If you follow news at all, you’ve probably heard of the recent recall fiasco involving various Toyota vehicles.  If you’re not familiar with the situation, here’s a brief recap courtesy of the relevant Wikipedia article:

Three separate but related recalls of automobiles by Toyota Motor Corporation occurred at the end of 2009 and start of 2010. Toyota initiated the recalls…after several vehicles experienced unintended acceleration. The first recall, on November 2, 2009, was to correct a possible incursion of an incorrect or out-of-place front driver’s side floor mat into the foot pedal well, which can cause pedal entrapment. The second recall, on January 21, 2010, was begun after some crashes were shown not to have been caused by floor mat incursion. This latter defect was identified as a possible mechanical sticking of the accelerator pedal causing unintended acceleration, referred to as Sticking Accelerator Pedal by Toyota…

As of January 28, 2010, Toyota had announced recalls of approximately 5.2 million vehicles for the pedal entrapment/floor mat problem, and an additional 2.3 million vehicles for the accelerator pedal problem. Approximately 1.7 million vehicles are subject to both. Certain related Lexus and Pontiac models were also affected. The next day, Toyota widened the recall to include 1.8 million vehicles in Europe and 75,000 in China. By then, the worldwide total number of cars recalled by Toyota stood at 9 million.

Obviously this has become a PR disaster for the world’s largest automobile company, but the fallout has affected more than just Toyota.  The following commentary comes from one of many articles on the matter:

The Japanese government is getting increasingly worried that the Toyota debacle might turn into a worldwide backlash against Japanese cars, or even all Japanese products. As the world’s 4th largest export nation, Japan has a lot to worry about.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama himself urged Toyota to ensure the safety of its vehicles and customers worldwide: ”When an event that impairs safety occurs, the initiative should be taken to work for the safety of people in Japan and worldwide.”

Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Seiji Maehara was a bit less diplomatic. He said Toyota ”lacked customers’ perspective” and reacted too slowly: ”It might be that Toyota considered it a minor problem,” Maehara said and added that the company must deal ”quickly based on the viewpoint of customers.”

…Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said he ”would like Toyota to deal with the situation properly so that it can alleviate concern among users.”

…[Foreign Minister Kaysuya] Okada is concerned that ”this is a problem for the whole of the Japanese auto industry and it is also about trust in Japanese products.”

One final observation before I transition into the main point of this article: 9 million may sound like a lot of recalls (and it certainly is), but consider that Toyota manufacturers nearly 9 million cars per year – meaning there may be upwards of 75+ million Toyota-manufactured cars currently in use.  That perspective will become important in a moment.

So what does this have to do with Linux?

I believe the impact of the Toyota recall on the wider perception of Japanese automakers is hugely relevant to Linux.  Here are the parallels:

• Japanese automakers: Linux (for purposes of this discussion, desktop Linux)
• Toyota: Canonical (maker of Ubuntu – currently the largest, most popular distro)

(For the record, I’m not interested in debating whether or not Ubuntu is the most “popular” desktop Linux distro – it is absolutely the most visible, which makes it appropriate for this analogy.)

Let’s delve into this a bit deeper.

Why Canonical is like Toyota

In classic form, the launch of Canonical’s latest and greatest (Ubuntu 10.04) has garnered huge amounts of media attention – some good, some bad.  For purposes of this article, I’m going to focus on the bad.

Why?

Reason #1: when it comes to public perception, bad coverage ALWAYS trumps good coverage.

Reason #2: much of the overtly positive Ubuntu coverage comes from blatant fanboys and/or media personnel who fiddle with a liveCD for 5 minutes before writing a supposedly “comprehensive” review.  Reviews like this simply don’t deserve attention.

Reason #3: I am a disgruntled Ubuntu user, so I personally connect with many of the negative 10.04 reviews.

Early last year (2009) I wrote an article titled “The Only Feature Ubuntu 10.04 Needs“.  It has since become one of this site’s most popular articles, in part because so many people have read it and agreed (at least according to the article comments).  My point in that article is summed up as:

Two significant things need to happen between 9.10 and 10.04 if Ubuntu wants to stay relevant:

1) no new Ubuntu-specific features in 10.04 (new upstream features are fine)

2) make Ubuntu 10.04 a fix-only release

To save you reading the entire article, the basic premise was this:

Ubuntu is an excellent distribution, possibly the best general-purpose distribution of them all.  More than any other distro in recent memory, Ubuntu has the opportunity – and the financial backing – to carve out a real place for the Linux Desktop.

But there is one major, significant barrier standing in its path.  No, I’m not talking about the brown interface (which should improve in the future) – I’m talking about the perception that Linux doesn’t “just work.”

Yes, us lxers we know that it’s remarkably close to “just working.”  We know that if something doesn’t work there are a hundred different sites we can go to for help.  We know that driver issues are rarely Ubuntu’s fault – they’re the fault of lazy hardware vendors.

But everyday users don’t know this, and they arguably don’t care.  For them there are no excuses, only “it all works” or “it doesn’t work.”

And the sad fact of the matter is that it only takes one piece of hardware or one peripheral that DOESN’T work for the average user to throw Linux out the window.

But here’s the thing – it doesn’t have to be this way.

Up to that point, I’d had a pretty good experience with Ubuntu as a general-purpose desktop OS.  I first started using Ubuntu with the 8.04 release and a fair amount of work was required to get everything working.  The 8.10 release fixed many of my problems, and 9.04 was nearly flawless as far as my hardware was concerned (two desktops and a laptop).

When I wrote that article, my biggest concern was that Ubuntu’s reasonably good stability would lead to a change of focus from stability and performance to “features.”

I think it’s fair to say that my concern was justified.  VERY justified.

As I’ve written elsewhere, Ubuntu 9.10 was a disaster.  The given explanation was that a ton a features were crammed into 9.10 so that 10.04 – an LTS (long-term support) release – could focus on stability.

So WTF happened?  Ubuntu 10.04 was one of the most feature-heavy releases in recent memory, and its stability – at least so far – is not good.  Let me linkquote some of the most poignant reviews on the matter:

• Much as it pains me to say this, installing Ubuntu 10.4 on my desktop PC was a nightmare.
• I’m rather taken aback that it took this much work to get this going.
• I was content with 9.10. Why, oh why, did I upgrade?
• I feel that I can no longer support, advocate or promote Ubuntu as a distribution. (Tanner’s note: check out the many roles this guy had in the Ubuntu community.)
• I was really hoping that 10.04, being a LTS (Long Term Support) release, would have focused on supreme reliability and stability.  A sort of “9.10 without the bugs.”  Unfortunately this was not the case.
• While Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is scheduled for release today, development of this “Lucid Lynx” release has not been as optimal as many would have liked.
• “X freezes (GPU lockups) are being experienced on i845, i855 and other 8xx chips.” (Tanner’s note: Intel’s 8xx line comprises the majority of Intel chipsets made between 1999 and 2004 – the kind of chipsets Linux should rock.)
• Restoring my computer after a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.04… What doesn’t work: any gnome setting, evolution accounts (mail, calendar, tasks), telepathy/empathy and theme.
• Ubuntu users [are] having their desktops crashed as soon as they click the NoScript icon. Yes, your whole session gone, back to your logon page in one move!  Actually this may be triggered by different actions, not necessarily with NoScript installed, or reportedly just by having a long/complex enough interaction with Firefox.  It turns out to be a bug in the xorg-server package, which Ubuntu’s maintainers deemed not worth to get fixed before releasing Lucid Lynx.
• My overall feel is that this release was somewhat disappointing. Here’s a summary or reasons why: – Some basic functionality that was working just days ago on the Release Candidate does not today on the same hardware. – There is a bit of an overall “sloppiness” feel to Ubuntu 10.04 so far, which is specially significant given its LTS quality. (Tanner’s note: this is a very well-done review)
• When the system asked for reboot at the end of the sequence of package downloading, installation and removal, I was ready to leave it… However, I met with a hitch when the machine restarted: it couldn’t find the root drive.
• Recent comments from Mark and the way the community is headed has made me wish to part ways with not only using Ubuntu (in my case, Kubuntu) but also testing it.
• Yet again, with Lucid Lynx, Ubuntu has shunned a better technology for no good reason…
• Plenty of people appear to have had a great upgrade experience. Mine was a nightmare.
• I upgraded Ubuntu to 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) last night and had an unpleasant surprise this morning – the fonts were upside down! (This link describes one of the most humorous bugs in recent memory :)

Some readers are inevitably going to accuse me of cherry-picking negative reviews, and that’s not incorrect – as I’ve clearly stated, I am deliberately picking out some of the worst problems with this release.

Thing is, I could have easily sampled another hundred of these.  If I wandered into the Ubuntu forums, I’d have enough bad 10.04 experiences to fill a hundred blog entries like this one.

I’m well aware that many of you will feel compelled to leave a comment stating “Ubuntu 10.04 worked fine for me.”  Good for you.  60+ million Toyota owners had nothing to worry about with the latest recall.  The vast majority of Toyota owners have had a wonderful experience with their vehicle, and the vast majority of Toyota owners are unaffected by stuck gas pedals.

But that simply doesn’t matter.  When it comes to public perception, one very negative experience will always outweigh any number of positive experiences.  Ask Toyota.  Ask Microsoft.  (Vista, anyone?) Ask any company that’s endured a PR disaster.

I’m sure Canonical has plans to gradually work out the kinks in their software, but that is exactly the problem: as an example of a “great” desktop OS, Ubuntu is way off track.

Consider this, as an example: what was the biggest, most publicized feature of the recent 10.04 release?

Remember?

The redone Canonical branding.

Seriously.

Yes, other changes got pulled in – but again, how many of those were merely ways to increase Canonical’s revenue?  (Further UbuntuOne integration and the 7digital music store partnership come to mind.)

How about the infamous 9.10 release?  Key non-upstream features included: a new installer slideshow, the Ubuntu One debut, and the Ubuntu Software Center.

See a pattern?

Let me clarify by saying that self-serving features like these aren’t inherently bad – they’re just so much less important than the basic pillars of stability, security, and performance.  Changing the branding is awesome… assuming a distro boots at all.

Sadly, the future of Ubuntu only gets more and more worrisome.  What’s next on the horizon?  How about Windicators – one of the worst UX ideas in computing history.

Ugh.

At any rate, let me pull this article back on-topic.  Two consecutive weak releases have certainly impacted Canonical/Ubuntu’s public perception, but what of the greater Linux ecosystem?

Again, let me invoke the Toyota analogy.  Toyota’s missteps in safety and reliability certainly harmed Toyota – no doubt there – but as I quoted above, they also sent shockwaves through the entire Japanese auto industry.  When the all-star member of a team displays weakness, the entire team suffers.

So it is with desktop Linux.  Love it or hate it, Canonical has been very successful in positioning Ubuntu as THE desktop Linux distro worth trying.  In 2008, when I again decided to try desktop Linux after several years away, the obvious choice of distro was Ubuntu.  Many, many blogs pointed to it as the best place to experience Linux, and since then Canonical and its throngs of loyal fans have only strengthened that message.

Frankly, I think the users of every other distro should be concerned.  When Canonical positions Ubuntu as the best incarnation of desktop Linux, then proceeds to release multiple problematic versions in a row, it reflects poorly on ALL desktop distros.

Take the following example from John, a new desktop Linux user who left the following comment on my aforementioned 10.04 article:

Couldn’t agree more.  I’m trying to move away from Windows so I thought I’d give the “best”? distro a try.

After downloading and installing (10.04) I get to the boot screen to find something about “gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256″.  As a non computer geek (no offense) I am lost already.  Now I have the problem of getting rid of the untidy boot option screen or at least setting Windows as the default.  Maybe I’ll try again in 6 months.  Maybe….

Another perspective comes from that same comment thread, this time from Les:

Let me give you an outsider’s perspective. I’ve always been Windows user, but I love the concept of Linux and just installed Ubuntu 9.10.

My ipod won’t sync. My network won’t connect. I can’t get printers to work. Installing some programs is ridiculously complicated (tar.gz, then…..what?).

I’ve spent hours on forums, and yes, there are fixes, apparently, but none of them have worked for me so far. And I’m the computer guy all my friends come to, so it’s not an aptitude problem.

I’ve already fallen for Ubuntu, and I will persevere. But when I read that Ubuntu spent the last 6 months moving the window controls from right to left and making Ubuntu more social, I wonder if they will ever reach their goal of replacing Windows.

These are great comments from the kind of people Linux desperately needs – individuals brave enough to try an entirely new OS on their own, and individuals willing to persevere despite bad experiences.

What gravely concerns me is that for every John or Les who perseveres, how many others quit?  How many potential developers, designers, and translators has the FOSS ecosystem lost because people mistakenly think Ubuntu = Linux = FOSS?

Now in preparation for the inevitable onslaught of fanboy hate mail this article will garner, let me state that this same conversation could be had for any other distro.  Perhaps Fedora and OpenSuse and Debian have scared off their own share of potential Linux contributors, and that is also sad.

But because Canonical has positioned Ubuntu as THE desktop Linux experience, their responsibility is necessarily higher.  The more publicity Ubuntu garners, the greater its responsibility to deliver an optimal experience.

Before I end, let me state that despite its relevance, this article deliberately ignores the ongoing debate regarding Canonical’s contributions to Linux, Gnome/KDE/other DEs, and other components of the FOSS world.  This is a hugely complicated topic, and one I’m not particularly qualified to comment on.  For those who have never heard of this problem (or those who have but want to get re-angered ;), here are some excellent resources:

• First is a recent blog post from Keith Curtis. To quote Keith:

In my book I wrote that Debian has been terminally damaged by the split [with Ubuntu]. You could even say that Ubuntu is screwing Debian twice: once by stealing people away from what should be their natural home, and again by making them dissatisfied and causing them to leave this combined community. Mark Shuttleworth could hardly have conceived of a better way to kill Debian than what he came up with.

• Greg Kroah Hartman’s 2008 presentation is arguably the most cited source on this topic.
• Mark Shuttleworth’s ongoing attempts at “release cadence” often factor into the debate.
• A good general overview of the Ubuntu/Debian conflict can be found at Ars Technica.
• Finally, consider the irony of Canonical’s design team using – you guessed it – Macs.  (Makes you wonder how much faith they have in their own OS offering… )  Contrast this with Fedora’s approach.

Though I doubt it will help, I strongly suggest reading Is Linux Religion? before sending me hatemail.  ;)

Also note that all comments are moderated, so don’t waste your time insulting me or other commenters without some sort of factual basis for your insults.

For the last couple years, life has been good.  Every time I’ve shown you to a friend or family member, they’ve compared you to what they’re familiar with – Windows XP or Vista, mostly – and by comparison you’ve looked brilliant.  Yeah, your ugly brown color scheme was a bit off-putting at first, but once people saw how secure, simple, and reliable you were, the response was almost universally positive.

But recently, things have changed.  Your last version – 9.10 – was an unmitigated disaster.  At first I thought I was the only user having issues with it (random freezes and reboots), but guess what?  Tons of people had a horrible experience with you.  My comment box is overflowing with comment after comment after comment about how you made their life difficult with your 9.10 release, and thirty seconds on any major search engine will show loads more comments to this same effect.

Normally all this would be semi-acceptable since you still provide a great alternative to Vista.

….but wait.  That’s not actually relevant.  See, my friends and family aren’t comparing you to Vista any longer – they’re comparing you to Windows 7.

And frankly, Windows 7 is a great operating system.

Out of the box, Windows 7 is very pretty.  It makes your brown ugliness look worse than ever.  I realize that your strange obsession with brown is changing with your next release (thank God), but I have to wonder – is it changing enough?

Ubuntu 10.04 (courtesy of Ars Technica)

Windows 7 (courtesy of http://www.thinkpads.com/tag/windows-7/page/2/)

Windows 7 still makes you look ridiculous.  Sorry, but it’s true.

But you know what – let’s forget about appearances.  After all, I can always spend five or six hours (per computer) meticulously changing you into something beautiful.  It’s not like I don’t have anything better to do with my time.  </sarcasm>

Let’s talk instead about something you’ve ALWAYS excelled at: security.  One of my favorite things to tell new Ubuntu users is that dealing with an intrusive virus scanner is a thing of the past.  Linux distros don’t require virus scanners, and if a person wants to use one “just in case”, ClamAV won’t bother ‘em at all.

People are always amazed by this, especially after dealing with the likes of Norton or McAfee or AVG.  Even the good free scanners (Avast, for example) can be surprisingly pesky.

But you know what, Ubuntu?  This isn’t as true as it used to be.  Yes, you remain pleasantly secure, but guess what – Windows 7 is quite a bit better in this regard.  Microsoft even provides their own security solution – and it’s surprisingly good.  It integrates very nicely with Windows 7 and is less resource-intensive than many of its competitors.  I barely notice it’s there.

Then there are the other steps Microsoft is taking to improve its overall security model.  They’re doing good work, Ubuntu – and they deserve credit for it.  Yes, you and other Linux distros may still have the edge in total system security, but to a casual user Windows 7 does a bang-up job in this regard.

But wait, you say – there’s still the issue of stability.  Haven’t you always excelled when it comes to stability, especially when compared to Windows?

As I’ve mentioned, I’m not sure you provide a better alternative at this point.  In my experience, Windows 7 is remarkably solid.  You, my friend, have not been.  I sincerely hope 10.04 is more stable than 9.10 – and I imagine it will be – but you know what?  The bar’s been raised.  We can continue to mock Vista for the unstable mess that it was, but when it comes to Windows 7, the average user isn’t complaining about stability.  Even corporations are convinced that it’s time to upgrade from XP. This is a good thing, Ubuntu.

True, it would be better if these corporations were upgrading to you, but frankly – I’m not sure you’re ready for widespread commercial use.  Those 9.10 stability problems still linger in my mind…

Then there are the other things Windows 7 has improved.  Windows Media Player is no longer an abomination.  It’s actually kind of nice.  Rhythmbox, on the other hand, has a long way to go before it can truly compete with the all-in-one solutions offered by software like WMP or iTunes.  IE9 looks like it could actually be a competitive browser.  I still love my Firefox, but I grow increasingly frustrated with how poorly the Linux version of Firefox compares to the Windows version.  Then there’s the frustration of being forced to wait for a distro upgrade in order to use the latest version of Firefox.  Yes, I know I can manually configure obscure repositories – and I always do this – but it’s hard to convince my friends and family that it’s worth the extra effort.  “But in Windows, Firefox just does the update for me!”

They’re not wrong.

I’m sorry this letter has turned into a rant, Ubuntu.  I didn’t intend for it to turn out like this.

But frankly, I’m concerned.

There’s one more thing I need to bring up, Ubuntu.  Something I’ve discussed in the past.

It’s called “diplomacy.”  And frankly, you suck at it.

Six months ago I wrote about three key relationships you needed to mend if you want to be successful.  I still think those relationships are in dire need of improvement, but I realize now that I left the most important group off that list.

Your developers.

Many individuals have discussed – at length – the meltdown between various members of the Ubuntu community due to your “interesting” placement of 10.04′s window buttons.  So many discussions have taken place on this that there’s no way in hell I’m going to open that can of worms again.

But what I will say is this: you need to seriously reevaluate the message you send to the free workforce that makes Ubuntu possible.

Let me quote Fewt on the matter:

As you know the change of the title bar buttons from right to left coming in Lucid 10.04 has caused quite a stir across the internets, and has taken focus in a single bug report.  Ultimately it really is trivial to change them back to the right side; a simple gconf oneliner will move them, but there is a greater issue here.

That issue is .. community.  Thousands of users across the internet are voting overwhelmingly against this change, but unfortunately it seems that it like all other Ubuntu bugs have fallen on deaf ears.  Users reporting that they do not want the change are being told that they aren’t going to get a choice or a vote in the decision, and if they don’t like it they can fix it themselves, or they can find another distribution.

What’s worse though is that Ubuntu’s #1 is personally posting in bug threads with an utterly atrocious level of condescending attitude; degrading the very users that this product is supposed to capture.  Users that care about Linux.  Questions have been asked over and over, and evidence has been provided that it is such a bad idea and rather than listening to the people that have supported Ubuntu over the years, we receive statements like “we are not voting on design decisions” and “you don’t get to second-guess their decisions”.

Ubuntu is supposed to be a meritocracy where an elite group of people make decisions based on technical ability.  Where is this technical ability that they speak of though?  How this process seems to really work is that Mark says “make it so” and his drones say “yes master”.  That’s not a meritocracy, not at all.

The end result (like many of their other internally created components ie – Computer Janitor) is a half baked implementation of a theme that looks worse than the theme it is replacing.

I choose to vote with my feet, and maybe I’ll even host a burn your Ubuntu merchandise day since I have quite a bit of it myself.  None of it will ever see the light of day again anyway.  My talent and knowledge is far more valuable elsewhere contributing to projects that actually improve the open source community.

The comments on that thread are also interesting.  Again, I’m not going to debate who is/isn’t right in this case (though it’s hard to argue with Fewt’s POV), but let me say that the damage this issue has done to Ubuntu’s reputation among developers is extensive.  QUITE extensive.

Because if there’s anything a developer hates, it’s having their input ignored without offering a legitimate counterargument.  If a FOSS developer wanted to be treated like that, they’d go work for one of your far-more-successful competitors and make a lot more money for their efforts.

Ubuntu may not be a democracy.  That’s fine.  But when free labor is involved, the free laborers must be given some element of control – otherwise, they are absolutely justified in investing their time and energy elsewhere.

I still have hope for you, Ubuntu.  I like the against-all-odds spirit you espouse.  I believe consumers everywhere could benefit from a strong third-party OS offering, and I still think you are capable of merging your corporate and FOSS interests into a cohesive whole.

But I have concerns, Ubuntu.  I have concerns with your design, your stability, your community, your leadership, and your roadmap for the future.  10.04 looks to have some interesting changes – but are they enough to make you a viable alternative to Windows 7?

Ask me in a month, I guess.

Sincerely,

-Tanner

(Author’s Note: Let me clearly state that I love FOSS and I love Linux.  However, I’m starting to have serious doubts about whether or not Ubuntu is a good representative for Linux and FOSS as a whole.  To anyone who visits – I’m currently looking for a great KDE distro NOT based off Ubuntu.  Any suggestions based on personal experience?)

I believe it is.  The first statement in the Ubuntu Philosophy reads:

Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees.

The “Contribute to Ubuntu” article on the Ubuntu wiki takes this a step further:

Ubuntu is most of all a community. All of the software, artwork and documentation in Ubuntu has been created, tested, used and discussed openly by people around the world participating in the Open Source community made possible by the Internet. Anyone who uses Ubuntu is part of this global community, and we invite you to help shape Ubuntu to better meet your needs. To make it yours!

Anyone can help shape and improve Ubuntu…

While I am a programmer, I have yet to try my hand at contributing code/coding to the Ubuntu project.  It seems to me that while open source can always benefit from more developers, the free software ecosystem is already chock-full of quality software written by some of the best coders in the world.

Free and open source software is not held back by a lack of coding prowess.  If anything, many pieces of proprietary software have a long way to go before they can compete with the technical accomplishments of their open source counterparts.

What I think most FOSS projects lack are things far more difficult to fix than rooms full of talented coders.  Many FOSS projects lack strong leadership.  They lack vision.  They lack designers.  They lack pragmatists.  They lack true communities.

These aspects – while more nebulous than raw coding talent – are what truly prevent free and open source software from directly competing with proprietary software.  If I examine the most successful FOSS projects (Apache, Firefox, WordPress, Wikipedia, MySQL), I see a collection of projects that may not be the most technically advanced, but that represent an excellent mix of design, leadership, vision, pragmatism, and community.

Which – not coincidentally – are the same reasons I use, advocate, promote, and attempt to improve Ubuntu.

Leadership

Mark Shuttleworth is a complex man with many fans and at least several less-than-fans (frenemies?).  But love or hate the man, it is difficult to argue with his leadership techniques.  In five short years he has turned Ubuntu from a pipe dream into the most popular desktop Linux distro on the planet (a distro even Penguin Pete is willing to try).  As a server, Ubuntu has attracted clients as large as Wikipedia – the 6th most-visited site on the internet.

A project as ambitious as building an entire OS cannot succeed without strong leadership (think Steve Jobs), and no other desktop Linux has a man like Shuttleworth at the helm.

Vision and Design

Vision is a difficult thing to quantify.  For one, I believe vision is about more than just “wanting to make the awesomest thing ever.”  Almost every FOSS project has that goal.  (Otherwise, why would they exist at all?)  But vision isn’t just about having a goal – it’s about having a firm framework in place to make such a goal possible/probable.

In 2008, Shuttleworth stated a two-year goal for desktop Linux surpassing Apple in usability.  To quote from the linked article:

“The great task in front of us over the next two years is to lift the experience of the Linux desktop from something that is stable and robust and not so pretty, into something that is art,” Shuttleworth said to applause from the audience. “Can we not only emulate, but can we blow right past Apple?”

However, he made no mention of whether Apple intends to simply sit idly by while desktop Linux catches up to and surpasses the user experience that Apple has become so well-known for.

“I see this [need] for free software—beautiful, elegant software. We have to invest in making this desktop beautiful and useful,” Shuttleworth said of Linux.

If you’ve read any of my other articles, you’ll know I have many concerns about Ubuntu’s current user experience.  But things like the 100 papercuts project and this commentary from Ivanka Majic, the leader of Canonical’s design team, give me hope:

Serdar Yegulalp (of InformationWeek): UIs in open source apps, Linux especially, are a common source of complaints from the uninitiated. What can be done about that?

Ivanka: “I don’t think there’s a silver bullet. Being able to spend the last 7 months working with our own in-house developers, getting the language right (if I change an icon, is that a “bugfix”?), feeding into the process at the right time, figuring out the release schedules, all those things. Right now, there’s not much to see — there’s a kind of shallow level of change from a visual perspective, but that’s because we’re just getting started. Nobody can do everything in six months but we can make it a little better. I think a brand-new design team can’t possibly have gone ‘ta-da!’ and handed you a brand new super shiny Ubuntu. But I think Ubuntu does get better with every release. Karmic has a kind of smoothness to it that Jaunty didn’t have. You can already tell the difference. And I’ve got massive hopes for Lucid…”

Other (read: almost all) Linux distros have prettier default themes than Ubuntu, but user experience is about more than just looks.  If 2010 passes and Ubuntu remains ugly and partially usable perhaps I’ll reevaluate my loyalty – but until then, I’m excited to see what Shuttleworth’s hand-picked team provides.

(And for those unhappy with Ubuntu’s usability: are you aware of any other distro that employs a corporate-funded design team of fourteen people from different disciplines (visual/graphics designers, interaction designers, and more)…?)

Pragmatism

The free software world is chock full of idealism.  What most large-scale FOSS projects lack is not idealism, but a solid dose of pragmatism.

Pragmatism: character or conduct that emphasizes practicality.

Take Fedora, for example.  I think Fedora is a fine distro, especially for users who want a cutting-edge desktop Linux experience.  But have you ever seen Fedora’s forbidden item list?  This is a list full of ideology, not practicality.  Fedora will never become THE desktop Linux distro because proprietary drivers, like them or not, are an unavoidable necessity for at least 5+ more years (maybe longer for certain hardware vendors).  OGV is a great format, but recommending it instead of DVDs is not practical for anyone.

Please do not mistake my commentary as a slam against ideological individuals or distros.  I think the free and open source world benefits greatly from its strong ideological background, and I hope it never loses support from ideological purists.  But in order to compete with Windows and OSX, any potential mainstream Linux desktop must sacrifice certain ideologies for the sake of practicality.  If it doesn’t, it will be forever doomed to obscure usage among tech-savvy individuals only (which may be what many ideologists want, but that’s another matter entirely).

Ubuntu does an admirable job of walking the fine line between ideology and pragmatism.  It ships only a handful of questionable packages by default, and for heavily-used but patent-encumbered software (mp3, DVDs, etc.) it provides easy installation with full disclosure of the risks involved.  I have mixed feelings about Mono and Moonlight, but if they can someday get me Netflix Instant Watch on Linux I’m all for supporting them.

Ubuntu has also extended its hand to commercial developers via the forthcoming Software Center.  This could be the best thing desktop Linux has done to attract developers. I have no idea how well the Software Center will perform in this regard, but its creation is absolutely an excellent usability move with a great deal of potential.

What other desktop Linux distros actively strive to engage commercial developers?

Community

I’ve discussed the Ubuntu community at length elsewhere, but it’s worth mentioning again.  I am not aware of another desktop Linux community that offers a breadth of information comparable to Ubuntu’s.  Extensive documentation, a huge wiki, paid support options, lively forums, IRC, mailing lists, LoCo teams, books, fan sites galore…

Need I go on?

Ubuntu has rallied an impressive combination of professionals, developers, and casual users to its cause.  With so much at stake, I worry that if the Ubuntu project can’t provide a viable competitor to Windows and OSX, will any other desktop Linux ever have a chance?

Conclusions

I am deeply concerned with the stagnation that has consumed proprietary desktop OSes over the last ten years.  Hardware power has grown in leaps and bounds, but how well have mainstream operating systems evolved to utilize such power?  Viruses and overall security remain a rampant problem, general OS usability is no better than it was 10 years ago, and even the visual presentation of OSes has made only minimal progress toward something truly artistic and not just “functional.”

I believe that a competitive desktop Linux distro could change this.  If all software developers wrote and designed software for OSes they could actively contribute to, we could see massive improvements across all forms of software in a remarkably short period of time.  If all hardware drivers and software formats were standardized and open sourced, how much more time could be spent improving hardware and software instead of just getting it to work at all?  If consumers weren’t forced to pay hundreds of dollars for an OS that was mediocre at best, they could instead spend those hundreds of dollars on software – potentially leading to more jobs for software developers, not less.

Look at the improvements that have come about because of a simple standardization like USB.  Love or hate the spec itself, does anyone really want to go back to the days of competing serial/parallel/PS2/SCSI/etc. interfaces?  Would the internet be what it is without open standards and open source software?

A functional, reliable, usability-focused desktop Linux distro has the potential to redefine desktop computing (which – despite the hype behind cloud computing – will still be around for many years, particularly in developing nations).  Proprietary OSes have had 20 years to give us a better desktop experience, and have they succeeded?

Ha.

I use Ubuntu because it provides me a better desktop experience than Windows.  I promote Ubuntu because I know it can provide others with a better desktop experience.  I advocate Ubuntu not just because free and open source software can save people money, but because FOSS represents an excellent long-term investment in improving the human condition via technology.  I attempt to improve Ubuntu because without honest criticism, it cannot meet any of its stated goals.

I apologize if this post comes across as melodramatic or hammy.  I don’t mean for it to be anything but sincere.

Ubuntu is an excellent distro and I will continue to praise it when it excels.  Conversely, I (and many others) will criticize it when it falls short.  (For the record, I much prefer the former.)

And to any developers that I have implicitly insulted via my critiques: I apologize.  I mean no disrespect.  Your work is absolutely appreciated.

But please – take my criticism for what it’s worth, and use it to improve your project.  If I unfairly characterize something, please correct me.

Because at the end of the day we’re all working toward the same goal: a better desktop computing experience.  I’ll do it my way.  You’ll do it your way.  And hopefully, the end product will represent the combined best of all our efforts.

I’ll spare you the gory details, but I obviously decided against that career path.  Today I am employed as a scientist by day and writer by night (with the occasional dabble in music composition and/or programming).

I’m glad I made the choice I did.

Many things deterred me from pursuing IP law, not least of which is the fact that current IP laws are a bane upon consumers.  From DRM to software patents to P2P throttling, the digital world is consistently held back by ignorant, consumer-unfriendly corporation-sponsored lawmaking.  Nowhere is this more apparent than with the joke called DRM – one of the silliest inventions of the modern era.

As a strong supporter of the EFF and a believer that the DMCA is severely flawed, it’s a bit of a shame that it took me so long to make tannerhelland.com copyleft friendly…but better late then never, right?

You’ll notice two main changes to the site as of this week.

1) All tannerhelland.com music is now available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. In layman’s terms, this means that anyone can remix, tweak, and build upon these songs – even for commercial reasons – as long as they credit me and license their creations under identical terms.

So please – download the complete tannerhelland.com music collection and share it with everyone you know!

2) All source code available on tannerhelland.com is now available under a BSD License.  I settled on the BSD license after a fair amount of research, and I strongly feel it is the best fit for the style and type of code I provide.  A BSD License allows unlimited redistribution of code for any purpose, provided all copyright notices and disclaimers of warranty are maintained.  Also, my name may not be used for endorsement of a derived work without specific permission.

Importantly, the BSD license also allows my code to be incorporated into proprietary commercial products – including closed-source products.  This clause is important to me.  While I admire the GPL/LGPL and similar licenses – and feel they play a very important role in the software ecosystem – I also understand that many programmers make a living writing closed-source software.  I want all the code on this site to be freely usable by anyone, including those who write closed-source software for a living.  My code and tutorials are meant to be educational and informative, and I hope they help as many programmers as possible to solve otherwise difficult problems.

As always, if you would like to use any site content (music, source code, or others) under a license other than what is explicitly stated on the content’s page, please contact me.

In the meantime, I would strongly recommend learning more about the EFF and the service(s) they provide.  Also, Creative Commons has an excellent site with boatloads of information on sharing your work without sacrificing ownership or copyrights.

This is true even if you don’t use any of the above services.  If you use the internet at all, you most likely see ads served by Google.  What you may not know is that Google posts only 1.2% of display ads on the internet – even Microsoft does better (4.3%), and Yahoo comes in first at 13%. (source)

Still, 1.2% of the online display ad market is nothing to scoff at, and Google easily takes the cake with search-related advertising in the U.S.  In March 2009, Google commanded 63.7% of U.S. search queries.  Other parts of the world aren’t quite as Google friendly (Yahoo maintains a solid lead in Japan, for example (source)), and that is why I believe it is important to discuss certain Google practices now…

…before it may be too late.  (And no, I’m not just being melodramatic.  Read on!)

Google Worry #1: “Interest-Based Advertising”

Traditionally, Google has served its ads using a contextual model – meaning that if you visit a website about cars, you will see car ads.  If you visit a blog about cooking, you will see food and kitchenware ads.

The advantage of the contextual model – to a consumer – is that no privacy is relinquished.  Google analyzes site content to determine what ads to show, and regardless of whether you are a man, a woman, old or young you will see the same ads.

Unfortunately, Google no longer uses only a contextual model.  As of March 2009, they have moved to what they call “interest-based advertising.”  This type of advertising is better referred to as “behavioral targeting,” because it works by tracking what sites you visit and changing ad content to match you – not the site on which the ads are found.

The official Google blog describes interest-based advertising like this:

“Today we are launching “interest-based” advertising as a beta test on our partner sites and on YouTube. These ads will associate categories of interest — say sports, gardening, cars, pets — with your browser, based on the types of sites you visit and the pages you view. We may then use those interest categories to show you more relevant text and display ads.” (source)

Behavioral targeting works by accessing cookies on your computer every time you visit a site that serves Google ads.  The cookie will remember what type of content you are viewing, and over time it will allow Google to build a comprehensive profile of what you are interested in.  If you start every day with a glance at nba.com, Google will remember that and show you sports-related ads regardless of what sites you visit.  If you receive an email in your Gmail account about a death in the family, Google can serve you funeral-related ads across every site you visit.

Worrisome, no?

Google attempts to allay public fears by reminding people that they can opt-out of this service – but unless you specifically go to their Ads Preferences Manager and select to opt-out – from every browser on every OS on every computer that you own – Google is going to assume you want in on this new feature.  (source)

Out of fairness, I need to note that Google is not the first company to use behavioral targeting – but it may be the most worrisome in this regard, given its extremely wide reach and past ambivalence toward privacy (see here, for example).

Google Worry #2: Android

If you haven’t heard of Android yet, it deserves a moment of your attention.  The full Wikipedia entry is available here.

As that article states, “Android is a software platform and operating system for mobile devices, based on the Linux kernel, developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance.”  That’s fine, but what is Android really about? Google’s CEO shines some light on this with his quote from the official Android press release:

“Our vision is that the powerful platform we’re unveiling will power thousands of different phone models.”

Google’s goal is to create an operating system that is largely device-independent – meaning it can power many different phones, and most likely computers as well.  In fact, proof-of-concept has already been demonstrated with Android netbooks.  Google wants to create an OS that is capable of running almost any electronic equipment.

So what’s wrong with this?  A number of things – potentially.

• Android is not completely open source.  Parts of the SDK are closed source, which allows Google to directly control the project.  This is expounded upon in the Android SDK License Agreement, which reads:
  

  “You agree that Google (or Google’s licensors) own all legal right, title and interest in and to the SDK, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in the SDK. Use, reproduction and distribution of components of the SDK licensed under an open source software license are governed solely by the terms of that open source software license and not by this License Agreement. Until the SDK is released under an open source license, you may not extract the source code or create a derivative work of the SDK.”

  As this implies, Google doesn’t seem overly interested in using Android to give back to the open source world upon which Android is built.

• But Android’s potentially parasitic relationship to open source doesn’t stop there.  While Android is based upon Linux, it is NOT a Linux OS.  Android operates via a simple framebuffer driver – meaning no X Server.  Taken a step further, this means that existing Linux apps cannot easily be used on Android, and Android apps cannot easily be used on Linux.  This means that all software developed for Android will not benefit users and developers of current Linux distributions.  This makes sense, as Google understandably wants to control distribution of all Android-based software (so as to make money off it).
• But it’s not only Linux that Android snubs.  Android also doesn’t use any of the established java standards, despite implementing their own “version” of the java language.  This means that existing java apps (including Java SE/ME) will not work on Android, and Android apps won’t work on other phones.  Again – a move by Google to create vendor lock-in.

Could Android be to current-gen operating systems what Microsoft Windows was to the operating systems of 15 years ago – a clear attempt to destroy open standards, free-market competition, and ultimately consumer choice…?

Google Worry #3: Chrome

Chrome’s obsession with javascript speed is no random coincidence – Chrome is designed with the sole purpose of supporting online Google services (particularly Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Docs).  I suppose this isn’t inherently bad, but one has to wonder – why didn’t Google support an existing open source project like Firefox?  Firefox is well-established, reliable, and it already has an enormous user base.  If Google was truly interested in just “improving the online experience for everyone,” it would have cost them far less time and energy to work with Mozilla to improve the Firefox javascript engine.

But instead, Google went a more worrisome route – they have given the appearance of supporting open source, only to create a product that offers nothing to consumers and everything to Google.  Chrome, to me, seems to be another example of Google shunning existing open source solutions in favor of a custom Google-centric approach, and its sudden, random appearance seems to point to a Google-controlled internet comprised of their web services, Android, and the gateway between the two: the Chrome browser.

There are also some indications that Google may have illegally disassembled Vista’s kernel32.dll file as part of Chrome’s creation – but that discussion is beyond the scope of this document here.  Ars Technica provides a good write-up if you are interested.

Google Worry #4: Google Desktop

Continuing the trend of Google programs that appear to offer a benefit to consumers but may really be all about increasing Google’s reach, Google Desktop is a potential privacy nightmare.

First there is the clear risk of vulnerabilities exposed by a program that ties itself so deeply into your OS.  A detailed write-up of some of these concerns can be found here.

Second, the ability of Google Desktop to share index information across servers is not only largely unnecessary – but enormously dangerous.  To quote the Wikipedia entry on the subject:

If Google Desktop V.3 is set to allow Search Across Computers, files on an indexed computer are copied to Google’s servers. The potential for information stored on their computers to be accessed by others if they enable this feature of Google Desktop v. 3 on their computers should be seriously considered. The EFF advises against using this feature.  Also, those who have confidential data on their work or home computers should not enable this feature. There are privacy laws and company policies that could be violated through the installation of this feature, specifically, SB 1386, HIPAA, FERPA, GLBA and Sarbanes-Oxley.

I’d be curious to know how many other “free” programs offer to violate that many major laws and policies via one feature.  Certainly the supposed benefits of Google Desktop do not outweigh the potential risks.

Google Worry #5: Miscellaneous web services, including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps, and others

Rather than going into great detail here, I’ll refer you to the Wikipedia entry for Google criticisms.  Additional criticism pages are available for individual services, including Gmail, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Groups, and Google Video.

A Google-Driven World…?

You may think that all these worries are just nitpicking on my part, and you could be right – after all, no one of these programs is ubiquitous enough to destroy the world.

But I have to wonder about Google’s long-term plans.

The combination of services to come out of Google over the last 5 years is fascinating.  An OS, a web browser, a web-based office suite, an email service, the purchase of YouTube.  Add all these up and what do you get?

You get a world where Google could potentially watch and/or control every aspect of a person’s computer usage.  Imagine what kind of profile they could compile if they watched your hard drive, your email, your documents, your online search habits, your video habits, where you travel, even what you buy.  Google could effectively know everything about you.

That day isn’t far off.  Android’s move to netbooks will almost certainly happen within the next two years.  Google’s online offerings have recently become even more powerful/intrusive with the addition of gears.  YouTube is pushing to become a viable competitor (read: replacement) for Hulu.

I will easily wager that within the next two years, consumers will see a PC that runs completely off Google services – and the popular press will probably anoint this Google PC as the best thing since sliced bread.  But is a Google-driven world really in the best interest of consumers?  I don’t purport to know – but I think it’s certainly worth considering.

In the meantime, what can we, as educated consumers, do?

1. Remove embedded Google code from your site/blog.  Unless you are paying bills with AdSense, forget about that $10 a year and go with another ad provider.  Drop Google Analytics (since you probably don’t know what 90% of those metrics mean anyway).  Unless you can’t afford to live without embedded Google code, do your site visitors a favor and drop it – this will speed up your site and also reduce any potential privacy concerns.
2. Leave Blogger.  I appreciate Blogger for the ease of blogging it offers, but there are much better solutions out there.  WordPress, for one.
3. Try other search engines.  You might be surprised by what you find.  Based on my experience, Yahoo offers much better cached versions of pages than Google.  MSN offers better results for image searches (source).
4. Avoid Android.  Android doesn’t offer anything special at this point.  Yes, there are some cool features, but by and large there are other much better options.  I am no Apple fan, but the iPhone is a reasonable replacement for the G1.  The Palm Pre is already looking excellent.  Do your homework and use a cell phone with a less questionable relationship between privacy and advertising revenue.
5. Uninstall Google Desktop and Chrome.  Neither of these pieces of software offer anything you can’t live without.  If you really want a desktop search tool, try one of these.  If you liked Chrome’s speed, download the latest Firefox beta.  You’ll find that its performance is neck-in-neck with Chrome.
6. Opt out of Google’s new interest-based advertising program, and encourage others to consider the same.
7. Consider supporting a truly open source project.  Ubuntu, OpenOffice.org, and GIMP are some of my personal favorites.

My worry is that if people continue to blindly use every service and program Google offers, they run the risk of creating another Microsoft-sized monster.

Only this one could be so, so much worse, because it could dominate OSes, apps, and the web.

Is this just paranoia?  Are these worries legitimate?  As always, feel free to let me know.