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Interview With Will Cooke, Canonical Desktop Engineering Director, on Future of Ubuntu

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday July 10 2019, @02:44PM   
from the future-looks-bright dept.

jas writes:

Following Canonical's pivot away from its internally-developed Unity user interface and Mir display server, Ubuntu has enjoyed two relatively low-drama years, as the Linux Desktop market homogenized during its transition back to a customized GNOME desktop. In a review of the most recent release, TechRepublic's Jack Wallen declared that "Ubuntu 19.04 should seriously impress anyone looking for a fast and reliable Linux desktop platform."

Largely, it's been a slow-and-steady pace for Ubuntu since the pivot from Unity to GNOME, though the distribution made headlines for plans to end support for 32-bit support. This prompted Valve, operators of games marketplace Steam, to re-think its approach toward Ubuntu, which it previously characterized as "as the best-supported path for desktop users."

TechRepublic's James Sanders interviewed Will Cooke, director of engineering for Ubuntu Desktop at Canonical, about the distribution's long-term plans for legacy 32-bit support, shipping a desktop in a post-Unity-era Ubuntu, and why Linux should be the first choice for users migrating from Windows 7 prior to the end of support.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ubuntu-what-does-the-future-look-like-post-unity/

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Original Submission

• Re:What business model for free AAA games? Re:What business model for free AAA games? (Score: 3, Insightful) by melikamp on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:07PM (1 child)

  by melikamp (1886) on Wednesday July 10 2019, @09:07PM (#865499) Journal

  I am SERIOUSLY don't even know what you are talking about. I played games since Paratrooper [wikipedia.org], and so I would like to think I have some perspective as well as taste, and these days I play Xonotic & Minetest mostly, because they are absolutely amazing in terms of gameplay, and I get to contribute to the god-damn codebase/support at will, making them even better. This "business model" you are talking about is a monstrosity created/enabled by the copyright law. If copyright law (which, imho, is deeply immoral, and is objectively at war with the free market) is removed from consideration, then nothing you say makes any sense, which is where we need to be heading.

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• Re:What business model for free AAA games? (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:13PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @10:13PM (#865530)

  Huh. Well, I'll bite in AC mode.

  The question is: How will people make money at game development without copyright law.
  Your predicted answer: WHAT? Why should they? Why can't games just be developed for FREE?
  Reply: Because the economy, stupid. The same reason copyright came into being in the first place: Get better quality because of profit motive. Enable profit motive by allowing exclusive right of copy. Doing so produces higher overall quality than the free movement can generate, whether you like that or not.

  The "business model" is how people eat in a land where we can no longer produce enough to keep an economy growing because we chose to become rulers of the world by service and governance.

  You may not like the model. Fine. You are welcome to produce games for free and participate in communities who do. Fine and you're welcome to do so, as long as you don't tread on the toes of intellectual property! Ain't freedom grand? But there enough intelligent people who realize that there's enough of the economy tied up in having copyright in existence to say, "yeah, let's keep this old and antiquated system because I don't want to have to make a living by putting two rounds through your head and taking everything you have. Copyright might be a better existence than that."

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