Ubuntu-backer Canonical has defended its contentious move to the Unity desktop, arguing that the open-source Linux community needs to make design more of a priority.
"You can't please everybody, but I think it's really important we stood up and did [Unity] and led that charge," Jane Silber, Canonical's chief executive, said on Tuesday. "At times it's been quite controversial."
Canonical switched Ubuntu to the Unity interface and away from Gnome in early 2011, provoking criticism from users.
"The Linux community aren't always good at branding," Silber said. Paying more attention to design and usability features, such as Unity, could help Linux make inroads into larger markets, she argued.
In fact, Silber feels Canonical's decision has been picked up by the wider Linux community.
"Even in the Gnome world now, they're talking about design and user experience and user research and user testing in a way that was never important to them before," she said. "That's largely because Ubuntu as a project has stood up and said, 'Hey, this is something we collectively need to do a better job at.'"
As part of its push to make Linux available to more people, on Tuesday Canonical gave details on a project that weaves Ubuntu into the Android operating system.
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"Even in the Gnome world now, they're talking about design and user experience and user research and user testing in a way that was never important to them before," she said. "That's largely because Ubuntu as a project has stood up and said, 'Hey, this is something we collectively need to do a better job at.'
Could have fooled me. Ubuntu is the buggiest most unreliable picece of crap Ive used in a long time. Even the Ubuntu stuff thats found its way back into Debian is buggy (update utility for example). I love Linux but Ubuntu is an embarrasment and it should be put out of its misery
I've been quite happy with Ubuntu 11.10. And I'm happy to see Canonical making aggressive changes. I've been using this distro for the past month and largely my decision to move from Mac OSX to Ubuntu was made because of Unity and the Gnome 3 DEs.
I'm bored of all the luddite Unity knockers. Think you can do better? Put up or shut up. I love Unity, it's elegant, beautiful, highly functional and simple. Keep up the good work Canonical.