Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu Won't Moan To EU About Microsoft
Barence writes "The company behind the Ubuntu Linux distro says it has no plans to follow Opera's lead and file a complaint against Microsoft to the EU. Ubuntu 10.10 is the most 'consumer-friendly' version of the Linux distro to date, but it faces an uphill battle against Microsoft's marketing machine. Even high-profile supporter Dell has dropped Ubuntu machines from its website in recent months, while continuing to remind visitors that 'Dell recommends Windows 7' at the top of every PC page. 'I don't think we've ever considered [an EU complaint],' said Steve George, vice president of business development at Canonical. 'The improvements we're making to Ubunutu ... are a better route for us to reach out to users and get a bigger user base.'"
I use an Ubuntu (Lucid) desktop for work... customized for our organization by our IT department and fully supported. Even though I develop (server-side stuff) for the linux platform, I'd given up on using linux as my main work machine a few years ago. This was done in frustration over the amount of work I had to do to get basic features going wireless (for laptops), web videos, sound, random usb device support etc. I had gone completely over to OSX as the platform of choice. But this current iteration has completely changed my mind. No more virtual-machines-for-coding-and-real -machine-for-everything else lifestyle for me.
Everything "just works" out of the box. Critical updates get auto-pushed (arranged by our IT... thorough our internal apt repo).... desktop/GUI behaviors etc. have been flawless... and I was able to connect my iPhone and upload all my music/photos etc. to the desktop (for more convenient headphone experience while coding). This last one is something that I positively *can not* do on my apple laptop. So in this instance, the Ubuntu desktop added value to an Apple product that another Apple product refused to do. And I was shocked to realize how plug-n-play this whole experience was (after the fact). No hacks, no "install ExperimentWare version 0.31" etc. I plugged in the phone via USB, some windows popped up to ask me what I wanted to do with the photos/music and just did what I asked. Impressive.
> 'The improvements we're making to Ubunutu ... are a better route for us to reach out to users and get a bigger user base.'
In my personal opinion,
- Sun did this.
- Digital did this.
- Netscape did this.
- Amiga did this.
- BeOS did this.
Well, that's the basic idea and the results are now well-known.
I wish them success in their attempt to topple (or at least put a serious dent in) Microsoft based purely on technical merit. Unfortunately the landscape is littered with other companies who have tried to do so; it's an uphill battle which typically runs off a cliff at some point. I do think that Canonical is in the best position to do so since IBM with OS/2 back in the day; in fact, IMO Canonical is significantly better positioned than IBM was back then. I've been using Ubuntu as my primary OS (both at home and work!) for a while now, and in spite of the occasional glitches, it has been like a breath of fresh air. The mere thought of going back to Windows gives me nightmares.