That is not what I was talking about. I was talking about standards, and for some reason you have equated this with business practices. MS business practices may have been reprehensible - but that is a different issue, and I am not sure why you use that to confuse the issue when talking about Canonical. All I was doing was pointing out that sometimes, standards can hold back innovation. Microsoft could carry out restrictive practices because it was innovative and developed its own standards which helped it achieve market dominance - once it became dominant, it could then restrict competitor access and lock users in. Not the other way around. At the time Microsoft gained dominance, it was necessary to have something like that on the desktop - Apple could have achieved that, except they were actually far more restrictive than Microsoft, because they implemented a ROM-only based OS that would only run on a very specific set of hardware which they controlled manufacture of. Microsoft opened up their software to any who produced a platform to run it. Even IBM could not compete with that. In the inability for these major players to populate the desktop market, Microsoft stepped in maximised an opportunity nobody else exploited. However much I may dislike certain things about them, such as their ripping-off other people's ideas, I cannot take away from them that they changed personal computing in an astounding way, and made it more accessible to ordinary people than it had ever been before.

I do believe that linux should be able to take that process even further - but if it does, it will not be because of the decisions made by committees, or standards they implement.

Mish.

Hey, you brought up Microsoft, in an area they're particularly known for intentionally behaving badly in

I did, as an example of something - not because of their history of restrictive practices.

Mish.

Thank jeebus, Ubuntu 11.04 has been released!


http://arstechnica.com/open-source/n...the-depths.ars

The Unity desktop may take some getting used to, but here's hoping that this drastic change in UI makes the environment more stable (more so than gnome anyway), and more efficient in day-to-day use.

One thing is certain, the new desktop is far more finger friendly.

gnome was very stable actually. Never had any major problems with it. And it was far more productive than this crap called unity.
I've been playing with it couple of weeks and I just don't like it. How come that typing a name of app is better then selecting it from menu??? Previously I was always 3 clicks away from anything (I'm talking about stock gnome) and now it's click, click, typing, click And that "dock" with giant icons Why such a huge icons? It's not tablet OS. We do have mices and touchpads.

I have to say that although gnome3 is very similar at first it's actually far more usable and productive and far less confusing than unity. But it doesn't work on ubuntu. I'll either switch to fedora or go back to maverick. I tried ubuntu classic but copmiz doesn't work. Well, 80% of functions I used before doesn't work.

hmmm yes i can also say that the new layout takes some time to get use to, i cannot say if it is worse then before since i just got it.

Anybody here know if it's possible to get the panel in to bottom, i always have my panel setup like it was in XP, in the bottom, gnome menu, and window list

The new side "windows list" is not bad, it just takes getting used to, i will say that this new layout looks more like our smartphones layout, and thats not bad for the future, i really look forward to the day where i have a device like the N900, just bigger screen and running pure ubuntu, pref on a x64 system so no porting is necessary for win games (wine)

I'm willing to give the new interface a long try before declaring it defunct. I really like that Unity cuts down on the vertical headroom that most apps need. Since screens are wide, I don't mind giving up some width to save precious height.

I am interested to see what toolbar skinning/customization looks like on this UI. I'm betting that some truly beautiful skins can/will be created.

i was planning on using unity on my (recently and very cheaply purchased) WeTab, but i changed it back to my customized "desktop" edition (stock gnome with touch-friendly icons and controls) quite soon.

the biggest problem i had with it is the integrated menubar. i really hate that it may make sense on very small screens, but it's really annoying when you want to have several windows open.
the dock on the left side is nice, but i still prefer the combination Cairo+compiz.

IMO, unity still has a long way to go. it's to soon to make it the default WM.

I've been using unity since the 11.04 Beta came out.
It's taken a while, but I quite like it now.

Prior to that I'd been using Docky for my "main" apps and I actually find the new side dockbar easier to use.

Some devs had a highly hacked version of kubuntu mobile running on the N900 at the start of the year and even managed to get a fully functioning phone app for voice calls.

the last i heard of it was they were waiting on the 11.04 release to start work in earnest.

Methinks it went a bit like the SHR project. started then............

Here's a handy wallpaper of Unity shortcuts:


http://lifehacker.com/#!5796925/lear...andy-wallpaper

Who knows? You may learn something.