For somebody like me who has been very critical of Ubuntu and its founder Mark Shuttleworth (I particularly hate Ubuntu’s “Unity” desktop environment), it is a huge pleasure to see that the Ubuntu community is doing something extremely interesting which, I really believe, has a huge potential.
Please watch this excellent presentation by Mark Shuttleworth about what Ubuntu will be doing in 2013:
Now I will be honest with you, I am not ditching my Android phone (HTC One S) yet, nor am I going to change my desktop (GNOME 3). But I will be watching Ubuntu very, very closely from now on. Most importantly, I hope that the day will come soon when I will be able to recommend Ubuntu as an all-in-one platform to those of my friends who are not GNU/Linux users and who are still stuck in the “Windoze vs iThing” nightmare.
Real geeks and hardcore techies are are unlikely to adopt the all-in-one Ubuntu solution, if only because the Ubuntu stack will probably end up having as much proprietary elements as the current Android stack (for them, the future will probably be the Debian-phone and the FreedomBox). Besides, the very idea of an all-in-one solution is really aimed at either corporations or at the, shall we say, the “technologically challenged”. Geeks and techies *like* to deeply adapt and configure their tools and folks like that will probably never be attracted to a single platform everywhere. Still, even geeks and techies could immensely benefit from applications and protocols developed by Ubuntu in the process of their work on their universal platform. It is really a win-win situation.
To be honest, I consider Windoze. iThing, Maemo, Symbian and probably even MeeGo as either already dead or dying. Android, however, still has a huge potential and the industry leaders are firmly behind it. And while I don’t see Ubuntu as a real competitor for Android in the foreseeable future, I can be a very useful runner-up or challenger which will keep the folks of Google on their toes.
Finally, and this is a big concern of mine, if Google suddenly does “turn evil“, then Ubuntu would provide a far more credible alternative that any other platform.
Bottom line: listening to Shuttleworth’s presentation put a very big and happy grin on my face. At a time when 99% of the news is either disgusting or depressing, or both, it is a real pleasure to share this presentation with you.
The Saker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3NaZv68WZWc
Best,
Joe
@Joe: when will they FINALLY translate/subtitle “If Hezbollah was defeated”?!
In the vein of this technical post: I’m curious as to your reaction to the Aaron Schwartz suicide…
Peace
@Ishamid: I have to confess that I was not aware of Aaron Swartz until today when I saw a report on RT about his suicide. Fundamentally, deeply, I feel like he was “one of us” – cypherpunks, Internet libertarians, pirates, etc – call it whatever you what – who believed that technology should serve the cause of freedom, and not to further enslave mankind. I look at this photo of Swartz standing next to Lessing, and I feel a knot in my throat: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Aaron_Swartz_and_Lawrence_Lessig.jpg
I want to believe that he did really take his life, which I of course very much regret, and that he was not “suicided” by Uncle Sam’s thugs.
What about you? Did you know him?
Peace,
The Saker
@VINEYARDSAKER
I think the threat and likely hood of receiving a 30 year jail sentence was enough to tip him over the edge.
Off topic but Wayne Masden did a good piece on the Magnitsky Act that something I never considered is that it is being used to stop Russian law enforcement officials and security service (and although not mention in the article Putin friendly businessmen buying influence in the west) from investigating “Russian”-Israeli organised crime and presumably connections to British intelligence and establishment and officials in Israel and Washington or the London-Tel Aviv-Washington axis.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/01/06/us-punitive-law-targets-russian-government.html
Funny how they never considered sanctions for Pakistan for sheltering Bin Ladin or Saudi Arabia for financing terrorism.
Speaking of Israel this is really something.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/shas-vs-shiksa/
@VINEYARDSAKER:
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What about you? Did you know him?
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Like you, I only found out about him yesterday. One commentator mentioned that the arrest of Schwartz took place at the about the same time that Wikileaks/Assange was brought down and about the same time as the persecution of Manning. So this event should be understood in that context, a context that I know you are interested in. Hence the inquiry as to your thoughts:-)
Peace
Exclusive: Secret State Department cable: Chemical weapons used in Syria
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/01/15/secret_state_department_cable_chemical_weapons_used_in_syria
Jack, this has been denied by the DoS:
http://rt.com/usa/news/state-department-chemical-us-156/
Isn’t Windows 8 as cross platform OS?
@Jack:Isn’t Windows 8 as cross platform OS?
That is how Microsoft will try to market it, but considering that Windows is an absolute piece of shit on the platforms it currently runs on, I can only imagine the nightmare it will be as a cross platform OS. Besides, MS is already way too late in the game and they simply don’t have the technology to produce something interesting on mobile devices.
Remember how, suddenly, Apple jumped from iOS to OSX?
MS would have to do a similar jump with its operating system to have a chance to compete and they sure are not going to to that. Their entire business model is not about new technologies or even software, is about marketing and maintaining monopolies be it by vendor lock-in or by shady business practices.