| Shuttleworth tips Ubuntu "Gutsy Gibbon" plans |
Apr. 13, 2007
 With the release of the next Ubuntu -- version 7.04, aka "Feisty Fawn" -- only days away, Mark Shuttleworth, the distribution's leader, announced plans for the next version: "Gutsy Gibbon."
In a note to the Ubuntu developers, millionaire Linux visionary Shuttleworth said that Gutsy Gibbon would be released in October 2007.
With his tongue firmly in his cheek, Shuttleworth went ape in his description of the new features in Gutsy Gibbon. For example, he promised that the next version of Ubuntu will be the easiest one to install yet. "Some folks would say that any monkey can install Ubuntu (and sadly, other folks would say that many have), but the Gibbon will take easy installation to a whole new level, with work on an unattended-installation infrastructure in Ubiquity that makes it trivial to roll out Ubuntu desktops across an organization while getting on with other, more complicated stuff such as Windows service pack installations on legacy desktops."
Shuttleworth continued: "While Ubuntu is by no means the 800-pound gorilla in the server game, the Gibbon will show that lean and mean count for something! Agility of deployment, together with integrated management will be a focus for the Ubuntu server team. Gutsy will not be an LTS (Long Term Support) release, but it will nonetheless see a lot of server work and be useful for fast-moving server deployments."
In an interview, Shuttleworth told Linux-Watch that Ubuntu is becoming better-known for its server distributions. With this development, Ubuntu is gaining more direct relationships with OEMs to deliver server support for customers.
In particular, Shuttleworth mentioned that Ubuntu's partnership with Sun Microsystems to deploy Ubuntu 6.06 LTS on Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers with UltraSPARC T1 processors has been working well to introduce Ubuntu into data centers. While best-known as the most popular community Linux distribution, Ubuntu, according to Shuttleworth, is now getting real traction in the corporate world.
The next Ubuntu isn't just about improving the installation routines and servers, though. Shuttleworth said he hopes the desktop will also get a major upgrade.
Shuttleworth wants to see an advanced 3-D desktop as the default interface for Gutsy Gibbon, but he said that has proven to be harder to achieve technically than he had hoped. Shuttleworth wrote, "I'm nervous to predict it now for Gutsy, for fear of a third strike, but I'm told that great work is being done in the Compiz/Beryl community and upstream in X."
After several months of working at cross-purposes, the Compiz and Beryl 3D desktop development communities have recently reunited. Linux desktop leaders hope that this will help speed up the development of a stable 3-D composite desktop.
Shuttleworth continued: "There's a reasonable chance that Gutsy will deliver where those others have not. I remain convinced that malleable, transparent and extra-dimensional GUI's are a real opportunity for the free software community to take a lead in the field of desktop innovation, and am keen to see the underlying technologies land in Ubuntu, but we have to balance that enthusiasm with the Technical Board's judgment of the stability and maturity of those fundamental layers."
While Ubuntu supporters have been working on making it a more attractive offering to business users, Shuttleworth is also extending an olive branch to the free software advocates.
In his note, Shuttleworth wrote: "Ubuntu 7.10 will feature a new flavour -- as yet unnamed -- which takes an ultra-orthodox view of licensing: no firmware, drivers, imagery, sounds, applications, or other content which do not include full source materials and come with full rights of modification, remixing and redistribution. There should be no more conservative home, for those who demand a super-strict interpretation of the 'free' in free software. This work will be done in collaboration with the folks behind gNewsense."
GNewSense is a Debian-based distribution that is sponsored by the Free Software Foundation and contains only free software. It is now up to version 1.1.
Ubuntu has had to deal recently with disputes over including proprietary software in its distributions. In February, Shuttleworth reaffirmed Ubuntu's "policy of including proprietary drivers [that] are required to enable essential hardware functionality."
Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, also announced a technical partnership with Linspire in early February that will give Ubuntu 7.04 and later users the ability to use Linspire's newly opened CNR (Click n' Run) software installation service. Open CNR, which is still in testing, includes access to proprietary software.
Gutsy Gibbon's tenacious development schedule has already been published on the Web. Final details on what will make it into this new distribution will be worked out at a major Ubuntu meeting May 5-11 in Andalucía, Spain.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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