is archetypically a proprietary company and rules are imposed from above.

Unity is free software, available under the GPL, but is intrinsically top down, presumably because in-house development and trust in Canonical designers ensures the integrity of the vision and speed of development. But this is not how community works.

A sense of adventure

Shuttleworth's appeal is to the sense of adventure that has always been intrinsic to free software. Users don't like change, but change happens, and Shuttleworth is hoping that users will adapt, and Ubuntu will grow.

The reception of Unity has not been universally positive. The "classic" GNOME desktop has been abandoned, and users are unhappy. Unity's panel and Dash don't behave as they expect – and they bemoan the lack of configurability. Unity is a project under development, and may have been thrust on users too early. Developers at the Ubuntu Developer Summit have promised that configurability and other refinements will come later.

Other users have responded differently and user testing among novice users has yielded some surprising results.

Shuttleworth's gamble is that users will change their minds as they gain familiarity, that Unity will gain traction as a universal interface, scalable across all devices, and that it will be as attractive to a certain class of user as Apple claims to be. Only time will tell whether Oneiric Ocelot, and the advent of Unity as the only choice for the Ubuntu desktop, marked the moment when Ubuntu began to scale the heights of universal acceptability, or fell back to earth with a bump.

For other feature articles by Richard Hillesley, please see the archive.

Print Version | Permalink: http://h-online.com/-1377292
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • submit to slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • submit to reddit
 


  • July's Community Calendar





The H Open

The H Security

The H Developer

The H Internet Toolkit