Ubuntu 10.10 - Maverick Meerkat

Mark Shuttleworth has just announced the mascot name for Ubuntu 10.10 - Maverick Meerkat.

Mark writes:

Our mascot for 10.10 is the Maverick Meerkat.

This is a time of change, and we’re not afraid to surprise people with a bold move if the opportunity for dramatic improvement presents itself. We want to put Ubuntu and free software on every single consumer PC that ships from a major manufacturer, the ultimate maverick move. We will deliver on time, but we have huge scope for innovation in what we deliver this cycle. Once we have released the LTS we have plenty of room to shake things up a little. Let’s hear the best ideas, gather the best talent, and be a little radical in how we approach the next two year major cycle.

Meerkats are, of course, light, fast and social – everything we want in a Perfect 10. We’re booting really fast these days, but the final push remains. Changes in the toolchain may make us even faster for every application. We’re Social from the Start, but we could get even more tightly connected, and we could bring social features into even more applications. Meerkats are family-oriented, and we aspire to having Ubuntu being the safe and efficient solution for all the family netbooks. They are also clever – meerkats teach one another new skills. And that’s what makes this such a great community.

Meerkats - like Ubuntu they are light, fast and social.

Read the entire post here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/336

Mark Shuttleworth at PyCon: Cadence, Quality and Design

As you might know I love to hear Mark Shuttleworth speak. It's always so inspiring and he's always so positive. Below is an interview with Mark by The Bit Source from PyCon.

Mark Shuttleworth and Antonio Rodriguez are to be the keynote speakers at PyCon 2010, the world's largest conference of the Python programming community. Over 1,000 Python programmers are gathering now at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Atlanta for eight days of intensive education, cooperation, and networking.

More Information about Shuttleworth’s keynote: http://us.pycon.org/2010/conference/schedule/event/122/

No Human Theme In Ubuntu 10.04?

In an interview recorded on February 19 2010, Mark Shuttleworth revealed that a new light theme will replace the Human theme in Ubuntu 10.04. The Human theme has been the default theme in Ubuntu since the first release.

In the interview Mark says:

...we'll have some new styling which is going to be the starting point of another five year view. We've been Human for the last five years and now we're gonna be light oriented.

I'm sure Mark is referring to something like the Elementary theme, which has been a hot topic these last few months.
Some people think that interpreting "some new styling" being "the starting point of another five year view" as an entire new GTK / Metacity theme redesign might be a bit of a stretch. As 23meg from the Ubuntuforums.org points out, it can be interpreted as only the starting pieces of a new five-year outlook landing in Lucid as well.
During the Ask Mark session at Ubuntu OpenWeek, Mark was asked about the artwork for Lucid. Back then he replied:

New window decorations, some new icons for the panel indicators, some new styling on boot and login, no new gtk theme.

I must admit, I'm really in doubt about what to expect in Lucid. There are no artwork drops secduled for this release, but the User Interface Freeze is just around the corner, so we'll soon know what Lucid Lynx will look like.

Mark Shuttleworth Steps Down As CEO At Canonical

You couldn't possible have missed this (every open-source and linux site has written about this), but just in case let me inform you that Mark Shuttleworth has announced the current COO Jane Silberwill have the privilege of leading Canonical from March of next year. Mark will continue to play a major role in Canonical, and it is expected to be a smooth transition. Silber's official blog and Linux.com each have more details on how the change will be implemented. Mark wishes to focus more on making Ubuntu better and less on the financial aspects. In his blogpost Mark writes:

From March next year, I’ll focus my Canonical energy on product design, partnerships and customers. Those are the areas that I enjoy most and also the areas where I can best shape the impact we have on open source and the technology market. I’m able to do this because Jane Silber, who has been COO at Canonical virtually from the beginning, will take on the job of CEO.
Since Jane joined the company, she and I have shared the load of coordinating between the leaders of all the key teams that make up Canonical. We’ve been through various permutations as new initiatives needed different kinds of attention; Jane currently leads the Ubuntu One effort, for example.
I’ve become very passionate about design and quality, and want to spend more time figuring out how we harness the collaborative process to build better, more insightful products. I can’t think of a more interesting challenge, and luckily I couldn’t think of a better person to take over my formal management and leadership responsibilities at Canonical than Jane. We’ve worked together long enough, and closely enough, that I can be confident of continuity in the pieces I most care about and also excited about the ways in which I think Jane will raise the bar for the senior team. As a former VP at General Dynamics, Jane has more experience of large customers and large organisational leadership, which I see as essential for Canonical over the next five years. We are being welcomed as a partner and supplier to ever-larger businesses, and I want to make sure we are a robust answer to their needs...

I've met both Mark and Jane in person and I honestly believe that this is a really good thing - they are both amazing people. I wish them both congrats and the best of luck.

Sources:
- http://www.markshuttleworth.com/
- http://blog.canonical.com/
- http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/
- http://arstechnica.com/

Mark Shuttleworth Announces via video Ubuntu 10.04: Lucid Lynx

Speaking via video to UbuCon at the Atlanta Linuxfest, Mark Shuttleworth announced that the code name for the 10.04 Ubuntu release would be "Lucid Lynx". It will be an LTS version featuring 3 years support for the desktop version and 5 years for the server version. This will be the 3rd LTS version, proving that Ubuntu can not only deliver a new version every 6 months, but also an LTS version every 2nd year, something Mark is very proud of. Speaking briefly of what we can expect to see in the Lucid Lynx, Mark talks of cloud computing and Gnome. Mentioning our relationship with Debian, Mark hopes to continue expanding that relationship in the hope of bettering both distributions. In closing Mark asks our community to search out those who put in so much work delivering a quality Ubuntu product to us, and to give them all a big thanks. We think a big thanks is also deserved by Mark for his oversight and tireless work on our behalf.



Source: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue160

Shuttleworth Offers Canonical Employees to Debian

If you didn't already know, Debian had announced a new release schedule; a freeze during December, a release some time in the first half of the following year. After outcries from the Debian community, the December freeze aspect of the plan was reversed. Since most of the ire about this situation seemed to be directed towards Ubuntu, Mark Shuttleworth decided to step in and offer to put several Canonical employees to work on Debian instead of Ubuntu.

A lot of the ire within the Debian community about the release cycle decision seems to stem from a "Ubuntu vs. Debian" mentality that only works to the detriment of both projects. In an email to the debian-project mailing list, Shuttleworth detailed why coordinating releases between not only Debian and Ubuntu, but also upstream and other distributions, can only work to better the Linux ecosystem.

"We're already seeing a growing trend towards cadence in free software, which I think is a wonderful move. Here, we are talking about elevating that to something that the world has never seen in proprietary software (and never will) - an entire industry collaborating. Collaboration is the primary tool we have in our battle with proprietary software, we should take the opportunities that present themselves to make that collaboration easier and more effective."

In order to meet the upcoming December freeze, Shuttleworth is willing to commit several Ubuntu developers to the Debian project. "If the Debian community is willing to consider a December freeze, then Ubuntu (and Canonical) will commit resources to help Debian meet that goal," he writes, "It means we'll get less done in Ubuntu, but the benefits of having a schedule which could attract many other distributions would outweigh that." He believes other distributions will join the December freeze. He added that if the December freeze is not possible, he's also willing to disrupt Ubuntu's release cycle to make it all work better - but he won't commit to both developers and a change in cycle.

He closes his long email by adding:

"This is a good faith offer of help and support in order to reach a tough but noble and achievable goal. It won't be easy, the first time or the next, but it will kickstart a process that will bring dividends to Debian, and to the whole broader ecosystem. Ask upstreams what they think, and whether they would want to participate, and you'll hear a very positive response."

I think this is indeed a golden opportunity for the Linux world to show that by being open, they can collaborate openly to make not only the lives of users easier, but also of distributors and upstream developers. A release cadence is a great idea that fits the Linux world well, and will improve the experience for all involved.

Source: http://www.osnews.com/

Shuttleworth about GNOME 3.0

Derstandard.at has an interesting article titled "Shuttleworth about GNOME 3.0 - What's good, what's missing, what needs work"

Sees good possibility of having a common meta-release cycle with Debian - Not sure if GNOME3 will make the next LTS. A good read... here!

Source: http://derstandard.at/fs/1246541995003/Interview-Shuttleworth-about-GNOME-30---Whats-good-whats-missing-what-needs-work

Eavesdrop On The Karmic Koala UDS

If you didn't make it to the Ubuntu Developers Summit, there's still many ways to follow what happens at UDS. As we've seen before we can expect videos about the Ubuntu development and various interviews on the Ubuntu Developer Channel on YouTube.
You can already follow what is happening at the summit and contribute comments and ideas to people at the summit.

Here is Mark Shuttleworth's opening talk from Monday morning in the Plenary Room, where he talks about Ubuntu 9.10 and Ubuntu One Controversy (blurry cam):


Here is a list of links you want to visit:

1. The Scoop: The Ubuntu Wiki is the main source for the happen happens at the summit (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS). Any news and changes will be posted there.

2. Schedule: The schedule for the summit can be found at http://summit.ubuntu.com. On the schedule you will be able to find links to the live audio/video streams from the conference.

3. Audio Live Stream : Listen to the live audio stream of the tracks at http://icecast.ubuntu.com/.

4. LifeStream: You can follow the feeds of the different tracks and people at UDS in realtime with the new lifestream (no need to hit reload!) or you can follow us directly on identi.ca/group/uds

5. IRC: Join the channel #ubuntu-devel-summit or #uds on the Freenode IRC network (chat.freenode.net).

6. The Planet: Planet Ubuntu (http://planet.ubuntu.com) aggregates feeds of Ubuntu Member. The Planet will have a ton of information on UDS and plans for 9.10.

7. Forums: People from the summit will be following thread in the Karmic Koala Testing and Discussion forum. Use the tag of UDS in the forums if you make a thread about the summit.

Mark Shuttleworth Q+A

Today Mark Shuttleworth did a two hours Q+A session, at the Ubuntu Open Week. As usual, he touched many different areas - Lots of good questions and lots of good answers. Grab the log here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/openweekJaunty/AskMark

Mark Shuttleworth Interview

The Ubuntu Podcast Episode #24 features an interview with Mark Shuttleworth. Like I've mentioned earlier, I always love to hear Mark talk, so these 50 minutes is just pure awesomeness.

http://ubuntupodcast.net/2009/04/02/ubuntu-podcast-episode-24-mark-shuttleworth/

Karmic Koala is mascot for Ubuntu 9.10

With Ubuntu 9.04, the Jaunty Jackalope, now in a feature freeze for the April release of this distribution update, Mark Shuttleworth has announced the Ubuntu 9.04 successor.


Succeeding Ubuntu 9.04 come October will be Ubuntu 9.10, which has been codenamed the Karmic Koala. With Ubuntu 9,10, Mark hopes the Karmic Koala further enhances Ubuntu's position on servers with cloud computing improvements and on the desktop through a number of emerging technologies.

Ubuntu 9.10 will contain cloud computing enhancements for those using the Amazon EC2 service or for those looking to build their own computing cloud. There will be new utilities and other improvements in the free software stack to better position Ubuntu in the cloud.

As for the desktop, there's a lot of thing we hope will land in Ubuntu 9.10. For example will it most likely integrate Plymouth. Plymouth is the wonderful project developed by Red Hat to replace RHGB as the boot splash program. Plymouth was introduced with Fedora 10 and uses kernel mode-setting (on supported drivers/hardware) to provide a clean and flicker-free experience. Plymouth also has a number of plug-ins and other capabilities that makes it an excellent replacement for USplash. We previously reported on plans for Plymouth integration in Ubuntu 9.10.

Beyond finally having an Ubuntu release with kernel mode-setting support (since Ubuntu 9.04 will not ship with Linux 2.6.29 that brings forth KMS), on the desktop front the Karmic Koala will also focus on netbook improvements.

In the Ubuntu 9.10 announcement, Mark wants Ubuntu to be able to boot on netbooks in under 25 seconds with Jaunty and even faster with the Koala. More on boot performance here. Beyond that, more improvements will come in the Ubuntu Netbook Edition spin of the Karmic Koala.

It is also planned that Ubuntu 9.10 will feature the long awaited Face-browser.

As part of announcing Ubuntu 9.10, Mark Shuttleworth has also stated the next Ubuntu Developer Summit will take place at the end of May in Barcelona, Spain.
If you want to know more about the koalas, Mike Basinger wrote a blogpost titled "10 things you did not know about Karmic Koalas" which is very funny.

The Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" announcement can be found on the Ubuntu developer mailing list.

Mark Shuttleworth - Interview

I can't help it - I love hearing Mark Shuttleworth talk. It's always so inspiring and he's always so positive.

Below is a really good interview that golem.de did titled "We are ourselves the biggest enemy". The video is part of a longer article written in German, but Google is your friend and will translate it for you here...

Video: Mark Shuttleworth - We are our own worst enemy - Interview (Part One) (6:22)

Video: Mark Shuttleworth - We are our own worst enemy - Interview (Part Two) (6:11)

Response To The Proposed Canonical Notification System

Celeste Lyn Paul (leader for the KDE Usability Project) has written a very interesting response to the proposed Canonical Notification System. You can download the .PDF file here or visit her blog to read the full article.

Here is a short selection from the article:

...This design will have an impact beyond Ubuntu. Canonical has expressed interest in upstreams adopting their proposal ideas, particularly GNOME which is the Ubuntu default desktop environment. It also is expected that the CNS will also be implemented and integrated in to Kubuntu, a KDE-based Ubuntu derivative.

To date, there has been no usability testing or validation of the proposed CNS. The following is a summary of a literature review I conducted to help evaluate the proposal and its impact on Kubuntu and KDE.

Source: http://weblog.obso1337.org/

Mark Shuttleworth on Windows 7

Earlier I wrote about the Windows 7 Beta and how my experience with it turned out overwhelming positive. Yesterday The Register posted an interesting article titled: Ubuntu's Shuttleworth praises Windows 7

When The Register asked Mark Shuttleworth, founder Ubuntu Linux and CEO of Canonical, about Windows 7, he replied "I'm not going to diss it." In fact, he went further and talked about his experience with the operating system:

I've kicked the tires on the [Windows 7] beta for a few hours and it was good. They've put concerted attention on the user experience with the shell. I think it's going to be a great product, and every indication is we will see it in the market sooner rather than later.

Microsoft is cutting 1,400 jobs today and another 3,600 over the next 18 months in the wake of today's news of a 11 percent drop in fiscal second-quarter net income, the company announced today. It seems like Canonical is still hiring and that they're not going to slow down anytime soon. Perhaps that's the answer to the question I asked earlier "Is Sustaining a Business Better than Turning a Profit Right Now?"

Source: Kotaku
Source: Arstechnica

Mark Shuttleworth on Notifications, indicators and alerts

Today Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical, wrote a blogpost about the new notification feature in the upcoming Ubuntu 9.04.

Read Mark's entire blogpost here...

Launchpad User Experience

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical, recently wrote a blogpost titled "Morphing dialogs and the AJAX roadmap for Launchpad".

The user experience and design team at Canonical includes a few folks dedicated to web technology. At the moment, there is a substantial effort under way to reshape the Launchpad UI now that we have the core capabilities for cross-project bug tracking, code publishing and translation in place. We want to make it more obvious how to get something done - especially for new users - and we want to make it feel snappy and responsive when making small changes to your project data.

Over the next couple of months you will see pieces of this puzzle land in successive Launchpad monthly releases. In the video below you can see a couple of the key ideas.


Read Mark's entire blogpost here...

Music: The Mark Shuttleworth beat

I did a few suggestion for the Ubuntu free culture showcase. I realize now
that the music I uploaded didn't have that much to do with Ubuntu.
I know this is early, but I just wanted to try out a new idea that I
want to submit next time (if there will be a next time).

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/175241/wanted/Mark.mp3 (1,6 MB)

Did you miss Ubuntu Live 2007?

Although it's almost a year ago, you might find the Ubuntu Live 2007 clips interesting if you missed it. Personally, I'm really looking forward to the next Ubuntu Live.

http://ubuntulive.blip.tv/

As founder of the Ubuntu project, Mark Shuttleworth will give an overview of Ubuntu today: an emerging force in the consumer, developer, and server platform marketplace. He will introduce some key themes for the conference, as well as the keynote speakers who will map out the Ubuntu universe and broader free software trends in more detail. This conference brings together people using Ubuntu in a wide variety of environments -- from large-scale corporate infrastructures, to government deployments across thousands of schools, on hardware that ranges from thin clients and mobile internet tablets to massively multicore servers. Shuttleworth will chart the planned course of Ubuntu over the next 12 months, including their commitment to deliver another LTS (Long Term Support) release.

Also, check out Ubuntu Live 2008:
http://en.oreilly.com/ubuntu2008/public/content/home