
A Thank-You Note to the Hacker News Community from Ubuntu - dustinkirkland
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2017/04/thank-you-note-to-hackernews.html
======
tie_
I have a strong dislike for systemd, so while I'm really sorry that upstart
"lost" the fight, Ubuntu gained a lot of respect in my eyes with the decision
to go with the rest and avoid unnecessary fragmentation. This could have
_easily_ ended up another as another community rift, slowing down everybody
along the way.

Now they do it again with Wayland/Mir! It actually takes a significant amount
of both balls and goodwill to give up on the product that you invested so much
into for the sake of aligning better with your open source community. Bravo!

FWIW, I too would like to keep the DE experience of Unity, and especially the
Dash panel and shortcuts. If that expose-text-search could scan non-focused
browser tabs that would be a killer feature, but that's for the other thread.

The idea of "Let's simply ask HN users what they think" is a gem, that I
suspect will now make it into many PMs' playbooks ;)

~~~
peterwwillis
I don't think anyone has ever dropped a distro because it _wasn 't_ using
systemd, just like I don't think anyone ever moved to Ubuntu from a sysvinit
system just because Ubuntu had upstart. I don't think there was ever a "fight"
\- they simply wanted to use systemd, and so they did.

If Slackware ever moves to systemd, it will be a sad day, but i'll keep using
Slack because it's the whole distro that I want, not just how the system
initializes services. If I could deal with Windows's bullshit, I can deal with
systemd. Just like ConsoleKit, and PolicyKit, and NetworkManager, and UPower,
and PulseAudio, and HAL, and UDev, and DBus, and all the other annoying crap
that's been shoved down our throats over the years. Now I know how old people
feel when they talk about modern cars...

~~~
mgbmtl
> "I don't think anyone has ever dropped a distro because it wasn't using
> systemd"

That's an odd assumption. I have. I'm a big fan of standardisation.

I understand some people not liking systemd, but there are a lot of folks out
there who really prefer it. Once I started adopting it, I no longer
needed/wanted to support cross-distro start scripts, since systemd does that.
So non-systemd distros were dropped.

~~~
peterwwillis
Most distros have different package managers, different flavors of compiled
and packaged software, different libraries, different system management tools,
and different kernel versions. Yet you switched distributions because of the
two whole different methods of start-up scripts. The one thing that only has
to be written once, and then forgotten about forever.

~~~
rtpg
Isn't this the point though?

We're moving more and more to having unified low-level services across Unices,
so it stops being about stupid things like "Oh sorry, Arch can't run this
because it uses its own audio stack even if we're just using audio to make a
notification sound", and starts being about the things that are fundamentally
different about the systems.

Think about how nice it is that we don't have to recompile most things for
most kernel versions. Why do we have to set up multiple startup script
mechanisms?

~~~
peterwwillis
_> Think about how nice it is that we don't have to recompile most things for
most kernel versions._

Yes, nobody has ever had to recompile their application to work on a new
kernel. If you mean that's nice that there's binary backwards compatibility, I
agree. I don't see what this has to do with supporting multiple systems.

 _> Why do we have to set up multiple startup script mechanisms?_

Why do we have to support multiple <insert any kind of software> ?

 _> We're moving more and more to having unified low-level services across
Unices_

AFAIK, the only thing I know of moving toward middleware unification
specifically is Linux desktop software. Choosing to use systemd in exclusion
of everything else is "unification" in the same way that
nationalism/xenophobia/homophobia are. (i'm aware of how mean that sounds, but
it's the closest comparison I can think of)

It is certainly nice that there is now middleware that abstracts the
underlying software that controls the hardware, for example, or that
authentication and authorization are more uncoupled. But this is really almost
the opposite of what systemd does.

------
zserge
I believe that the major pitfall here is that the feedback you've received is
mostly about the changes that people want to see. However if we consider the
number of people who want Gnome vs the number of those who want Unity 8 vs the
number of conservative users who like Unity 7 as it is now - the results might
be different.

I personally am very happy with the current Unity. I find it intuitive and
more aesthetically pleasant/polished than Gnome Shell (I've only used that as
it comes with Ubuntu Gnome).

So please, don't drop current Unity. Or if you have to switch to Gnome Shell -
please keep the user experience as close as possible to the current Unity to
help users migrate.

~~~
kleiba
In other words: people who like the current status quo are less likely to make
themselves heard than those who want something changed. So the trends you
tried to extrapolate from the HN discussion may be biased.

~~~
Old_Thrashbarg
As an anecdote, that was exactly my experience. I'm one of those light-weight
desktop Linux users. I've only experienced Windwos, OSx and Ubuntu. I can say
that I really enjoy the current Ubuntu UI, but due to lack of knowledge of
Wayland and whatevery, I'm disinclined to speak up.

------
josteink
Awesome to see our response followed with such attention, not to mention
feedback with concrete promises about what (and what not) to expect dealt
with.

Good job, Canonical! Happy to be a user!

(And good job finally ditching Mir. You could have kept Unity for all I care.
Linux can handle a few dozen DEs. But having more than one display server, now
that was just nuts.)

Edit: while the feedback post here may have been the most discussed post on HN
ever, the announcement of dropping Mir clearly made rumbles too, with a record
10,000+ upvotes in a "niche" subreddit like /r/linux. When a player like
Ubuntu does the right thing, people clearly _care_.

------
icc97
> Official hardware that just-works, Nexus-of-Ubuntu (130 weight)

I really like this one. I'd made comments of wanting pre-installed Linux, but
the Nexus concept is a much better idea. It's following a model that seems to
have worked well for Google.

It's a fantastic way to break the chicken and egg situation of getting pre-
installed Linux available.

~~~
Paul-ish
I hope down the road, if the program is successful, they can increasingly push
for open hardware in the machine.

~~~
ethbro
I also like the Dell XPS 13 model.

Offer a pre-installed Linux version of a machine at higher cost, but do your
best to upstream patches and homogenize hardware with the Windows pre-
installed version.

Seems to split the difference between "a Linux laptop is economically
unfeasible" and "with a little care in component selection and upstreaming
drivers / fixes, compatibility can be assured."

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
_Offer a pre-installed Linux version of a machine at higher cost, but do your
best to upstream patches and homogenize hardware with the Windows pre-
installed version._

I actually find the fact that the Linux version is more expensive to be
insulting. If anything, it should be cheaper, given that you're paying the
"Windows Tax" on the W10 version of the laptop.

Now if they cost the _same_ price, with the caveat that the $80 or so that
would normally go to the W10 license is instead going to Dell's Linux team to
ensure hardware compatibility and/or submit upstream changes to Canonical /
Red Hat, then I'd be all for it.

~~~
shock
_I actually find the fact that the Linux version is more expensive to be
insulting. If anything, it should be cheaper, given that you 're paying the
"Windows Tax" on the W10 version of the laptop._

I just created a product comparison¹ on Dell's site and it looks like the
Ubuntu version of the XPS13 is $100 cheaper than the Windows version.

① - [http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/configuration-
compare.aspx...](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/configuration-
compare.aspx?ocs=cax13w10p7b5125,cax13w10p7b5122,cax13w10p7b5122ubuntu,cax13w10p7b5125ubuntu&returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dell.com%2Fus%2Fbusiness%2Fp%2Fxps-13-9360-laptop%2Fpd%3F3x_nav%3DOS_BRAND%253DUBUNT%263x_page%3D1%26filterCollapsed%3Dtrue)

~~~
r3bl
McAfee LiveSafe could explain that difference. It costs around $90 for a 12
month subscription that you get with the Windows version.

------
DoofusOfDeath
Hey Dustin, thanks for the follow-up!

In your original story, I posted a request for Canonical to come up with
_some_ viable strategy to get Adobe CS (and related color-calibration HW/SW)
usable on Ubuntu.

I expected a lot of traction for that suggestion, because AFAICT a lot of
creative professionals are looking for a way to escape the Windows/Mac
duopoly.

However, it looks like my suggestion didn't make the cut for the list you just
posted.

Can you share any thoughts on why getting Adobe CS usable on Ubuntu is / isn't
a strategic priority for Canonical?

~~~
dustinkirkland
Hey there! Thanks for the suggestion.

We're engaging with dozens of major vendors of traditional/proprietary
software about delivering their software onto Ubuntu via Snaps -- which is a
new packaging format that solves many of the traditional problems associated
with proprietary software working well on Linux.

I'm going to ask Evan Dandrea and Michael Hall from Canonical to engage with
Adobe around CS and anything else in their suite that might make sense to
Snap.

Cheers! @dustinkirkland

~~~
monort
Adobe Photoshop CS6 works almost perfectly in wine, but Photoshop CC isn't
working. Probably, it can be fixed easily.

~~~
mhall119
You can create a snap with Wine and a windows application together, which is
one route this might go. However, because Photoshop isn't open source, we
wouldn't have a legal ability to distribute it.

------
apexalpha
A sincere thank you to Ubuntu from someone who didn't study anything remotely
close to IT but is now a software engineer anyway.

I've always been interested in software and computers in general and, besides
with the raspberry pi, I think Ubuntu has been the biggest influence on my
interest in software and decision to learn programming.

A few months back I looked up my first ever forum post.
[https://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_message/28824598#2...](https://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_message/28824598#28824598)

Asking why my PC wouldn't boot after 14 year old me stuck some components,
including the HDD, in another pc. Turned out you needed something called
'drivers' to run a motherboard.

Shortly after this I ordered my first red Ubuntu live CD that you guys shipped
and that was my first experience with Linux.

Anyway, open source projects that allow you to thinker with software and even
break it played an important role in my life, and Ubuntu was my doorway to a
decade of learning, playing and wonder about software and technology.

Running 1604 LTS now. Sad that you guys are dropping Unity for GNome but still
happy with Ubuntu. I'm sure it'll work out.

Thanks, and good luck.

~~~
josteink
They're not dropping Gnome. They're dropping Unity and Mir _for_ Gnome and
Wayland.

And that's just awesome. A few years late, but still awesome. Linux needs more
Wayland-love than just Red hat/Fedora.

~~~
apexalpha
Hit refresh. I noticed :)

------
mi100hael
_> Add night mode, redshift, f.lux (42 weight) This request is one of the real
gems of this whole exercise! This seems like a nice, little, bite-sized
feature, that we may be able include with minimal additional effort. Great
find._

This one should come for free with the switch to Gnome, since it's now present
in 3.24.
[https://www.gnome.org/news/2017/03/gnome-3-24-released/attac...](https://www.gnome.org/news/2017/03/gnome-3-24-released/attachment/night-
light/)

~~~
bkor
I'm using 3.24. There's still a few improvements to be made. People want the
change to be a little bit less sudden (never noticed the transition, but
apparently it's like an on/off thing). And personally I'd like the thing to
turn off while you're watching a movie.

You can temporarily turn it off, which is pretty cool. Once you do the real
colours seem super bright.

------
mschuster91
Ad "LDAP/AD integration":

> This is actually a regular request of Canonical's corporate Ubuntu Desktop
> customers. We're generally able to meet the needs of our enterprise
> customers around LDAP and ActiveDirectory authentication. We'll look at what
> else we can do natively in the distro to improve this.

OK I get the need that some may have to integrate an UI but please don't ship
a full-blown Samba/winbindd plus config generator as default.

Here's the why:

Everyone has different LDAP setups. Some use a homegrown LDAP, some use MS AD
in varying versions, some use Samba as AD in varying versions - and then
everyone uses a different LDAP/AD scheme (e.g. is the username attribute
lowercase-able, which attribute is it mapped to, are all PCs/users in a single
OU, do you want to restrict logins to specific groups, does the organization
need "full" AD setup or will a plain ldap_bind be sufficient ...) and you
almost always need to hand-tune the configuration for your specific setup. A
GUI configurator will most likely only work OOTB for people sticking with a
standard MS AD, and make problems with non-standard setups, multi-domain
memberships or similar.

And: Non-enterprise users will most likely not need AD/LDAP support. Those who
do should have competent admins anyhow, but what I can certainly say is that
the documentation could be updated (e.g.
[https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Samba_Winbind/](https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Samba_Winbind/)
only works for 12.04/14.04). I'd rather like if the documentation were
improved than yet another shoddy Samba config generator that's falling out of
sync with Samba more sooner than later...

(source: lost more than a few hairs wrestling with AD and LDAP)

~~~
ansible
_And: Non-enterprise users will most likely not need AD /LDAP support._

I strongly disagree with this. Everyone with more than 2 users in their
organization can benefit from AD/LDAP support, if it is easy to set up and
administer.

Because... what else is viable for managing multiple user accounts across
several machines? Twenty years ago, I would have said NIS (from Sun,
originally called YP for 'yellowpages'). But that was horribly insecure. NIS+
was supposed to fix that, but support was never there in Linux land.

Kerberos? That seems too difficult for most small networks.

Don't get me wrong, I _don 't like_ LDAP, but there isn't anything better that
I'm aware of. LDAP has some support for other applications (for example, we
use it for Redmine user accounts), I don't know of anything else besides LDAP
that has widespread support.

But the initial configuration was a bit of a mess, where I was going back and
forth among the official docs, the Ubuntu docs, and other guides. I should
write my own guide so that I can add to the confusion.

~~~
mschuster91
> I strongly disagree with this. Everyone with more than 2 users in their
> organization can benefit from AD/LDAP support, if it is easy to set up and
> administer.

You will always need a server. And aside from QNAP NASes (which aren't cheap)
there are no "set it up and it runs" options which are free and easy to
maintain.

Cheapest option, hardware wise, would be a RPi but it will melt when you try
to use it as a filer. Next option is a PC, which adds at the minimum 200W of
24/7 power requirement, not exactly cheap given today's electricity prices.

Software-wise you have the option of MS Small Business Server which clocks in
at 200€ but definitely requires a PC plus someone who can set it up, and a
Linux variant with Samba which is free but definitely requires someone
skilled.

Then there comes the maintenance - with Windows there shouldn't be a problem
with regular updates, but with Linux... not so much.

The maintenance and the energy consumption of a server is what keeps small
businesses off AD.

~~~
zokier
FreeIPA and RPi should be pretty good combo for prosumer/SB market. RPi has
definitely enough horsepower to run a small domain, and FreeIPA bundles all
those admittedly gnarly pieces into one neat packages

~~~
mschuster91
> RPi has definitely enough horsepower to run a small domain

Maybe enough for the DC part (i.e. Kerberos server, LDAP server, ntpd) but not
enough for a fileserver given the Pi is still 100 MBit and limited by its USB
ethernet connection, as well as that it doesn't have eSATA, mSSD or any other
high-performance storage option. Plus SMB/CIFS implementations are known for
performance issues.

Also, a Pi is nowhere near reliable enough for running something as mission
critical as an AD server. Good luck when your micro-SD card gets corrupted,
e.g. due to power fluctuations. And you WILL get corruptions, especially if
you have high write throughput.

------
padraic7a
There's something very HN about the fact that the author of one of the most
discussed posts in the site's history can issue a follow up post, dealing with
that discussion, to such little notice.

~~~
cbhl
It was very interesting to see the summary view of the comments, but frankly,
the real follow-up was the announcement that Ubuntu is moving back to GNOME in
18.04:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14043631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14043631)

That action was, IMHO, one of the biggest thank yous they could have given us.

~~~
adelarsq
I agree. I did stop using Ubuntu when Unity was introduced. May be time to be
back

~~~
reitanqild
Same here. Was a huge fan before. Disliked Unity so much.

Seems some people honestly like the look of it, how it works etc.

I however strongly dislike DEs that:

1\. messing with alt-tab

2\. mess with menus (I liked the idea but found the implementation to be
painful)

~~~
slitaz
This dislike should be mostly psychological. There are people that got primed
to dislike Unity and when they attempted to use it, they struggled because of
the 'old dog learning new tricks'.

We saw this with the intro of Gnome Shell, which fractured the community
between the old Gnome UI and new UI.

If we continue to split up when something new is introduced, we are doing it
wrong.

~~~
reitanqild
I am _not_ against new. I'm almost embarrassingly simple to get enthusiastic
about new tech.

The things I mention however are things I have found to be actual problems in
my workflow.

They obviously work well for others and I respect that. I hope others can
respect my observation that with Mac/Unity alt-tab more keystrokes or waiting
might be necessary.

It is also an objective observation that with Mac style shared menu on top of
the screen in a dual monitor setup you will sometimes have to move the pointer
across two screens to reach the menu, then back again to continie working.

~~~
braveo
To this day I still get frustrated on Windows because they broke Alt+Tab.

Used to Alt+tab would simply cycle through in order of most recently used. Now
they've got some functionality where shit can inject itself into that list so
alt+tab and then alt+tab back and then alt+tab back to bounce between two
different programs doesn't work consistently anymore.

I'm sure I just don't understand the use case for the new behavior, but it
drives me bonkers.

I also hate, and I mean HAAAAAAATE when text editors autocomplete matching
brackets, single/double quotes, etc. It completely fucks with my flow.

so maybe I'm just an old control freak.

------
JepZ
I also really like the idea of 'Official hardware that just-works'. Not just
for users without much technical knowledge but also for the rest of us.

I mean nowadays we somehow manage to get most hardware working 'somehow'.
Sometimes it takes a few years before your sound/bluetooth/wifi chip actually
does what it is supposed to do, but most of the time we find ways to make use
of our hardware.

But when you are going to buy new hardware you are a bit lost. You can try to
find out if there are any major problems with some hardware, search the ubuntu
hardware database, but especially for new, rare or expensive hardware there is
often not so much to find about. For example a few years ago I bought a 22"
touchscreen for my desktop and for almost a year it somehow worked but didn't
do the things it was supposed to do.

Officially supported hardware by vendors would be a great step in the right
direction.

~~~
sparkiegeek
Perhaps you're not aware that Canonical already do this and publish results at
[https://certification.ubuntu.com/](https://certification.ubuntu.com/) ?

~~~
JepZ
Well, I was not aware of that ;-) Thanks :-)

------
Andrex
I feel guilty: I didn't respond on the initial post because I doubted the
_really_ outrageous/far-out ideas like "dump everything you've been working on
for the past five years" would actually be fruitful, but man, Shuttleworth
shut me right up haha. Congrats on the Ubuntu team for the courage to make
bold changes when necessary and to actually (finally?) listen to pointed
community feedback and constructive criticism.

I haven't been this excited for Ubuntu since 2010.

------
Johnny_Brahms
Not related to Ubuntu, but maybe someone here knows a good way to kill the
swipe left/right to navigate in blogs. I accidentally left the page about 5
times, which is rather annoying.

Using ff mobile if that helps.

Edit: hallelujah! Set dom.w3c_touch_events.enabled to 0 in about:config

~~~
lucb1e
Yeah this is a real pain in the ass of the Blogger® platform. Not sure there
is anything Dustin can do about this, other than move the whole blog over...

Nice find of the about:config setting though!

~~~
reitanqild
Googlers around here: any idea when you'll start fixing/resetting blogger to
how it was?

------
hatsunearu
Why is dropping Unity lumped with dropping MIR?

Unity is great and I love it, I don't want to lose it.

~~~
josteink
If I remember correctly Unity was a fork of Gnome with lots of patches applied
to the point of having both Gnome and Unity on the same system taking effort
and being risky w.r.t. stability.

My guess is that they've invested entire Unity vNext on Mir, and if they're
dropping Mir, they'll might as well drop Unity 8. That leaves them with Unity
7, and to unfuck a decade worth of changes they've done to make it work with
mainline Gnome source.

Basically lots of work to have a 6 year old product back to square one, before
they can, once again, attempt to further develop it.

I'm guessing they've decided that's not worth the effort and that their time
is better spent helping improve something already mature (Gnome 3).

Touché, but they could have listened to the community back when they announced
Mir and Unity 8 too ;)

~~~
bkor
They reduced the number of patches quite a bit. For some of the things they
do, they depend on components that are not commonly used within GNOME.
Meaning, it's not a patch, but as a sole user they'll have to maintain
components if they're the only "user". Something written on top of Tracker
IIRC; not started by Canonical, but nicely used by them. That's always a bit
of a difficult explanation, sometimes Canonical expects maintenance to happen
magically.

------
gingerbread-man
Link to the original post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14002821](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14002821)
"Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?"

------
Jerry2
I currently use Ubuntu on one of my laptops precisely because it's not GNOME.
I can't stand GNOME3's hamburger menu UIs, giant title bars, lack of real
menus, inability to make changes without digging into their version of dreaded
"registry" and that pointless menu bar at the top. If I'm being forced to move
to GNOME, I'll be switching to Fedora instead since they have a solid track
record of GNOME and Wayland support.

My desktop will always be Arch, however with Cinnamon and, occasionally, i3
for development.

~~~
gurkendoktor
Even if Canonical only keeps a fraction of its desktop staff, they could
easily improve on GNOME's default settings and theme, something that Fedora
won't do.

~~~
bkor
It should be much easier since GTK+ "4" (not too many changes in GTK+3.x)
combined with finally having a theme API, though the intention is to have some
bits of GNOME run these development GTK+ versions at some point in future.

They're redoing how widgets work in GTK+ "4". That's basically like changing
HTML and having slightly different elements. Though there's a theme API, I
wouldn't be surprised if some theme work is needed as a result.

See the last bits at [https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2017/03/31/gtk-
happenings-3/](https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2017/03/31/gtk-happenings-3/)
for why I think above things.

------
dankohn1
Congrats to Dustin not just for some amazing crowdsourcing with the original
post, but then for an extremely concise, thoughtful and humble followup for
those of us who couldn't wade through all of those suggestions ourselves.

~~~
dustinkirkland
You're welcome Dan! It was a _lot_ of work, but so, so, so worth it. I'd do it
again in a heartbeat. Or rather, maybe in 6 months :-)

------
mwcampbell
I'm impressed with your thoroughness in processing the responses. But I'm just
curious: Why did you lump usability for children and accessibility for users
with disabilities into one suggestion? Anyway, returning to GNOME should help
with the latter.

~~~
bkor
The accessibility of GNOME under X11 should be really good. Not so sure about
Wayland though. E.g. not sure how dasher would work, nor orca. Secondly, some
of the things (IIRC pointer highlighting) actually is done using some X11
application. That needs to be moved (e.g. mutter).

------
akerro
No one mentioned better Steam support/collaboration with Valve? CPU and
operating systems are made for gaming, it's gaming that attracts users and
investors from big companies and developers. Ubuntu would only benefit if they
invested in MESA, faster AMD GPU integration and cooperate with Valve on Steam
clients and gamedev research for Linux.

------
sunstone
While it's true that Ubuntu still has a few inconveniences, from my
perspective it's still much better than the alternatives.

The mere thought of having to use Windows or IOS for development make me want
to curl up in the corner with my blanket.

Daily I use ubuntu for my desktop, laptop, TV streamer and cloud servers.
Overall my satisfaction level across all devices is at least 9/10.

Great job team Ubuntu!

------
sandGorgon
The one thing I'm incredibly worried about is the packaging war starting all
over again. There are zero reasons for having multiple packaging formats
across liNux distros .

I was hoping that snap or flatpak becomes universally adopted, but it seems
that Redhat and Canonical are again split along political fault lines here.

~~~
gurkendoktor
As Canonical has moved its focus away from end users, we might end up with a
more intuitive split: snaps for the cloud, flatpak for desktop apps?

~~~
sandGorgon
not really. check this -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053627)

 _We 're engaging with dozens of major vendors of traditional/proprietary
software about delivering their software onto Ubuntu via Snaps -- which is a
new packaging format that solves many of the traditional problems associated
with proprietary software working well on Linux._

------
BudFox
It is sad to see the modern and reliable Unity 7 put out to pasture. GTK was
not used for Unity 7. Canonical chooses QT for Unity 8. KDE can easily
replicate Unity 7 look/feel. QT no longer has an objectionable license. It is
not clear why Gnome is the choice over basing on KDE?

------
19eightyfour
Here's a perspective on FOSS and Ububtu. One point of free open source
software was we didn't need to be stuck with features we didn't like, that
were decided by some majority, or leadership, because we could fork our own
and customize as we like. So I think the enthusiasm for responsiveness of a
central body to feature requests, is an enthusiasm for a thing not normally
associated with a FOSS, which therefore demonstrates that either: that the
Ubuntu ecosystem says it is FOSS, but actually operates like something else,
or that FOSS fork-your-own theory doesn't apply in practice on large projects
with lots of people, or that this perspective just related here is missing
something.

~~~
slitaz
The UI is the type of big software that needs design and follow this design.
Otherwise you end up with a complex piece of software. You get this with all
types of big software that need to keep a clean design to avoid future pains.

------
agd
" Fix /boot space, clean up old kernels (92 weight)

...committed to getting this problem solved once and for all in Ubuntu 17.10
-- and ideally getting those fixes backported to older releases of Ubuntu."

Great news! Thanks for taking this feedback onboard.

------
MrTonyD
Back in the days there were backroom deals to get Adobe on Apple platform.
Steve would meet with Adobe executives and trade them cash and offshore stock
(untraceable, of course) so that they would port to Apple. All the development
for Apple was fully funded for Adobe. In case it isn't obvious, Adobe could
choose to support only Windows and do just fine - eliminating development and
support costs for the Apple platform. Thus, bribing the rich and greedy became
the effective technique.

~~~
no_wizard
Source? This seems incredibly unsubstantiated. There were public efforts Steve
made to keep Adobe on the platform and I know there were developer meetings to
ensure the transition to Carbon and Cocoa went fine.

I have seen no evidence of illicit stock grants or Apple giving direct cash to
executives at adobe.

I hate to be _that guy_ but I would like more information on this, otherwise
it feels rather unsubstantiated and just paints both Apple and Adobe in a bad
light for no reason.

~~~
MrTonyD
I worked on projects for Steve and reported to his direct reports. One would
have to be very naive to think that this isn't just typical business practice.
Or do people really fall for that "free market" stuff that we are being sold?

~~~
no_wizard
Well, I'm not naive. I'm sure there is a lot of things that the public would
find unsavory that happens all the time at the upper echelons of companies
like this, sure. I'm willing to believe that.

I just have never seen any substantiation between Adobe and Apple doing this
sort of thing, even when Steve was alive. This is the first time someone has
even confirmed it yet alone alleged this happened. I know both companies had
done things in the past that were less than savory (see that whole lawsuit
about suppressing wages. Very disgraceful!)

Never this. It's been alleged for years, but never once was there evidence.

I'm sure you could make a mint here if you wanted to, if you could
substantiate any of it.

~~~
MrTonyD
Steve talked about a lot of things - and even more to his direct reports. But
the only people who would have proof are also people who would never talk
about it. I also worked for a direct report of Bill Gates and a direct report
of Larry Ellison. They did the same types of things - often illegal. But
everybody who was involved is very motivated to never talk about it. I may be
one of the few people who turned down executive positions when offered - I
didn't like the "business values".

------
drej
Just an irrelevant side note:

When you do a requests.get(url), you can use the .json() method on it instead
of all the json.loads([...].text). I remember doing the same for years and
only discovering .json() recently, I love it.

~~~
dustinkirkland
:-) Awesome. Thanks for the hint!

------
mapreri
Just a note about Reproducible Builds: "We've been working with Debian
upstream on this over the last few years, and will continue to do so" — well,
apart from the regular sync/merge flow from Debian to Ubuntu, AFAIK Canonical
never reached out to us Reproducible Builds folks from Debian. That said, we/I
plan to reach out to Ubuntu/Canonical soon :)

~~~
dustinkirkland
Canonical employs dozens of Debian developers, whose work goes to _both_
Debian and Ubuntu. ;-)

~~~
mapreri
I know, I collaborate with several, and I am both an Ubuntu an d Debian
developer :) Just that I know no Canonical employee is working with us on
Reproducible Builds. (I only remember a very spotty contact like 2 years ago
on IRC from somebody saying Canonical was interested) If they are working,
they are doing it behind a curtain, which I'd find interesting ;)

------
shalmanese
It would be nice to get this list sorted by most surprising as well. A lot of
these feedback points seem to fall into the category of "faster horses" which
usually tend to dominate when you solicit ideas from the general public.

------
jseutter
Just want to chime in with others and say thank you for making this followup
post. Regardless of the outcome, distilling the results the way you did means
a lot to me and I'm sure others as well. Thanks!

~~~
dustinkirkland
You're welcome. Thanks for following along.

------
_jordan
I would have really liked to see gnome2-esq style DE - bare bones, focus on a
great windows like task bar / windows management. I really hated the unity
dock thing and I especially hated the color scheme.

~~~
noisy_boy
I think the Mate desktop aims to deliver just that.

~~~
_jordan
Indeed, but it's just missing a lot of the polish and modern features

------
trololo12345
Will this mean, that the integrated Amazon search in the desktop is also gone
forever? I'd like to see Canonical making money with support instead of that
Amazon thing or selling "Apps" to the user. That is the number one reason, why
I do not recommend Ubuntu. Other than that, I'm amazed how much the community
was heard! Also thanks for the in-depth analysis blog post :)

~~~
slitaz
The Amazon thing was gone in 2016. Having an option for integrated payments in
the software store is a nice thing, isn't it? You get the donations feature in
the store instead of going elsewhere.

------
Alan_Dillman
Nice read, and I am wishing I had been in on the original topic.

If I had, I would have commented that the version upgrade process sucks for
anyone that starts from a minimal base(like I do). If I go through the
upgrade, I will end up with all the default stuff.

If I don't have thunderbird installed, don't install it for me.

In short: upgrades could be smarter, faster, better, stronger.

------
deadfece
I think the best news out of this is hopefully that it seems you (as
Canonical) have shifted away from "This is not a democracy. [...] we are not
voting on design decisions." and the (paraphrased) "This is good because we
[Canonical] made it!"

~~~
slitaz
Which project is "voting" on design decisions?

------
PleaseHelpMe
I am slightly sad by the fact that rarely anyone mentioned about the battery
life of ubuntu, but got excited with the "Nexus-of-Ubuntu" thing. I wish the
best to ubuntu.

~~~
dustinkirkland
Power/battery management definitely made the list. See the blog post ;-)

------
hysan
I was really happy when that Ask HN thread was first posted and even happier
now knowing that all of the comments were read and thoroughly considered. That
said, what this blog post and the general feeling I get from Ubuntu as a whole
is that:

1\. There is too much of a focus on how far Ubuntu has come and not enough
focus on how far things still need to progress. I too remember the days when
sleep/hibernate were a crap shot, but that was when I viewed Ubuntu as an open
source alternative without much expectation. Nowadays, I see Ubuntu as a
mature desktop and as such, I judge it much more harshly. Anything that
doesn't work or isn't 99.99% stable is a red flag for me. So I do hope that
the Ubuntu team puts more focus on making things up to date, rock solid, and
super stable rather than go chase after new features. Just like a building,
you need a stable foundation before building upwards.

2\. There isn't a clear target audience for Ubuntu Desktop. What does Ubuntu
Desktop want to be? Before it was convergence and while a very neat idea, I
was never clear on who was supposed to use it. The requirements screamed high
income, tech savvy end users. However, development focused on Unity, Mir, etc.
with work going into features that didn't fit the target audience. For
example, like the post says, HiDPI & 4K were a surprise. Why was this
surprising? The group that would most likely be your early adopters and trend
setters are the same exact group that would have this type of hardware. Same
with trackpad, gestures, customizability, flux, root on ZFS, security, etc.
All of those are used heavily by the demographic most likely to follow the
news on Unity and convergence. It baffles my mind that Ubuntu's Product
Management couldn't make this connection and understand what core features to
build out first in Unity/Mir. Yes, these are on the sidelines now, but I
really hope the Product Management team takes the time to figure out some
direction.

3\. At the moment, Ubuntu is at a major crossroad. Even after Mark
Shuttleworth's post, this post, and all of my usual Linux news following, I
don't really know where Ubuntu _Desktop_ is going to go. Tell us _what_ we can
expect as users. Tell us _when_ we can expect it to come. Tell us _how_ you
intend on getting there. And most importantly, tell us _how we can help_!
Either though regular posts to various communities like the Ask HN one, or
ways we can contribute actual work. Not everyone is a dev, but as an example,
I used to do professional QA and yet I found it extremely difficult to find
out how I can help QA things and submit useful bug reports (this isn't just
Ubuntu but most open source projects). The usual "check the docs/wiki" or
"submit something on the issue tracker" are not helpful. In all of my years
using Linux, that Ask HN thread + this blog post was the first time I ever
felt like I was heard and managed to contribute to Ubuntu. Even something as
simple as periodically getting feedback from the community and telling us what
you heard from us makes me feel more optimistic about Ubuntu's future.

I apologize for the rant-like nature of my comment, but hopefully this gets
read and something positive comes out of it. Thanks for reading.

~~~
bokchoi
> Anything that doesn't work or isn't 99.99% stable is a red flag for me. So I
> do hope that the Ubuntu team puts more focus on making things up to date,
> rock solid, and super stable rather than go chase after new features. Just
> like a building, you need a stable foundation before building upwards.

I agree. I was surprised that the "More QA, testing, stability, general
polish" wasn't higher on the list.

------
jumasheff
Re: Make WINE and Windows apps work better

How about booting ReactOS to run Windows apps? Sounds like a Frankenstein-ish
solution, but...

------
shmerl
Thanks for deciding to focus on Wayland from now on. This will benefit
everyone.

------
analognoise
I stopped using Ubuntu after it came with Amazon shit installed.

~~~
cdelsolar
ok

------
Arizhel
Instead of adopting Gnome3, they should adopt KDE. It's far more customizable
(so "Easily customize, relocate the Unity launcher (53 weight)" would be
already done) and much better architected than Gnome. And for people lamenting
the loss of Unity, it wouldn't be that hard to make a custom theme for KDE
which largely replicates the look-n-feel of Unity. Gnome simply is not set up
to allow any kind of customization, and the devs actively discourage it. The
opposite is true for KDE, and a distro that wants to stand out with its UI
would be better served with a DE that allows them the freedom of
customization.

