

Mark Shuttleworth: Our Goal Is 200 Million Ubuntu Users In 4 Years - dkd903
http://digitizor.com/2011/05/09/mark-shuttleworth-ubuntu/

======
justincormack
I assume he is not counting servers...

I thought netbooks a few years back were what was going to get Linux to
"normal users", but Canonical barely managed to get anyone to ship netbooks
with Ubuntu bundled in the boom year (when I bought an Eee, with their
terrible Linux version on it and then installed Ubuntu netbook edition). And
then Microsoft managed to push Windows back onto netbooks.

Right now there is no touchscreen Ubuntu, the netbook edition is folded into
the standard one, and the only vague hope would be ARM based machines
(Nettops, or desktop), but these are still not really shipping in any volume,
and Microsoft has announced Windows 8 on ARM so that only gives a short window
of opportunity, and not likely a 200m one.

The tablet option is a lot of work, and up against Android (and Meego), with
rather less momentum.

So, I think that just leaves the geeks still? There are only in the thousands
not millions of Andrroid developers though. Some people (like me) have come
back from a few years on Mac to Ubuntu, but not a lot yet.

So right now, I am not convinced...

~~~
beaumartinez
Ubuntu is _still_ the most popular Linux distro[1] (and, although I don't have
an authorative source, the popularity of Linux is increasing[2]).

Touchscreen, netbook, ARM, tablet... These edge-case platforms aren't what
Ubuntu targets. Neither do they target "geeks". Ubuntu targets the average
user: just install it on your box and have a look at the software it comes
with. It truly is "Linux, for human beings".

It's never been easier to try and install a different OS: not ten years ago
you could only get an OS by buying a physical copy.

Have a look at the growth of Google searches for "Ubuntu" alongside other
OS[3].

I don't see why Ubuntu won't continue to grow in popularity and users. It has
a large and growing community.

[1] <http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity> [2]
<http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp> [3]
[http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu%2C+%22windows+xp%22%2C...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu%2C+%22windows+xp%22%2C+%22windows+7%22%2C+%22os+x%22%2Clinux)

~~~
bad_user
Except I never had the pleasure of installing Ubuntu on any computer without
lots of problems, either hardware-related or shitty-beta-quality related ...
my current Ubuntu installation (10.10) displays my head up-side-down in Skype-
video, and there's no way to fix it other than to recompile the kernel with
this special-fix mentioned on some obscure forum (no kidding, I'm still
perplex about what it's taking so long for them to fix it).

Also, Unity? Are you freaking kidding me?

I'm all for being bold and innovative in UI/UX, but pushing alpha-quality
software in a stable release to unsuspecting users?

What the hell were they thinking? It isn't acceptable that the UI in Windows
3.11 (for Workgroups; yes, I still have the license) was more consistent /
reliable than Ubuntu 11.04 -- the average user doesn't have the patience to
understand UI absurdities, neither the skills / patience to go edit files in
/etc or recompile their kernels, just to make their system behave normally.
Even I, after several years of struggling on every update, I'm quickly losing
my interest in doing that.

So I'm sorry, but 200 millions of users won't be dumb enough to switch -- at
this point I consider projects like Android/Meego as the only choice for
desktop-Linux (simply because tables/mobiles will merge with desktops in the
future).

------
old-gregg
The trick to get there is to capture new users without previous computing
experience. My wife's sister got her first laptop with Ubuntu installed and
after 3 years she can't stand windows/osx and I can't blame her: Gnome 2.3 is
years ahead of both of them but it's only apparent to someone who's familiar
with it. If you listen to hear arguments, you'll be amazed of how much of your
perception of "good UX" is just a series of habits.

The roadblock to user adoption isn't the quality of software/ux, it's making
people to make an effort and learn something new. Another issue is hardware
quality. Trying out Linux on cheap and flimsy netbooks isn't the best way to
experience new software.

In other words there nothing to be done with Ubuntu itself to reach his goals.
The technology is fine.

------
Unseelie
As a recent convert to Ubuntu, I seriously doubt it without drastic changes.

The problem I have with the system, the problem I see making the masses balk
once they've been convinced to give it a try, is that, simply, things don't
work out of the box with linux.

That's not Cannonical's fault, and indeed, they've put a lot of work into
their app repository to build a pile of things that do....but every single
time I've tried to go off the farm, install a game from CD, install something
from makefile or a tarball..I'm missing repositories. I've the
wrong..something. I'm trying to build a massive skillset and understanding of
the thing, and I don't have the background to do it. Very few people do.
People will install it, browse the web, and then run into walls. They'll be
angry, they'll blog about it. They'll leave, and they'll poison the public
view.

~~~
reedlaw
I disagree. Things work better out of the box for me running Ubuntu on a
Thinkpad than either Windows or OS X. The Ubuntu Software Center works great
and doesn't require agreeing to a 56 page license or handing over credit card
details.

~~~
Unseelie
You're agreeing with me. The software center is great...anything outside of
it?

Furthermore, there is a license applied to open software, and quite a lot of
cost free software.

But the Software Center is a walled garden, requiring backwards support of the
OS to the application.

~~~
reedlaw
I'm not sure I understand. The software center is just an example of one of
the user-friendly features of Ubuntu. I could name a lot of others such as the
Unity desktop, OSD, application and system indicators. Licenses applied to
open software are usually one of a handful of well-known licenses such as GPL,
Apache, MIT, etc. What do you mean "quite a lot of cost free software"? Cost-
free as in "free as in beer"? If you want only GPL then there is the GNU
operating system. I totally don't understand your 3rd point. An open-source
repository is a walled garden? It's about as open as open can get.

~~~
Unseelie
To take your points one by one:

The software center is easty to use, yes. It is also a hugely important part
of the experience, because its how you get new software...if you can find it
in the software center. (often you can't..more on that in response to your
last point)

Most commercial liscenses are remarkably simmilar to one another. The gist is
'don't infringe my IP', to the extent that you can plug different IPs into one
by word searches.

I do mean free as beer software, as in response to the argument that avoiding
credit card charges is a benefit of Ubuntu..there's plenty of widows capable
free software. (and open source). Incedentally, many of the open source
applications I've found have an option for a windows download. Lots of users
in windows, after all.

Walled garden from the end user's side. If your access to software is through
the software center, then you'll discover that there are plenty of things not
supported by cannonical. Its an app store, and one with fairly limited supply.
(33,686 on display, as opposed to over 80,000 in the android) If you consider
that the average user is not a person who knows how to make from source, or
even navigate the terminal (and I'll lay good odds not willing to learn), the
software center is the -only- way anyone is likely to get decent software.

All right, only is rather extreme, but other sources of apps are so frequently
rather difficult to install in this OS, where accepting a liscense agreement
and pressing the install button is anything but.

The point being is that the average user won't see an open source repository,
or the source at all. they'll see a list of apps they can install from what
is, essentially, the ubuntu market, each app chosen and vetted by canonical.

~~~
reedlaw
I can download deb files from the web that install in one click. bin files
work similarly

------
ilcavero
"However, another fiasco like the one with Ubuntu 11.04 will make 200 million
users a distant dream."

What is this fiasco that he is talking about? not including wayland on 11.04?
talk about confusing writing.

I do think 11.04 is immature compared to previous versions, but is in line to
what you should expect with such a radical change as Unity.

~~~
acabal
I'm going to guess that surprising users with a buggy, incomplete, and
arguably poorly designed rewrite of the desktop experience they've been using
for years is the fiasco he's talking about.

And yes, only geeks keep up with Ubuntu news--everyone else just clicked
upgrade and then stared blankly at their weird new desktop. He's not going to
keep regular users around for long if he keeps pulling that kind of crap--and
he's done it twice already, with window buttons in the past.

~~~
ilcavero
I would agree with you if it wasn't the case that you can easily switch to
"ubuntu classic" which is very similar to previous desktop experiences. Also
I'm not sure if upgrading from 10.xx to 11.04 takes you unity or to ubuntu
classic, it should be to classic in my opinion.

full disclosure: I'm a 10.04 user and plan to stay that way until the next
LTS.

~~~
acabal
But "easy" is relative. To geeks like us who know to search Google with "how
to replace Unity" (a phrase that would never, ever come to mind to Grandma)
and know that we just have to change a dropdown setting, it's easy.

If you tell a "regular Joe" user that by clicking a dropdown you can change
how the operating system fundamentally works, they'd probably think you were
lying--the thought is that alien to them. There's a slim to none chance they'd
discover that option on their own (not in small part because they wouldn't
even know the option existed), and an equally slim chance that they'd know how
to search for it.

To you and me, "Unity" is the "well, duh" search term. To regular people, it's
tech gibberish.

So again it all comes down to the average user--they don't like change, they
don't keep up with Ubuntu news, and they aren't interested in fiddling with
configuration options to have a usable desktop. I don't think that you can
have both fundamentals-shattering releases and also a ppa-based/milestone-
release distro at the same time.

------
pessimist
Today there are over 100 million consumers using linux, 99% of them on
android. All other linux distros are rounding errors.

------
cafebabe
I upgraded my installation of Ubuntu last weekend (fresh installation). Since
then, the window management is broken (including X server crashes). ...... 200
Million users in 4 years? Naah! Never!

------
spot
I think it's great that they are actually looking at users. Hopefully that
will bring it up to snuff. I think they are within shooting distance, and they
are moving fast.

The other big problem has always been applications. For example, I need
Adobe's tools and Wine has never done it for me. Hopefully the cloud will make
this less important. I already find myself popping into pixlr and coming away
satisfied. Now I just need After Effects and gigabit broadband...

------
robryan
Pretty hard thing to do, so many of the applications that most regular
computer users use everyday are either not present on linux or nowhere near
the amount of polish. That's not to mention gaming which makes even the mac a
hard sell on the mass market.

Even as a developer that interacts with linux on servers every day I still
feel no great urge to run a linux desktop.

~~~
forinti
I switched from Windows 2000 to Ubuntu 10 recently and the only thing I miss
is TrackaMania (and not that much).

Open Office has all the features I need and I can open all my spreadsheets and
docs from MS Office. The support for my HP 3-in-1 is great and I found the
software a lot easier to use (because its simpler) than HP's. Scanning is a
lot simpler. My wireless got working before I noticed it.

So I see no reason to return to Windows unless you are a gamer. My parents and
in-laws certainly don't need to stick to Windows.

What Ubuntu needs is a bit of marketing.

~~~
AJ007
Win2k to Ubuntu 10 is a huge leap forward. I'm not a huge fan of Windows, but
Windows 7 is night and day compared to what came before. I enjoy Ubuntu, but I
think OS X is a more likely OS replacement for me.

Software compatibility is the real issue. However, I think that the move
towards web based platforms over the next decade will pretty much eliminate
this issue. For the average computer user, Windows is unnecessary. If you are
doing something that requires demanding tools -- be it photography, 3D
animation, CAD, etc, then the OS means a lot more and probably will for a
while.

I would place my money on Google and Apple dominating the OS's of the future.
Something is going to replace Windows short of Microsoft undergoing a radical
transformation and Windows being free. Seeing the direction of Windows Mobile
I am guessing that Microsoft will try something radical and it won't be
something that works.

------
dstein
Good luck with that. I tried installing Ubuntu 11 on a system yesterday and
discovered the installer hangs if you try to install it on a hard disk that
currently contains Windows 7. If I didn't know how to manually use fdisk to
reformat the drive I would not have known how to proceed.

------
calpaterson
Doesn't seem like they're doing real testing, it seems more like they're doing
after-the-fact usability tests post-feature freeze:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2449981>

------
Steko
I love these 'founder predicts massive growth in near future' items. If you
added up the market share that everyone expected to get in 4 years I would be
surprised if the number was under 1000% of the actual market size at that
time.

------
firefoxman1
This article hit the nail on the head when it said good user experience and
design is essential to gaining users (then again, when isn't it?). I remember
in my n00b days when I first decided to try Linux I would mainly browse
through screenshots to pick a distro to try. For me, it used to be all about
the feel and eye-candy of the distro and not the underlying software and I
assume that's what draws a large amount non-geeks.

I think desktop Linux, or at least Ubuntu, is at a point now that most geeks
use it or know about it so one would assume Canonical will be targeting the
other 90-something percent next.

------
rmason
Predictions are news? How about I predict 250 million users in 4 years for
React OS <http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html>

I'd be willing to wager that my prediction has a better chance of coming true
than Shuttleworth's. But the truth is that neither has a very high chance of
happening.

------
jpr
I have a hard time figuring out how Canonical is going to make money. Most
desktop users are not going to pay for support.

~~~
Keyframe
I always wondered why they didn't put an ad during install process. There
could be a google ads type of system where people could buy ads and get served
impressions in installations. Or something like that. There are numerous ways
to do this.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
Stop putting ads in everything. Ads suck.

------
gcb
good luck with that. I'm back to contributing w debian after three consecutive
releases of ubuntu breaking up keyboard shortcuts.

if I wanted to use imposed shortcuts I'd be using a mac or windows

~~~
msbarnett
Actually there is a standardized mechanism to re-map every keyboard shortcut
in any application in OS X.

It's actually one of the little consistencies I miss when using Linux-based
desktops.

------
pbhjpbhj
Something sits uneasily with me about this sort of target: will they be
sacrificing focus on the "product" in order to focused on marketing to get
that number of users.

This sort of thing says to me that Canonical no longer want to make something
great[er] they just want to be famous.

