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Thursday, September 11, 2008

Ubuntu's Latest 2010 Commitment.

I have probably annoyed you with all my Ubuntu jargon, but it is good to see that the latest statements coming from Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu's benevolent dictator, are in line with my 2010 prediction.

Earlier this year Mark promised "'delivering a user experience that can compete with Apple in two years'". How does he plan to do this (taking an analogy with web design):
"When you present yourself on the web, you have 15 seconds to make an impression, so aspiring champions of the web 2.0 industry have converged on a good recipe for success:

1. Make your site visually appealing,
2. Do something different and do it very, very well,
3. Call users to action and give them an immediate, rewarding experience.

We need the same urgency, immediacy and elegance as part of the free software desktop experience, and that's an area where Canonical will, I hope, make a significant contribution. We are hiring designers, user experience champions and interaction design visionaries and challenging them to lead not only Canonical's distinctive projects but also to participate in GNOME, KDE and other upstream efforts to improve FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) usability...

Increasingly, though, Canonical is in a position to drive real change in the software that is part of Ubuntu...

All of this has me tapdancing to work in the mornings, because we’re sketching out really interesting ideas for user interaction... in the desktop. The team has come together very nicely, and I’m thoroughly enjoying the processes, brainstorming and prototyping. I can’t wait to see those ideas landing in production!

Here's for a 2010 release that can go toe to toe with Mac!

3 comments:

  1. Joseph Smidt!
    How the heck are you? I have no idea what you are talking about in this post but I feel smarter for having read it. So are you at UC Irvine now? Write me back and let me know how you're doing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brandon(Elder) Henderson! I'd email you but I don't know what it is. It's good to hear from you. I'll write more when I figure out how to properly contact you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey,
    I'm sorry for being slow and not giving you my email. Write me at robert.brandon.henderson@gmail.com. It's long, I know.

    ReplyDelete

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