Yesterday, Ubuntu tore a page from The Book of Dell and launched Brainstorm, an opportunity for its users to contribute their ideas for software development and marketing. To my own surprise, I signed up for an account. It’s not that I don’t enjoy giving my opinion. Tirades and diatribes are my raison d’être. If you didn’t know that, it must be your first time here. Welcome! Enjoy a lovely beverage. The fridge is over there.
No, it’s just that I’m not usually among the first to jump on these bandwagons. Perhaps it’s Dell’s seemingly genuine intent to listen to their users that’s chipped away at my cynicism. But damn you anyway Michael Dell. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you removed that Precision M90 Ubuntu laptop from your user page. Do you still have it, or did it get whistled off to the Dell Outlet store?
In any event, one of my first tasks on Brainstorm was to query for “KDE” and “Kubuntu” ideas, but I found only one: Idea #478 – Support kubuntu and kde the way you support ubuntu and gnome. Fine. It’s about as well-expressed an idea as I could have hoped for, and a good candidate for merging the duplicate questions into. But what’s been interesting is watching the early resistance from GNOME users, not so much in the comments, but in the bouncing score. While I don’t have the time to check in often, it’s gone from zero to 18 to zero in just the short time I’ve been observing. Currently, it sits at 34. I wonder where it will be when I finish typing this?
Why the resistance? KDE is an excellent desktop. While it may not be the Ubuntu default, it’s still undeniably popular, having won LinuxQuestions.org’s Desktop Environment of the Year for the seventh consecutive year in a row. The same survey saw K3B, Amarok and Konqueror win resounding victories against their non-KDE counterparts.
Is there fear about a scarcity of resources? Will more attention to Kubuntu development necessarily manifest itself in neglect towards Ubuntu? I don’t know about you, but I’m observing an increasing plateau in the Ubuntu development curve. Certainly Canonical is continuing to add new features and polish with each development cycle, but it’s nothing like the vertical takeoff we observed with the early versions starting from Warty Warthog. Current developers are not expending themselves the way that they once needed to. Was the initial effort that exhausting, or is it merely the fact that it’s more fun to enjoy the ride once the balloon is launched, than look around for the next challenge?
Critics may say that given GNOME’s popularity within Ubuntu, working to provide more functionality, fit and finish for the minority of Kubuntu users isn’t a worthwhile investment. However, given KDE’s popularity overall, I would argue that Canonical’s neglect of Kubuntu is responsible for its relative lack of users. It’s always lagged behind in development — fewer added features, more bugs, questionable package inclusions, and the removal/hiding of good programs (Kcontrol, Konqueror) for poor ones (System Settings, Dolphin 3).
Not to slag Jonathan Riddell — he’s doing as well as one guy can — but Kubuntu has always been more suited to the type of user who doesn’t mind a lot of tweaking after the fact. People who want a desktop that ‘just works’ are forced to go the GNOME route, whether it’s their preference or not.
In Brainstorm, Kubuntu users finally have an invitation to vent their frustration at having a Cinderella distribution relegated to the role of ugly stepsister. Will Canonical respond?
At least initially, I’m more concerned by the potential backlash from the Ubuntu majority. Am I worrying for nothing? I don’t know.
The score, at least as of this posting, is now down to 29.
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