Shuttleworth Says Ubuntu Can't Just Be Windows

ruphus13 writes "When Mark Shuttleworth was asked what role WINE will play in Ubuntu's success, he said that Ubuntu cannot simply be a better platform to run Windows apps. From the post, according to Shuttleworth, '[Windows and Linux] both play an important role but fundamentally, the free software ecosystem needs to thrive on its own rules. it is *different* to the proprietary software universe. We need to make a success of our own platform on our own terms. if Linux is just another way to run Windows apps, we can't win. OS/2 tried that ...' The post goes on to say, 'Linux simply isn't Windows (nor is Windows Linux) and to expect fundamentally different approaches (and I'm not just thinking closed versus open) to look, feel, and operate the same way is senseless.'"

Comments

Re:But running windows would help

[gnick]

I find when I have to use those windows boxes on site, I often really, really miss having my unix tools (sed, awk, etc...) around.

1) Install Cygwin.
2) Add the Cygwin bin directory to your path.
3) Enjoy - The Command Prompt just got a helluva lot more useful.

Wasted 3 mod points that I'd contributed before posting, but felt the need to share the joy of Cygwin. Makes Windows damned near tolerable for people that have to have it.

Re:Well, not quite...

[Bourbonium]

I remember only paying $75 for my first version of OS/2 Warp 3.0. Then, a few years later, I was willing to pay up to $119 to upgrade to OS/2 Warp 4.0 to avoid having to use Windows on my home PC the way I was forced to use it at work. I can't remember any of my OS/2 colleagues paying any more than that. Where did you get those pricing figures?

users don't figure out how to install apps

[bcrowell]

I've gotten several people in my family started with Ubuntu, and one weird thing I've observed is that none of them ever seem to spontaneously figure out how to install applications -- they don't even seem to realize that the open-source apps are out there, or that it might be desirable to install them.

Okay, maybe this is a good thing, because maybe it just means that a default Ubuntu does a very good job of including enough apps that the average user can do everything they need to do. Or maybe it just means that most people, unlike me, don't enjoy playing with software.

But it really does make me wonder whether the Linux community could be doing a better job of selling itself based on the availability of a huge number of free, high-quality applications. Apt-cache stats says that I have 25,000 packages installed on my desktop machine at home, all of them free. If even 1% of those cost $10 each, we'd be talking about a massive investment in order to build up a similar software library using proprietary software.

Now it might seem obvious to linux geeks that you should say, "I want to do x, therefore I search on freshmeat for an app that does x, and then I install it." But most people don't even think that way about computer software. They're in the habit of buying it in a store, or on amazon, and they expect it to cost money. Synaptic doesn't exactly advertise itself very well, either. Users seem to putter around for years in Gnome without ever noticing that there's a utility built into the menus that would allow them to download a ton of free software.

Re:Well, not quite...

[Colonel Korn]

I never paid anywhere near $500 for OS/2.

I could be misremembering -- it's been so long -- but $99 for upgrades is what I recall. Once I paid full price for a standard edition because for some fool reason I didn't want to wait a month for the upgrade, but I'm pretty sure even that wasn't anywhere near $500

I got OS/2 Warp 3.0 for about $60-80 soon after it came out. I also got a full legal Vista Home Premium for $109. The GP was just making up numbers.