Shuttleworth: Desktop Linux can be better than the Mac

Mark Shuttleworth addresses a range of interesting things in a recent interview, but there are two, in particular, that strike me. First, Mark acknowledges the obvious: The Mac is a superior usability experience. Second, however, while placating his upstream developer communities, he also notes that improving on their work is going to be critical to beating the Mac:

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has historically been very, very deferential to what we call our upstream communities - GNOME, KDE, and so on - in the definition of the desktop experience. Our view, very strongly, is that they hold the real expertise in defining that. And that, as a distribution, our primary job is to be a very efficient conductor of their good work into the hands of users....

Because we've increasingly been engaged in the definition of the desktop experience for some of these consumer electronics products, however, we're now in a position to actually start engaging with those upstreams and investing in that desktop experience....

And so we started to build out a team that will focus on the specific user experiences..., and our goal, very simply, is to make sure the Free software ecosystem can deliver a Mac OS-like experience, or an experience that will compete with the Mac OS. We see Apple as the gold standard of the user experience. We believe that, while it can be a challenge, the innovation inherent in the Free software process can deliver an experience that is comparable and in many ways superior.

Mark is a wonderful diplomat, but I'm glad to see that he also recognizes the deficiencies of his upstream communities, even if he would never articulate it like that. Put baldly: The upstream developer communities that he references are developer communities, often without the expertise or interest in developing an average user-focused experience.

To beat the Mac for usability, the emphasis can't be on developers. It has to be on users. Too often open-source developers forget the user. I'm glad that Mark has not.

[dehall622]

the biggest difference in user experience in my opinion is the hardware support.... linux is missing drivers for certain hardware; this is impossible with mac since the hardware is probably hand-picked by jobs himself

[Vegaman_Dan]

OS X does an excellent job of insulating end users from the back end of the OS by limiting what they see and can do. Sure, they can go into a console and do everything there, but I would wager most OS X users don't even know what is under the GUI and they don't need to.

*nix is great for developers and geeks. That's where it has its following. For people who don't care about the tech geek side of it, OS X does the job. Different products for different people. There really is no need to compare them.

[The_Decider]

Too bad you don't know that Linux is as easy to install and administer and can look as pretty as OSX. I realize that clicking 4 or 5 buttons is challenging for you but install openSUSE 11.0 and see for yourself.

[kiwibuntu]

Mark Shuttleworth is bang on here. The linux experience will only be great, as opposed to adequate, if there is the honesty to recognise what needs fixing. As long as open source communities can manage that, they will probably be unstoppable in the long run. And OS X is not a solution for everyone who doesn't want to use Windows. Only open source software and commodity hardware can provide genuinely cheap computing to the masses.

[The_Decider]

Ubuntu, while miles ahead of Windows is a garbage distro that exists as hype only. There are distros that can give OSX a run for their money in any category you want to choose.

[dneary]

Hi Matt,

The GNOME community (at the heart of the Ubuntu user experience) has been focussed on the user experience and our vision of universal access for many years. That vision has been guided by a motto - "we are not our users" - and the guiding principle that we want to make our technology available to everyone - through beautiful, usable, integrated, accessible, localised applications.

Your prejudice that "upstream communities are developer communities", and thus cannot be user-oriented, is really quite insulting to a community which has embraced companies engaging the community, and community members with a wide range of skills, including many usability experts.

Dave Neary.

[Matt Asay]

I didn't mean to be insulting, Dave. Having used GNOME off and on for nearly five years, however, I can't say that I'm impressed with the result. I wish I could say otherwise.

[Leslie Satenstein]

Re Desktop Linux and the alternatives. At work I use XP, and at home I use Linux. From a user interface, I find Gnome under Linux to be superior to XP with the single desktop view.
On the otherhand, for the very large set of functionalities, the winner is XP.

That said, I am certain that Linux (and the Mac) are eroding the market that Microsoft owned. One reason is that Vista arrived too early on the scene, when the anticipated hardware hardware upgrades lag Vistas resource demands. People want to keep pcs for the same duration as they want to keep their cars.

Now, where Linux is taking off is in governments, non-USA countries, and in technical areas where Microsoft costs are dibilitating (small PDA's, cell phones and the like).

Open source will also force Microsoft to react with downward setting of prices, or else further provide the implementation advantage to Linux.

Leslie Satenstein

[batitombo]

Hmm, there some things that linux can't deliver yet!! Audio software, good midi, and the Number of visual editing apps... So.... Mac OSX it will be quite difficult to "beat". Apart from developments in business is another challenge

[jharrop2]

Nobody has mentioned the impact Compiz [1] might have on the user experience?

Obviously, it is just one aspect of an overall user experience, and as aspect that Apple could presumably adopt if they envied it, but still ...

[1] http://compiz.org/Home/Screenshots