Unity(d) We Stand?

Canonical have their own ideas on what the UI should be, so they go ahead and create it. They call it Unity. They get a lot of backlash as other distributions first reject Unity, then a few accept it as an option further down the road, then reject it due to frustrations in not getting the cooperation they need from Canonical. Canonical want Ubuntu to have a unique selling point, Unity gives them that, so where's the problem?

Before I step into the main point of this post I'll first point out that Ubuntu have used Gnome 2 since they started, along with many other distros. Fedora, Debian and Mint are all prominent Gnome distros all using Gnome 2. Gnome 2 is getting rather long in the tooth now, and after KDE took the painful process to rebuild an environment for now from the bottom up, it's only recently gotten to the stage you could add the label "complete" to. Gnome has yet to make that transition. There's splits on what the new rebuild of Gnome should be, the official path is Gnome 3 or if I'm following it right it has another name Gnome Shell. Most Gnome distros are going the Gnome 3 route, actually every distro except Ubuntu are going the Gnome 3 route. Canonical did want others to adopt Unity instead of Gnome 3, but for whatever combination of reasons it appears that Canonical are left to develop and use Unity alone.

I don't have a problem with either idea from what I've seen. Both are different UI's, both are at different stages of development with features missing at this stage. Both would take some adapting to, but I don't see any major problems with either, or at least with what they have in mind for the final releases.

Before I explore whether Canonical going alone with Unity is a good or bad thing, I'm gonna sidestep and set a little context. Every distro has to have some unique selling points that distinguish it from the others. It's how many different distros started. Someone saw a combination of features they felt were the best combination and turned them into a disto. Others who see that vision and agree with it get on board. Debian used to be very unfriendly to install, which led to lots of "Debian made easy" distros, Ubuntu being one of them. Ubuntu's unique selling point was that it was Debian made easy. There are of course plenty of distros derived from Debian and Ubuntu with similar aims.

I'm a Linux Mint advocate. I use Mint on my netbook to create screencasts on, I recommend Linux Mint to newcomers to Linux. Why do I advocate Mint over Ubuntu? It's built on Ubuntu after all. What does Mint have that Ubuntu doesn't? It has lots of codecs I'd be installing anyway pre-installed to play Flash videos, mp3 audio files, avi video files, DVDs etc but those are easily installed in Ubuntu. The latest Ubuntu even allows you to tick a box in the installer to do it. Mint makes it slightly easier in the codec department but hardly a dent in Mint's favour. Mint has a suite of Mint Tools such as MintBackup, MintNanny, MintUpload etc which are great, but I don't use any of them. There are no applications unique to Mint that I use, so it gains no extra points there, for my particular needs. I can install Ubuntu and within minutes, install everything I usually use in Mint including the theme, so why use Mint?

It's a community distro, it's primarily led by the community, There is no corporate backer influencing the direction Mint takes. Having said that there is a small circle of people who take some decisions. This makes it like Ubuntu right? With Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical making decisions? Not really. In the case of Mint, these decisions are taken after involvement with the community. Not only that but Clem and the rest of the developers are very active in the community to help make it what it is. These people are approachable, flexible and open to suggestions. The same can be said about the Ubuntu community too, unfortunately their hands are sometimes tied by decisions handed down from Canonical.

I use and recommend Mint because the package they put together is more polished, more efficient and snappier than Ubuntu. It's as simple as that. Linux Mint's unique selling point is that it polishes Ubuntu and packages it in a way that makes it better for users. Every distro has a unique selling point, so why shouldn't Ubuntu? Mint is just one of many using Gnome 2, Ubuntu would be one of one. If they are the only ones with Unity it makes them very unique.

So back at the main point of this post, is Canonical going alone with Unity a good thing or a bad thing?

Keep in mind the benefits of the FOSS model. The value is based around the concept of lots of eyeballs crawling over the code, spotting bugs, fixing bugs, adding features. It's the sheer number of people that make the squashing of bugs quicker, the closing of exploits when found, quick and the pace of development faster than proprietary models can compete with. Spreading the development costs is another key thing.

If Canonical are the only ones doing Unity, they don't get those benefits. It loses that advantage, to the point where it may as well be in-house proprietary development. Compare that to Gnome 3, which will be adopted by all of the other Gnome based distros. Gnome 3 will have people from Debian, Mint, Fedora and a whole lot more all adding features, fixing bugs and generally refining the experience. Can Unity keep pace? To do that it means Canonical need to pump a lot of development resources into it. They're not gonna get any help from the other Gnome distros.

If Canonical have to fund the majority of the resources to build Unity, where does that come from? Unity is not the only unique approach Ubuntu are taking. There's others which are also mostly Canonical funded. The more shared code they can use from other projects means the less they have to fund alone. Will Unity be enough to break the Canonical bank? After all, a Desktop Environment is no minor feat. The mature environments like Gnome, KDE and XFCE took MANY years and a LOT of man hours of refining by a vast array of distros with the help of various corporations to get to where they are today. You can't just slip in a  feature parity alternative overnight that's stable and well tested enough for mainstream use.

Ah but the Ubuntu community are vast, they have a LOT of users, they'll help right? I wouldn't put too much faith in that personally. It's undeniable that they are the poster boy for Linux, that they have more installs than any other distro, specially in the consumer market. I'd question that popularoty in the enterprise market where it's either Windows, or RHEL / SLED if the company uses Linux at all. Since we're talking volunteers, we're talking about passionate users who want to give something back, which really means those who use Linux at home.

How many are computer savy? Ubuntu, like Mint and others set out to appeal to new users. Those users are often novice computer users who do very simple tasks with their computer. They have no interest in how it works or any of the philosophy behind FOSS or the community. There are plenty of new users who do delve into learning about Ubuntu / Linux / FOSS and get drawn into making friends with people in their communities, and either hang out there socially with like minded people who also share their Ubuntu / Linux interest. From those there's a subsection who get involved and help out in various ways, from doing wallpapers, hosting LUGs, helping out in forums or IRC, spreading the word etc.

Any distribution targeted at new users will get a large ratio of people who couldn't care about how their PC works, compared to the number who are active in trying to improve it or share their good experiences with their friends. The result can be things like the IRC help channel flowing so fast with lots of VERY basic questions from ex-Windows and ex-Mac users who just don't understand the Linux mindset drowing out the handful of people trying to help them out. Linux Mint faces the same hurdle. In this sense I applaud Fedora who aim to encourage every Fedora user to become a contributor to the Fedora project in some way, either directly or indirectly.

This means that especially for the newbie targeted distros, they rely on providing an encouraging, welcoming and empowering environment for people to get involved. They need to get the message over to people that they can make a difference, that the skills they have will be welcomed for the better of the project and all it's users. This is the Achilles heel of the Canonical approach.

While they do a lot to try and encourage people to participate, they also like to make decisions without informing anyone, then drop them on the community with no discussion. The result is "this is how it's gonna be". While this is fine up to a point, Canonical are a business after all, their duty is to start making a profit, it can be counter productive. When you decide the buttons will be swapped to the other side as a branding thing this is fine. When you remove the ability for users who like them where they were to move them back it's not. When everyone and their dog can see the Mac influence in the design, and the lead designer (who uses Macs) apparently can't there comes a credibility gap. It starts to feel like Canonical are taking liberties in controlling what they allow their users to do or not do, and that those involved at the Canonical stage are told to parrot the agreed company line.

Part of the reason Canonical decided on their own approach with Unity was that they created Ubuntu specific features like the indicator applet in the Gnome Panel, submitted them already finished to Gnome, who rejected them. This was apparently one of many examples of Gnome rejecting Ubuntu's changes upstream. As I understand it, Gnome rejected it because it was a KDE idea, and pushed out as a finished product, instead of developed within Gnome. I see both sides of this and think both are kinda childish. Its a great idea for end users no matter who created it.

An issue of contention with Canonical is the transferring of copyright to Canonical. When people contribute to Ubuntu, their contributions become owned by Canonical. This is fine while Canonical are a FOSS company, and Ubuntu stays FOSS. The transferring of copyright opens the possibility that one day that could change. If Canonical decide one day that the FOSS approach to the Linux desktop isn't working financially for them, and that going proprietary would be more profitable they can do that, complete with all of the work contributed by volunteers who did so in good faith that they were helping a FOSS project get better.

I have no idea if that will happen, I don't have a crystal ball. I do think the money in desktop Linux is in support contracts with major corporations and governments. There the incumbent is Windows, and the two major Linux players with an established enterprise history and reputation are RedHat and Novell with RHEL and SLED respectively. As much as Canonical want to be there I don't think they're getting as much acceptance as they'd like. It does make sense to diversify, hence the UbuntuOne services. There's still a common belief in the large money circles that proprietary equals secure and good value. There's whole industries of lobbyists whose jobs are to ensure that remains the status quo. In this environment "open" is a hard sell despite the logic and reality that it's the better approach. I'd be disappointed but not all that surprised if Ubuntu became a proprietary distro in the future to better target those support contract paying customers.

Many people contribute to and believe in the FOSS idea because it's the little guy against the world, that it's a community with little or no corporation steering it to their aims. More and more we see Canonical being a tad heavy handed in pushing it's decisions onto Ubuntu. Every time this happens it's a lashing across the backs of those who volunteer their time and skills on the basis that it's a community led distro. Plenty people will only accept so much of this before quitting. So what then?

When people quit helping a project out, do they stop using it? Do they switch to some other project in protest? No, or at least not initially. I've seen plenty of people say they've had enough of Canonical so they're stepping back from contributing to the Ubuntu project in the capacity they used to, but they still like using Ubuntu and will carry on using Ubuntu. They have been bitten by the FOSS bug, they've seen the good they get out of helping others, of making a difference. What's the likelihood they'll go back to being a passive user of a project? They will seek to find other projects where they can make a difference and contribute. This will draw them to switching to another distro.

In football they call this the 6 pointer. A win is only worth 3 points, but by beating a rival who are around the same spot you are, you not only get 3 points for yourself, but you deny them 3 points in the process; hence the 6 pointer. It means Ubuntu lose that contributor, and another project gain that contributor.

People often stay where they feel welcomed. They make friends there, they get the inner feeling of making a difference. When they make the decision to leave the Ubuntu community and take their skills to another distro, if they are welcomed there, what are the chances that Ubuntu will get them back? It's like shopping, if you have a good experience of a retailer you will favour them when you next shop for something they sell. Loyalty matters; it also cuts both ways. If they feel wronged will they forgive and forget?

Since this post has grown longer than I planned, I'll wrap it up, by saying that if Canonical end up being the only distro with Unity it will hurt them in the long run, and if they continue to make changes to Ubuntu from on high and hand them down like edicts from the Gods, it will also hurt them in the long run. Switching to Unity with such a short development cycle is very brave as it has gotten a mixed reception so far. Discounting the "I'm comfy with my UI and don't want to relearn" criticisms, there's a lot of complaints of missing features and it being kinda slow. There have been a lot of people who state they will switch to another Gnome 2 based distro when Canonical force their hand with Unity. Whether this is knee-jerk or not, whether those who say they'll move actually do, time will tell.

How those people play out when the option is either Gnome 3 or Unity only time will tell. Some will stick with the path their chosen distro is on, while others will seek pastures new. I've already seen a lot of people start to explore KDE 4 and XFCE for this very reason. Don't like the look of either and deciding to jump before being pushed.

The now defunct Netbook Edition UI kinda grew on me, although it's too inflexible in how you can customise it, I've seen screenshots of improvements to that. For what it's worth Unity does look interesting, but it may well be doomed in the long run because of the way Canonical are handling it. If they're not careful, Ubuntu may go down in history as the distro that brought Linux to the masses and lost it's loyal users in the process, leaving other other distros to pick up the spoils