timkuijsten/Bye Bye Ubuntu (Desktop)

## Bye Bye Ubuntu (Desktop)
Yesterday, after evangelizing Ubuntu for years and running Ubuntu on my
parents desktop since 2009, I finally "relieved" them by giving them
Windows 7 as a gift.

For years I had the hope that every Ubuntu release would get better
than the previous edition. That the vision of Canonical aligned with my
vision of openness and where user rights are put central. I took the
fact that some proprietary things didn't work for granted and thought
we could fight it best by adding weight to the open source movement and
use open source software while demanding open codecs, standards etc.

I praised Unity, and really think this is a bold and strong move in the
right direction that has to be taken in order to realize the ambitious
goals Ubuntu has set for the open desktop [1].

Harder it was to cope with software that used to work, but broke in a
new release. E.g. it's really frustrating if your webcam always worked
with Skype but suddenly after an upgrade it doesn't (and release after
release, a year later, it still isn't fixed [2]), or if you can't do
simple things like red eye removal, because the new version of the
software you are using is broken [3]. My parents often encountered
these seemingly little problems that completely put a halt on the
things they wanted and were used to do. Regressions are much more
irritating than bugs in new sofware.

Since the news of sending search terms to Amazon by default I'm through
with it. No longer do I feel Canonical puts my rights and liberties as a
user central. No longer can I pull energy from the hope that the next
release will be better. We don't move in the same direction anymore.

Ubuntu, I hope someday we meet again.


[1] http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/mark-shuttleworth-delivers-uds-keynote-address-sets-goal-for-200-million-ubuntu-users-in-4-years
[2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/884210
[3] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/shotwell/+bug/652158
	Yesterday, after evangelizing Ubuntu for years and running Ubuntu on my
	parents desktop since 2009, I finally "relieved" them by giving them
	Windows 7 as a gift.

	For years I had the hope that every Ubuntu release would get better
	than the previous edition. That the vision of Canonical aligned with my
	vision of openness and where user rights are put central. I took the
	fact that some proprietary things didn't work for granted and thought
	we could fight it best by adding weight to the open source movement and
	use open source software while demanding open codecs, standards etc.

	I praised Unity, and really think this is a bold and strong move in the
	right direction that has to be taken in order to realize the ambitious
	goals Ubuntu has set for the open desktop [1].

	Harder it was to cope with software that used to work, but broke in a
	new release. E.g. it's really frustrating if your webcam always worked
	with Skype but suddenly after an upgrade it doesn't (and release after
	release, a year later, it still isn't fixed [2]), or if you can't do
	simple things like red eye removal, because the new version of the
	software you are using is broken [3]. My parents often encountered
	these seemingly little problems that completely put a halt on the
	things they wanted and were used to do. Regressions are much more
	irritating than bugs in new sofware.

	Since the news of sending search terms to Amazon by default I'm through
	with it. No longer do I feel Canonical puts my rights and liberties as a
	user central. No longer can I pull energy from the hope that the next
	release will be better. We don't move in the same direction anymore.

	Ubuntu, I hope someday we meet again.


	[1] http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/mark-shuttleworth-delivers-uds-keynote-address-sets-goal-for-200-million-ubuntu-users-in-4-years
	[2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/884210
	[3] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/shotwell/+bug/652158