He is searching for the widest audience possible...and that is the soccer moms like you mention, not the nerds that care about the 1% of features 99% of their target audience had no need for. He is basically saying that it doesn't work to have 100k people's input from all backgrounds and opinions on a project like Ubuntu because nothing will ever get accomplished.
Which is a perfectly reasonable assumption in my view if you want to put out a polished product, which Linux has had a very hard time doing since inception. No one complains that Apple didnt have a committee of 10k Apple users vote on how the latest version of OSX should have been implemented. Shuttleworth is trying to do the same.
I'm not sure why everyone is so upset by this. I think people just believe if anything involves Linux they think they should have an opinion in the matter no matter what the project is, which for Ubuntu isn't the most efficient way of moving the project forward.
You make a good point, but the OSX comparison doesn't work. Apple practically invented the smooth user experience and they design based on feedback and studies, not being arrogant and forcing change for the sake of change.
When you boil it down, it's pretty simple. Unity sucks, taking away the users ability to configure sucks, but they've made the stand and don't want to back down because it's the only way they can differentiate themselves from other distributions. Why? Because different, not because better.
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He is searching for the widest audience possible...and that is the soccer moms like you mention, not the nerds that care about the 1% of features 99% of their target audience had no need for. He is basically saying that it doesn't work to have 100k people's input from all backgrounds and opinions on a project like Ubuntu because nothing will ever get accomplished.
Which is a perfectly reasonable assumption in my view if you want to put out a polished product, which Linux has had a very hard time doing since inception. No one complains that Apple didnt have a committee of 10k Apple users vote on how the latest version of OSX should have been implemented. Shuttleworth is trying to do the same.
I'm not sure why everyone is so upset by this. I think people just believe if anything involves Linux they think they should have an opinion in the matter no matter what the project is, which for Ubuntu isn't the most efficient way of moving the project forward.
> not the nerds that care about the 1% of features 99% of their target audience had no need for.
What features, exactly, comprise this unimportant 1%? Why aren't they important? And what portion of the remaining 99% was written by the non-nerds?
You make a good point, but the OSX comparison doesn't work. Apple practically invented the smooth user experience and they design based on feedback and studies, not being arrogant and forcing change for the sake of change.
When you boil it down, it's pretty simple. Unity sucks, taking away the users ability to configure sucks, but they've made the stand and don't want to back down because it's the only way they can differentiate themselves from other distributions. Why? Because different, not because better.
Apple not arrogant and not forcing users to do things the "Apple way"? This is exactly what they do.
Also what is the big deal about the Unity hate? It is simple to install another window manager and replace it. Problem solved.