The completely new theme for Ubuntu 8.04 has been deferred to the following release. The original plan was to have a fresh theme for every long-term-support release, starting with Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. Now it has been decided to put off the redesign until Ubuntu 8.10. Many theme concepts can be found in the Ubuntu Artwork wiki.
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Member since:2006-12-05
Easy. Marketing.
Canonical is a for-profit company... so obviously they're going to add at least some of what you may think is "unnecessary polish" even to a version of their distro that is supposed to be as bug-free as possible (ie. LTS). Anything to make it look even more fresh and flashy to grab more users. As a company.. you really can't blame them.
Then again, maybe they really do feel that these new features *are* stable enough? Who knows. At least (so far, and hopefully it stays that way) they're not taking this stuff to the low, low levels that Microsoft does.
Edited 2008-02-07 07:25 UTC
Member since:2006-01-09
What's funny is that they have no problems dismissing KDE 4 for a Kubuntu LTS release saying that it is too new and possibly unstable for such a thing but they can and will add these technologies that are currently under heavy development into Ubuntu... Different strokes for different folks, indeed!
Member since:2005-10-23
It would be interesting to note that "waiting for maturity" was one of several factors in delaying the introduction of PulseAudio in Ubuntu. PA, as implemented in Ubuntu 8.04, is not a wholescale replacement of any sort - more like maintaining compatibility with ESounD for LTS migrations. For instance, there are no plans to use its alsa-lib plugin by default for all users, and the Ubuntu developers and maintainers are still working on integrating PA's per-stream volume utilities into the desktop.
Member since:2006-06-03
I totally second that. I find it very strange that something as simple to change as a THEME needs to be delayed when they are going forward with DRASTIC new technological features such as PolicyKit and PulseAudio... I mean these things haven't been tested at all on a large scale, how can they be ready for an LTS!?
I don't mind delaying the theme, but then I would delay the LTS release as well... I think 8.04 should be a normal release, in order to fully test drive the new technologies and architectural changes, as well as apply all the bug fixes, before releasing an LTS.
I'm truly intrigued by these strange decisions. A new theme should be no big deal at all... no?
Member since:
2005-07-07
You know what? That's what I say about this entire release. Why are PulseAudio and Policy Kit being introduced with an LTS release? Things like this should be introduced the first or second release after LTS so they're more mature by the time LTS rolls around. These supposed long term releases should be almost like an MS service pack. Give me tons of bug fixes, tighter integration and interface tweaks, and minor feature enhancements to existing technologies.