Verily I say unto thee, that Mark Kent spake thusly:
> Ubuntu is clearly cracking the desktop problem, as it is sufficiently
> easy to use that it's being adopted in huge numbers. I'm still not
> entirely sure what it is the Ubuntu guys have done, and it might even be
> mainly down to good marketing
This is the key, IMHO.
Frankly, I really don't believe Ubuntu is any better or worse than any
of the other main distros, but Shuttleworth has turned what was
originally just a good implementation into a marketable product, then
followed through with a brilliant strategy.
Personally I don't give a hoot about marketability, since I'm more than
capable of discerning a worthwhile product on my own, without the "able"
assistance of marketing drones, but apparently not everyone has that
"skill", so initiatives like Shuttleworth's are necessary. In this case
it seems to have had the desired effect.
AFAICT, in the case of Ubuntu, it seems to boils down to the synergy of
the logo, the motto, the strong Debian foundation, a well designed
infrastructure (Website, repos, maintainers), and a peer support
community that formed quickly and extensively. Who really knows the
magic spell that kicks these things off? It was, as they say, an idea
whose time had come.
> I also think that MythTV has the potential to become a massive success
> for someone, it's just waiting for the right investors and the right
> drivers to push it forward.
Or better, LinuxMCE, which is to MythTV what Ubuntu is to Debian.
We've discussed before, the vast potential there is for Linux based
Media Centre boxes being sold side-by-side with those inexpensive,
multi-region DVD players, etc., in the likes of Tesco. IMHO *there* is
also an idea whose time has come.
Got a spare hundred grand for a start-up company?
--
K.
http://slated.org
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| "Computer games don’t affect kids, I mean if Pac man affected us as
| kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills
| and listening to repetitive music." - Kristian Wilson, Nintendo
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Fedora release 7 (Moonshine) on sky, running kernel 2.6.21-1.3194.fc7
17:30:29 up 1 day, 16:24, 2 users, load average: 0.40, 0.39, 0.36
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