Its just business its not personal so its really a war between business and ideals.

So for the first battle is open source vs closed source when you want to make money.
So you open source the code now you have some serious problems with piracy people using the software without paying. So I have to ask how exactly do you make money and keep the code open?

The only code I can think of thats open and makes money is the id software engines that are used in many of the worlds biggest games. The way they do it is they ship older versions as free software and only charge for commercial use of the engines and don’t ship anything that can be used without extra code being written. So then other games a few of them probably are in the repo at the moment use this great engine for free and its awesome that id software do that. The problem is they only ship the older versions of the engines and keep the two newest proprietary and open source them when it gets old. So its only semi open source but still the best example of selling open source software at the moment.

The other side of the coin is the idea of shipping a free product and offer support services around it. This is the Ubuntu model of doing things and is nice but in the sort term doesn’t make money because it requires building a community and a need for those services.

So back to the war how can a multi-billion dollar product succeed if all the code is open for people to exploit?

Patents are a known issue with software development at the moment for companies and community development efforts alike. My opinion on this is that patents for technologies other than software is ok but when people file dumb generalized patents and sit on them is what is wrong at the moment. People are so afraid to write creative code and do cool things with computers because they are so afraid of a patent troll coming in and suing them out of existence.

The last thing id like to rant about is politics. Politics is something that is very funny to me and is something that we have a lot of problems with in the open source movement. In particular Mono has been a big topic over the past few years. Ive had long chats about mono and im guilty of doing some miss informed posts and had great conversations that cleared up some things about the issue for me. The result is that im not against mono because its creation by Microsoft or anything but because it takes up a lot of space on the cd for not many applications. If you want to use mono I don’t mind I think the only thing holding it back is the politics. On a personal level I prefer python or vala for apps that I make.

So what do you all think? Love is a battle field and so is technology. Oh and I haven’t written for a while so hopefully im not too rusty

EDIT: I removed the word piracy because its not really pirating if the code is out there. Its in the spirit of open source to share and use the code. What I meant really here was if you are charging for software in the per copy ideal and you open source the code who will pay for it.
Oh and doctormo made a great blog post at the same time that answers a lot of the issues I bring up about business so have a read here.

1. Big buttons
Not everyone has tiny fingers and its hard to close/minimize/resize a window if the buttons are really small.

2. Gestures
Apple have done this right with their new mouse and with all their touch interfaces. We have nothing like this yet but Synaptics is working on this.

3. On screen keyboard
There was some talk about this at the UDS.

4. Integration
The thing at the moment is that none of the main apps in the Gnome desktop (I dont know about KDE on this) arent at all suitable for touch. Apps like Gwibber are ok because its just a textbox and a few buttons but when you look at applications like evolution that have very complicated interfaces you have lots of problems.

5. Speed
If you look at the specs of the touch computers coming up the are fairly low spec. We figure pretty well here we are fast but some applications arent. Firefox is a prime example of this it takes 10 seconds to load on my computer and that is way too long (Ok my computer is fairly bad but its better than most of the touch devices coming). Open office, Gimp and Gwibber are also good examples of apps that dont load all that fast.

6. Content
This is where we fall down we have music but most of these pads coming up are best used for reading books and playing little fun games just like the iPad. Of course you could say you can get lots of ebooks across the internet but most of them use DRM so we cant view them. And we do have lots of cool little apps but none of them are suited to this environment.

With Unity I think Ubuntu is heading in the right direction in terms of interface for touch but will we address all of the issues above very soon I cant say, maybe we will be ready in 2-3 years for the big time in this space. I cant wait to get my hands on a Ubuntu touch device though.

What all this means is the barrier is lowering and lowering for full open source adoption. With all these great technologies in the browser and on the desktop that support our open source efforts we can rest assured that regular users can move away from proprietary software. Oh and porting steam to Linux lowers the barrier to moving to Linux so although its proprietary software itself it helps users to not get regressions from moving and we should be very very happy about any help we get.

The innovations in web technologies support everyone but mainly this support helps Linux.
If everything on the web is inter-operable then why pay for an crap OS? If all the awesome innovations happening is open source how can Microsoft compete? The answer is even with all of its money Microsoft cant compete long term and with this web innovation happening no one should pay for an OS.

The challenge to Ubuntu is to leverage web apis on the desktop but build fantastic desktop applications for the times when you aren’t connected. Integrating the web into the Ubuntu desktop experience is the challenge for the next 10 years.

The thing that I am excited about is Ubuntu installed along side Windows as a fast and light desktop solution. Of course regular Ubuntu is fast enough but me personally I thought that it was either Windows or Ubuntu. The truth is we can expose PC buyers to Ubuntu without knocking Windows from being pre-installed. So bravo to Canonical for surprising me with such a great idea.

I have to say though it reeks of Google Chrome OS but with some native apps and not just a browser alone. I just love that its made to be more touch/net book oriented. You can find more info here.

One thing I loved was the extra details like the history of Ubuntu at the start. I support the project mainly because its low barrier of entry for contributions. Unlike the Ubuntu documentation it doesnt require knowledge of docbook or mallard to contribute, just good knowledge of the subjects you are writing about.

So anyway if you want to learn more of the ins and outs of Ubuntu then go read it or if you can help im sure they wouldnt mind some help with the Maverick manual. More info about the Ubuntu manual here.

Edit: Ubuntu docs do allow plain text submissions so sorry for the bad point above about needing to know docbook. I love Ubuntu docs and I have sent in some patches to them over the years. So go contribute to them as well as Ubuntu manual. More info about the Ubuntu docs team here.

With the new look of the desktop I think we can compete on every level with our rivals. The one thing that people always commented on when I showed them the desktop was the colour and both of the new colours are a lot better than the brown. I dont really care about what side the buttons are on I just love the new look.

Gbrainy and Gwibber are both welcome additions to the desktop and I love both. Gbrainy actually surprised me for such a young program how stable and cool it is. Gwibber’s new interface is a hell of a lot better than previous releases and the Me Menu makes it easy to post updates on the fly. F-Spot got a nice viewer mode and a nice little editor too which is very nice.

I dont have a clue about the server, cloud and netbook side of things (because I dont have any of them but if anyone wants to donate some machines to me id be grateful, specifically a netbook because I would love one id do a nice review if you want too ) but im sure they are rocking.

This is my first release that I went the UDS and got to know all the people who make Ubuntu awesome. It was nice chatting with people about what they are doing and learning a lot. I cant go to the next UDS because of college but ill more than likely go to the 11.04 and rock that. My focus for the next Ubuntu release is going to be less QA and more desktop and quickly work since ill have lots and lots of dev time.

What im most looking forward to (and both may seem boring to some people) is the new font coming because the fonts are bad currently and Zeitgeist being integrated into the desktop because its full of awesomeness (damn I used it again bad Shane).

So anyway go download Lucid (if you havent already )

• First and foremost ill be still using Ubuntu I dont foresee any major hurdles to this.
• Second to have 3 years of development behind me.
• To be at least an “official” contributing developer (I contribute here and there but nothing big yet, im just getting started!!).
• To have went to at least 2 more Ubuntu developer summits (Ive been to one and UDS-M is during my college exams but only one test actually falls that week so ill be remotely participating).
• To have applied to a job (Or to have one waiting for me) in some sort of free software company (Im hoping 2 will help me get this one).
• To get my Dad (and my sister maybe) to use Ubuntu (I got my Ma to use Ubuntu until her computer broke)
• To have contributed a lot to at least one program that people find useful (This ones a hard one)
• Complete my college course(software development, im 2 years in at the moment)
• Get a girlfriend (its a simple one but meeting women in college situations doesnt lead to much)
• Be silly when its appropriate and be serious when its appropriate (this is very complicated but its very merited).
• Take breaks from thinking (I think a lot, in fact way too much and half of it isnt of major importance. So I need to be a lot more focused)
• Learn how to play the harmonica and/or keyboard
• Communication: The main goal I want to deal with is my communication with people. I simply dont know how to talk with people well in person. I can communicate a lot better when im not talking face to face with people and its kinda obvious when people meet me that I dont feel comfortable talking at all really. Im a person who thinks a lot but cant deal with people and its always been a big problem for me. So when im in a room with people and not talking I get really nervous and make lots of small talk because in really uncomfortable. I also tend to say/do dumb things when uncomfortable too which I need to fix as well. I need to learn when to talk and when to interrupt because I tend to jump across people in discussions and that seems a little rude so I have to be a better listener in general.

So thats the main thing I want to change over the next 2 years in short to be cool. (I know im Irish so that lends a little coolness but I need to a lot cooler.) Oh and apologies if some of this post is a lot off topic for planet Ubuntu.

Any suggestions? (If you dont want to put them in the comments email me constructive feedback is always welcome in my book)

After that day Apple had a new focus on innovation and user interface design and they rejuvenated the company. They are now renowned for having the best user interface and the most fun gadgets included by default. They have a great circler platform thats inter-operable with each other. They have a dedicated following of die hard users that pay the 4000~ for the complete Apple stack. Great for Apple but why do I mention this you ask?

Apple pushed forward with a vision they took aim at a part of the market that had been untapped in Windows land.
My question is what part of the market do we target?

I think we are trying to appeal to the Mac people but we lack the dedicated marketing of a vision.
What comes to mind when you think of Ubuntu as a product? Is it something as simple as “Think Different”?

The answer is no we are complex in our targets we try to appeal to the Mac crowd and the Windows crowd but fall short of providing a drop in replacement for either. We lack the cool small things from Apple, we lack the featureful programs like iTunes and Garage Band, the all in one computing solutions and attention to detail. We also lack the marketing, relationships, brand awareness, games, easy development tools and support of Microsoft.

We have the idea that your computer should “Just Work” but is it enough for it to “Just Work”. I think we already meet this aim so lets look forward to the desktop that works for you. You should be able to turn it on and do what you have to and it should aid you as best it can. We should have a smarter desktop.

Im not saying we arent trying and im not saying that we dont have some awesome features that the other two dont have but maybe the question could be asked are we spreading ourselves too thin?

The big lessons we could teach Microsoft and Apple is the idea of deep integration of technologies and community. For instance the update system in Ubuntu is a lot better because of the deep integration. Everyone knows about the awesome community that do whatever they can be it development, documenting, translating, answering questions, advocacy or testing the latest releases.

I think we should be making the desktop smarter doing what our competitors are doing but better. Making the desktop work for the user and making the user focus on the work that they should be doing when they turn their computer on. In 10.04 we have a great deal of design work and id love to take useablity a big step further in 10.10 with things like Zeitgeist.

So what do you guys and gals think we all should focus on? Who should we be targeting? Am I crazy for thinking we are spreading ourselves too thin? Should we place convenience at the top of the list of things to do?