Saturday, November 6, 2010

Is unity good for the freedom movement?

Unity, the visual shell which is supposed to replace the gnome shell( which is the most radical redesign of a desktop environment i have come across )in the next release of Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Will this augur well for the freedom movement? Let us see. To be clear we will present the scenarios and discuss at will without any order.

1. Unity is developed, right now, only by ubuntu. Gnome developers are wide spread across the globe but for it to reach its stage i would credit RedHat more. I am still at awe at the improvement it recieved during redhat 7 and 8.
2. None of the distros have talked about unity until now. Even those developed on ubuntu have not commented on this. On the other hand majority of the distros are betting big on Gnome 3.
3. Seeing the capability of shuttleworth's developers over the years, I have a doubt regarding the final product. Going by the ability of the Gnome developers I am pretty confident of them releasing a stable product( release when ready, instead of releasing a crap product with a time bound frame)
4. Unity "may" be good for touch screens but pretty bad, infact worse for desktop and notebook products. Gnome is excellent for the desktop and notebooks since "usability" is at the core of its design.
5. Instead of designing one more visual shell, ubuntu developers should have concentrated on making gnome 3 a better product aimed at usablity. Ubuntu already has a netbook edition, by developing unity, it has put whoever used their netbook edtiion to shame. They could always use the "ubuntu" branding and develop features which are indeed different. If users are happy then it would be absorbed into the main Gnome tree.
6. Shuttleworth is trying the iron hand approach in trying to make ubuntu to stand apart from the crowd in the freedom os world. brand ubuntu will draw flak if an idiotic product is given to the public and tell them it will improve in time. This would be the joke on the freedom os world.
7. Shuttleworth should stop aping Apple, and instead try to buy majority shares of this company and run it instead. Here none of the users are to be taken into confidence.
8. If unity is just a visual shell for gnome 3. ubuntu would be better of by modifying gnome 3 itself to suit shuttleworth's silly developers.
9. I am not a person with high inertia, I am not for re-inventing the wheel.
10. shuttleworth is not clear as to why "Gnome is not for the future"

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Nobody can deter me away from "free as in freedom" concept seeded by Sri RMS. See to it that u dont make fun of my belief. If u think otherwise, no need to comment.