Canonical detail improvements the Steam Snap, work to advance gaming continues on Ubuntu

Quoting: F.UltraAnd that was for 3.4 what was the fixed version, imagine just how much was written when 3.0 came.

The responses you've linked are pretty well. And the workflow hasn't changed since the initial GNOME 3 release. It was tweaked (more so in the recent past), but overall it's still the same (empty desktop with top bar, activities with dynamic workspaces & dock).

QuoteIf, on the other hand, you really don't care what your desktop looks like and you just want to get some work done, GNOME 3 is a huge step up over GNOME 2.

[…]

As someone who has traditionally replaced GNOME's standard interface with tools like Docky and GNOME Do, I initially found GNOME 3 disorienting. But, after using it for a few days (via Fedora 15 beta), I found that GNOME 3 had slipped into my workflow with very little effort on my part.

QuoteThe solid technical work that has been done under the hood really complements the new user experience features in GNOME 3.0. Despite some of the gaps in the feature set, I think that the environment and the new shell is a good starting point for building something even better. The GNOME contributors will be able to iterate on the design and move it forward in future updates.

Quoting: F.UltraIt's the whole reason why MATE exists and for Canonical that up to then had been THE Gnome desktop they saw no other path forward than to create Unity, it was less of a NIH and more of a major user backlash.

Quoting: TuxeeUnity (2010) preceded Gnome Shell (2011).

Your timeline does not work out. How could Canonical release Unity as a result of user backlash when it was released before GNOME 3 was released? Mate on the other hand was forked as a direct result of the GNOME 3 release.

Quoting: BrokattStop making sense and hop on the Canonical hate train. Shoo shoo!

Jokes aside I truly for my life cannot understand all the push-back Canonical receives no matter what they do.

I'd say the problem all have with Canonical: They are really bad at developing open source software. You either take care of the project yourself (as all big techs do) or create a real open source projects. Canonical does neither and in the end they usually get abandoned. If the only way to contribute to Canonical software is to fork the project then people will rather start their own instead. With snap they even stopped pretending & just made it proprietary.

Quoting: poiuzYour timeline does not work out. How could Canonical release Unity as a result of user backlash when it was released before GNOME 3 was released? Mate on the other hand was forked as a direct result of the GNOME 3 release.

Canonical was somewhat invested in GNOME development at the time and the design plans for what became GNOME Shell was announced already back in 2008 at the GNOME User Experience Hackfest in Boston and pre releases of GNOME Shell was relased in 2009.

Also the Unity released in 2010 was a pure shell on top of GNOME meant to be used on netbooks and wasn't planned to replace GNOME on the regular Ubuntu until the backlash of GNOME 3 so they brought it back and changed it for Ubuntu 11.04 in 2011.

Quoting: F.UltraCanonical was somewhat invested in GNOME development at the time and the design plans for what became GNOME Shell was announced already back in 2008 at the GNOME User Experience Hackfest in Boston and pre releases of GNOME Shell was relased in 2009.

Also the Unity released in 2010 was a pure shell on top of GNOME meant to be used on netbooks and wasn't planned to replace GNOME on the regular Ubuntu until the backlash of GNOME 3 so they brought it back and changed it for Ubuntu 11.04 in 2011.

GNOME 3 was released in 2011, the backlash happened in 2011 (see Mate fork) but the shift to Unity happened before 2011. There's a lot drama documented in various posts, it does not include "the users wanted it".

Had Canonical their users in mind, they wouldn't have released Unity in 11.04. The criticism was plenty & the release was not ready.

Quoting: poiuz

Quoting: F.UltraCanonical was somewhat invested in GNOME development at the time and the design plans for what became GNOME Shell was announced already back in 2008 at the GNOME User Experience Hackfest in Boston and pre releases of GNOME Shell was relased in 2009.

Also the Unity released in 2010 was a pure shell on top of GNOME meant to be used on netbooks and wasn't planned to replace GNOME on the regular Ubuntu until the backlash of GNOME 3 so they brought it back and changed it for Ubuntu 11.04 in 2011.

GNOME 3 was released in 2011, the backlash happened in 2011 (see Mate fork) but the shift to Unity happened before 2011. There's a lot drama documented in various posts, it does not include "the users wanted it".

Had Canonical their users in mind, they wouldn't have released Unity in 11.04. The criticism was plenty & the release was not ready.

Nope, it wasn't ready. But it was still a better experience than Shell back then, which had hidden activities and weird mouse zones and all sorts of strange workflow changes. They also considered staying on Gnome 2, if I remember correctly, but Mark (Shuttleworth) already had one eye on his upcoming phone UX, and so doing their own thing with Unity/Mir was a pretty bold step for them.

I suspect that if the Unity Phone had succeeded in their IndieGogo campaign, Unity would still be the primary desktop on Ubuntu today, and likely, powered by Mir. When the phone failed, however, priorities subtlety changed over the next five years, until of course, they abandoned several technologies (Upstart, Mir, Unity) to consolidate their efforts on cloud, core, and snap.

Quoting: scaineI suspect that if the Unity Phone had succeeded in their IndieGogo campaign, Unity would still be the primary desktop on Ubuntu today, and likely, powered by Mir.

How did Canonical seriously believe they would be able to get 32 million dollars from crowdfunding?

They got 12 million instead, which is mind-boggling. They set the bar way too high.

Quoting: scaineNope, it wasn't ready. But it was still a better experience than Shell back then, which had hidden activities and weird mouse zones and all sorts of strange workflow changes.

That's your opinion but off-topic. There are enough people who disagree & Unity did not fare better.

Quoting: scaineThey also considered staying on Gnome 2, if I remember correctly, but Mark (Shuttleworth) already had one eye on his upcoming phone UX, and so doing their own thing with Unity/Mir was a pretty bold step for them.

That's what I mean: Pushing Unity had absolutely nothing to do with GNOME 3 user backlash but was about self-interest.

Quoting: scaineI suspect that if the Unity Phone had succeeded in their IndieGogo campaign, Unity would still be the primary desktop on Ubuntu today, and likely, powered by Mir. When the phone failed, however, priorities subtlety changed over the next five years, until of course, they abandoned several technologies (Upstart, Mir, Unity) to consolidate their efforts on cloud, core, and snap.

Great point: It would be a success had it been a success. But this shows the issues with Canonical projects: They're not sustainable. They create closed projects which in turn obviously fail to attract external developers and in the end are abandoned.

Quoting: poiuzThat's your opinion but off-topic.

It was entirely on-topic to the comment I was replying to. Welcome to the internet, where opinions are stated frequently.

Quoting: poiuzThat's what I mean: Pushing Unity had absolutely nothing to do with GNOME 3 user backlash but was about self-interest.

Gnome 3 had a big impact the way I remember it. Canonical wanted to tailor the experience either upstream itself, or via extensions, but neither option panned out.

Quoting: poiuzGreat point: It would be a success had it been a success.

Please don't oversimplify my point just to make a snide internet victory. I said the if the phone had succeeded, we would have a very different desktop experience.

Quoting: poiuzBut this shows the issues with Canonical projects: They're not sustainable.

This is obviously false. Or maybe it's just your opinion? I remember things like Upstart being adopted distro-wide for many years before being replaced by systemd, and Uncomplicated Firewall is the default is in most distros today. Launchpad is still widely used. And a host of smaller enhancements to Gnome, like software-properties to help simplify Nvidia driver installs/change repos, or more agnostic projects, like lightdm, the apport error reporting system, or the ubiquity installer.

From the tone of your reply, it sounds like you have real beef with Canonical. I don't advocate for them anymore, but I still respect the impact they had and still have today. Why so negative on them?

Quoting: scaineThis is obviously false. Or maybe it's just your opinion? I remember things like Upstart being adopted distro-wide for many years before being replaced by systemd, and Uncomplicated Firewall is the default is in most distros today.

I only remember a couple distros like Fedora adopting Upstart. I'm pretty sure it was never included in CentOS.

I've never heard of Uncomplicated Firewall. I pretty much use arno's firewall for configuring iptables. Or firewalld.

Quoting: scaineIt was entirely on-topic to the comment I was replying to.

You replied to my comment. I do know that I never asked anyones opinion about GNOME Shell or Unity, the topic is still the reason & timing for starting Unity.

Quoting: scaineGnome 3 had a big impact the way I remember it. Canonical wanted to tailor the experience either upstream itself, or via extensions, but neither option panned out.

Exactly, you even agree with me. The reason for Unity was political issues between the GNOME project & Canonical. No user interests were involved.

Quoting: scainePlease don't oversimplify my point just to make a snide internet victory. I said the if the phone had succeeded, we would have a very different desktop experience.

I don't simplify, I'm telling you it's a pointless argument. It wasn't a success so why bother with what-ifs? If Canonical had made billions with the phone they'd probably moved away from open source releases. But that's another pure speculative & useless what-if. It was a failure and as a result they killed two projects.

Quoting: scaineThis is obviously false. Or maybe it's just your opinion? I remember things like Upstart being adopted distro-wide for many years before being replaced by systemd, and Uncomplicated Firewall is the default is in most distros today. Launchpad is still widely used. And a host of smaller enhancements to Gnome, like software-properties to help simplify Nvidia driver installs/change repos, or more agnostic projects, like lightdm, the apport error reporting system, or the ubiquity installer.

Upstart was killed as soon as it was certain Canonical was on their own.

Everything small (UFW, lightdm, extensiond & driver installer) are just small projects which don't show much maintenance (UFW & lightdm have rarely releases, both exactly 1 in the last 2 years).

The others have not yet been killed & apparently see development. Congratulations Canonical. What a great success story & I was wrong all along (since Ubiquity is being replaced by a new installer, it'll obviously die soon).

Quoting: scaineFrom the tone of your reply, it sounds like you have real beef with Canonical. I don't advocate for them anymore, but I still respect the impact they had and still have today. Why so negative on them?

I value Free Software. Since Canonical does not (as I said, the only way to contribute to Canonical projects is to fork them), I don't value Canonical. Actually, scratch that. Who am I to tell anyone how to make their money. I dislike Canonical because they present themselves as a free software company while hiding their proprietary projects behind the GPL. Even Valve does a better job providing Free Software.

Quoting: slaapliedjeI only remember a couple distros like Fedora adopting Upstart. I'm pretty sure it was never included in CentOS.

It was the init system of RHEL6. Apparently it would've been improved if it hadn't been CLAed.


Last edited by poiuz on 24 June 2024 at 7:03 pm UTC

I think the bigger issue with Canonical is that their previous open-source projects was developed, dropped in the open, and if you wanted to submit a fix you had to sign a CLA.

That's basically signalling that they didn't really want to cooperate.

A few of their projects was very successful in my opinion. Unity is one of them.

Another big issue is their doubling down on their own thing which is incompatible with everyone else, like them dragging Upstart for years after it was clear they lost to Systemd, and the same with how they Snap everything.

Canonical doesn't listen to its users, Even when they have something good (like early Unity) they make it really hard for anyone else to use, and even harder for anyone else to work on it.
Then after the initial good work, they leave it to stagnate.

Same with Launchpad. Same with Upstart.
Look at the LXD fiasco, their one project that got outside traction somehow affronted them and they killed it off.

There is some really weird culture going on there.