Does anybody remember Ubuntu from the early 2010s era, when I downloaded my first copy?
Ubuntu was talking about scopes and lenses in your Dashboard (basically, internet content in your start menu, which they thought was revolutionary), Ubuntu TV (nobody adopted that), and later, Ubuntu on Phones and Tablets with a (to put it mildly) bastardized Ubuntu 16.04 install that some phones are still stuck on to this day in UBports, in part because they were actually a Ubuntu/Android hybrid system with some Android driver compatibility blended in for good measure because they couldn't get all the drivers running in GNU Linux, so you had a mess of Android and GNU Linux drivers simultaneously? And after all that, the headline feature, scopes again! Not better privacy, not features any user otherwise really cared about, just scopes and lenses again and "it's Linux, on phones, with a Qt interface!" Oh, and it will have convergence in the future.
Convergence, convergence, that was a buzzword for a while. A neat idea... but Microsoft had the same idea, tried it on Windows Phone, and then completely abandoned the idea, years after Ubuntu had the idea and years before Ubuntu cut their losses.
That was a completely unnecessary disaster. I love Ubuntu as much as anybody, but looking back, it 100% deserved to fail as much as I would have wanted it to succeed. It's just an example of how, sometimes, it doesn't take a evil competitor megacorporation trying to undermine us - sometimes we've got plenty of blame ourselves for not succeeding.
This is what I remember too. The author lays out a lot of the "why" detail on the business/legal side that I didn't know. But what I do remember is waking up one day in 2009 or whatever and discovering that everyone had drank the tablet/convergence Kool-aid and that Unity and GNOME3 were both going full modal/dock. At the time I actually just assumed they were doing it to stay relevant with the impending Windows 8 release (heh), which was shooting for all the same goals with mostly the same ideas.
I also recall being annoyed that they were ripping away something (GNOME2) stable that worked just fine, but also that Unity was an absolute cinch to learn and a true joy to use.
Back in 2004? they would ship CD's to Colombia, even if you put like 20 in the form you would get them a few months later and could share with friends.
Ubuntu was talking about scopes and lenses in your Dashboard (basically, internet content in your start menu, which they thought was revolutionary), Ubuntu TV (nobody adopted that), and later, Ubuntu on Phones and Tablets with a (to put it mildly) bastardized Ubuntu 16.04 install that some phones are still stuck on to this day in UBports, in part because they were actually a Ubuntu/Android hybrid system with some Android driver compatibility blended in for good measure because they couldn't get all the drivers running in GNU Linux, so you had a mess of Android and GNU Linux drivers simultaneously? And after all that, the headline feature, scopes again! Not better privacy, not features any user otherwise really cared about, just scopes and lenses again and "it's Linux, on phones, with a Qt interface!" Oh, and it will have convergence in the future.
Convergence, convergence, that was a buzzword for a while. A neat idea... but Microsoft had the same idea, tried it on Windows Phone, and then completely abandoned the idea, years after Ubuntu had the idea and years before Ubuntu cut their losses.
That was a completely unnecessary disaster. I love Ubuntu as much as anybody, but looking back, it 100% deserved to fail as much as I would have wanted it to succeed. It's just an example of how, sometimes, it doesn't take a evil competitor megacorporation trying to undermine us - sometimes we've got plenty of blame ourselves for not succeeding.