Remember how Mark Shuttleworth justified moving the window titlebar widgets to the left by claiming the space freed up on the right side could now be used for something else? On his blog, Shuttleworth unveiled what, exactly, Ubuntu's plans are: window indicators, or 'windicators'. In a nutshell, it comes down to having a tray area in every window.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-06
Sadly, I have to agree - with the subject title, but not necessarily the solution.
What he seems to have done is got himself fixated on Mac OS X as the holy grail for a desktop environment, hence the moving of window controls from the right to the left. It can only be a philosophical reason to do that. More space on the right? Give me a break. There was space on the left to put these daft controls in anyway Mark, you dimwit.
However, Shuttleworth can't just outright clone Mac OS X so he has to find himself himself some daft and pointless differences, like these 'windicators', so the cloning won't be obvious.
Frankly, it wouldn't matter if he started using Qt or anything else as a toolkit or starting doing more cross-platform development. This mindset he has got himself into is now firmly deep rooted, and I can only see him digging an ever deeper hole for himself and Ubuntu. Quite how all this deckchair rearranging will allow Canonical to make money out of the endeavour is another matter entirely.
Edited 2010-05-04 17:35 UTC
Member since:2009-08-26
I'm saying he should quit screwing with the interface and focus on improving the software library.
Not that I actually expect him to do anything of the sort. This is the guy that thought that covering Gnome in brown was the way to compete with Windows and OSX. Who the hell knows what he will do next.
Member since:
2009-08-26
What he needs to do is embrace Qt and build a system around cross-platform development.