Mark Shuttleworth makes no apologies for the Ubuntu Unity Linux desktop interface, in fact he sees it as the foundation for his company’s platform strategy as the company moves beyond desktops, servers and the cloud.
Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu Linux, delivered a keynote address today at the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS), reminding the Ubuntu faithful of the progress made this past year. He also delivered his vision for the road ahead, which involved leveraging Unity to bring Unity to multiple types of smart screens including phones and tablets.
Shuttleworth said that power users want to have things just work, so they can get things done. They also stress the system in interesting ways and as such Ubuntu is going to continue to focus on usability and ease-of-use that will help power users.
“There is going to be a crowd that is just too cool to use something that looks really slick and there is nothing we can do for them,” Shuttleworth said. “Fortunately in Ubuntu there are tons of options and lots of choice and ways to skin the cat.”
Shuttleworth stressed that he wants to make sure that the primary Ubuntu desktop offering is both easy to use, beautiful and exciting for power users. He added that it would be nice to get Linus Torvalds in to help with usability testing.
