Shuttleworth: Open-source desktops need a facelift
Summary
Topics
The company plans to sign up designers and specialists in user experience and interaction to lead Canonical's work on usability and to contribute to other free and open-source desktop-environment projects, including Gnome and KDE, Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical chief executive and founder of the Ubuntu project, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.
He wrote: "We are hiring a team who will work on X, OpenGL, GTK, Qt, Gnome and KDE, with a view to doing some of the heavy lifting required to turn those desktop-experience ideas into reality."
Shuttleworth has said recently that usability is the top priority for open-source software. Free Linux desktops should have "a user experience that can compete with Apple in two years", he said at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention last week.Some open-source promoters have backed Shuttleworth but said businesses have a different priority to the consumers Ubuntu is aimed at.
Mark Taylor, founder of the Open Source Consortium, said: "He's bang on the money. Linux absolutely needs more usability. Having said that, it's not that hard to find," pointing to the strides made by the Gnome and KDE user interfaces.
However, Taylor cautioned against the open-source movement taking too rigid a line with developers on usability requirements. "I don't believe we need one desktop to rule them all," he said.
Consumers need a great user experience more than businesses do, Taylor said. IT managers are more likely to use Linux on servers than on desktops. Any desktop implementations they do work with are designed to lock the system down and keep the user within set applications and policies. "Even when they use a Linux desktop, delivering a user experience is not high on the agenda," Taylor said.
Shuttleworth said that the freedom of open-source software, where developers are free to develop as they wish, can lead to user interfaces that are "patchy and inconsistent" between applications and operating systems, he said.
Paul Adams, a member of KDE e.V., the 'board' of the KDE project, said: "One of the biggest problems in the free-software world is that so many objects are different, depending on the different desktops."
For instance, Ubuntu itself is normally available with the Gnome desktop interface, but one version ships with KDE. Both Ubuntu versions include OpenOffice, which is based on the GTK graphics library. GTK is also used by Gnome, so OpenOffice in KDE would have a different 'open' dialogue to that on the desktop."In KDE, we are looking at producing a cross-desktop, human-interface guideline set, so that, as people move between Gnome and KDE, they won't be shocked to see that the dialogues are different," said Adams, who is also projects director at UK open-source company Sirius. That cross-desktop project, led by Celeste Lyn Paul of User-Centered Design, could create guidelines for common UI features.
Adams said: "We already have a very usable experience. Are we up there with the Mac desktop? Probably not. But we have achieved something which is very mature and usable."
Talkback Most Recent of 28 Talkback(s)
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All part of the evolution of the Linux desktop. Looking forward to some
great user interface innovations in Jaunty Jackalope. But, in any case, the user interface for Ubuntu has been advancing rapidly. This will make it even faster.
DonnieBoy12th Sep 2008 -
Good work
Getting in before the Arch-linux fanboi Loverock.
Shuttleworth does seem to set pretty clear and effective goals about how to improve the user experience in Ubuntu.
AndyCee12th Sep 2008 -
Whoa.
Donnyboy is not a fanboi himself? One day it's google, the next it's ubuntu, then it's Apple. He is classic ABM to the core and is more often first than LR, but more people ignore Donnieboy. He repeats the same marketing bits everytime.
So Shuttleworth is going for a new UI? I thought a "pretty" UI, like on OSX was nothing but unnecessary bells and whistles? I really doubt they will touch Apple anyway, considering it's a machine/software combination, specifically engiineered for each other, even though the software is mostly from other vendors. That's a clear advantage and to say he thinks it can be done in 2 years, does he mean current OS X gui, or the OS X gui 2 years from now.
After hearing over and over again that the new UI on Vista is just bells and whistles and is a waste of cpu cycles, it will be interesting to see how Ubuntu programmers can enhance the UI to "apple-like" without affecting resource requirements. Apple couldn't do it. Microsoft did better as Vista is faster than OS X on comparable hardware (test it for yourself) but it still requires more hardware to run it.
I thought Linux based systems are all about not wasting cpu cycles and eing able to run on the most modest of configurations.
Well the linux kernel is growing at a very fast pace, faster than can be resonable tested per an interview with the kernel's manager, the colnol of the kernel, as Torvalds is working feverishly to keep up with enterprise demands and the old way of testing things very thouroughly and building new testing tools has basically disappeared on the kernel project. He and a few other of the most prolific linux kernel contributors are saying testing resources are stretched way too thin and proper testing is not happening.
Now Shuttleworth wants to apply lipstick??
The linux story is littered with contradictions and hypocrisy, and i'm not "trolling", i find that to be very true.
xuniL_z13th Sep 2008 -
Whoops...
Donnyboy is not a fanboi himself?
Heh, his post was a bit short, so I guess I forgot.
I thought Linux based systems are all about not wasting cpu cycles and eing able to run on the most modest of configurations.
One work - "options". Have you used gnome or kde recently? The Vista and OSX 'eye candy' is already available on Ubuntu. I've yet to compare the amount of resources they take in comparison, though.
The linux story is littered with contradictions and hypocrisy, and i'm not "trolling", i find that to be very true.
I understand. No - really. But I think you can't take every fanatic's contradicting opinion and meld them into "the linux story". Users who want eye candy can have it. People who want to install on an old machine have the option of using freaky-low resources.
To clarify - someone correct me if I'm wrong - but the quote seems to be about the user experience, not just the "lipstick" of the user interface. eg. reorganising the way the desktop works, working on stability bugs etc. I don't see how this would relate to kernel development, but I don't know much about that.AndyCee14th Sep 2008 -
Shuttleworth: Open-source desktops need a facelift
Is linux in that bad of shape that it needs special
teams to make it look pretty to cover up the terrible
system that lies beneath? That is just sad. How
about getting the linux system to work properly first
then worry about the cosmetics of getting it to look
pretty. Funny how other unix based systems don't have
this problem, only linux does.
Loverock Davidson12th Sep 2008 -
RE: Shuttleworth: Open-source desktops need a facelift
...then how do you explain the DRM-poisoned bloat that lies beneath Aero:-)
rikasa12th Sep 2008 -
I don't
Do you know why? Because this isn't about Aero!Loverock Davidson12th Sep 2008 -
Re: I don't
Come now, Lovey; I was just having a little fun! Everyone knows you compare and reference everything in life to MS! I was just saving you the hassle of having to re-iterate this.
Anyway; it's quite poignant that Shuttleworth cites the Mac desktop as the standard to aspire to. I am a Linux/Windows user, but concede that in terms of usability the Mac has the desktop down pat.rikasa12th Sep 2008 -
Linux is fine as is
I don't understand, can you explain why you don't like Linux in great detail.I would like to understand your perspective on Linux, i have read most of your post to figure out why you dislike Linux with such passion. From what i understand you refuse to tell people what version of Linux you have used, a date which you tried it, and what you have told that is you tried to do command line installs gathering libraries and critical files yourself instead of using a packet manager.This infers that you haven't used a recent distro of Linux that your comments are not reared towards Linux Users,but Windows who are considering Linux as a alternative to Windows. Which to me,your message is that means "people shouldn't have the freedom of choice of what kind of OS they should run,but whatever is the norm" i find that kinda rude since your are posting misinformation about an OS that you don't seem to be credible source about.
TDMBlanchard7th Oct 2008 -
There is absolutely nothing wrong with my KDE...
desktop. Shuttleworth is an idiot. It is killing him because Linux, Ubuntu in particular is not taking off. But it has nothing to do with the desktop.
There are no applications that I need to run ported for Linux. And no one markets Linux.
He needs to get a clue.
bjbrock12th Sep 2008 -
Re: There is absolutely nothing wrong with my KDE...
Um... and that's probably why he founded Canonical. To market Linux... although, you are definitely right on the application issue, at least for now. It's not that many Open Source alternatives cannot achieve what their proprietary counterparts can. Its the burden of re-implementing everything on one of these alternatives. Still; open source applications have come a long way and many organizations have already taken the jump.rikasa12th Sep 2008 -
Don't think I've ever seen...
a Linux commercial.bjbrock12th Sep 2008 -
rikasa12th Sep 2008
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AndyCee12th Sep 2008
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Re: Doesn't exactly count for the desktop
Classic:-)rikasa13th Sep 2008
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