Ubuntu should zig to Apple’s zag

I don't really understand what the author is trying to say. Granted, it's been a while since I used Ubuntu, but as a developer I mainly live in my editor and terminal.

Anything I ever wanted is just an apt-get away and is mostly installed in a sensible way.

Ubuntu simplifying desktop features and changing defaults to be easier for users like my mom sounds like a great thing to happen to Linux.

That stuff is mostly orthogonal to developers who, you know, know how to deviate from the standard configuration and tools.

They go for the 99%. _majority_ aren't _power user_ so if they make it simple, more people would jump on the boat

What percentage of users are developers? 5 percent? Lower? It's unwise to cater the entire OS to the needs of such a small minority especially when they are the best suited to change the environment to meet their needs. Complaining about needing to download Xcode is a perfect example of why it is wrong. If it's bundled into the OS you're wasting 4GB of space on tens of millions of machines to save the 5% a 4GB download. That makes no sense.

The big problem with Ubutunu is still that it is, no matter how much nicer they make it look, a collection of inconsistently designed user interfaces for mediocre clones of better applications on other platforms. It has no soul. It just stumbles forward feebly copying whatever else happens to be popular on other platforms. It's always going to be playing catch-up to ever moving goal posts. Unless you have some religious zeal to use OSS software there is no good reason to even consider Ubuntu over Windows or OSX.

Conservatives expressing concerns are almost always a turn off.

Ubuntu fails to showcase many of the best aspects of Linux as a system. Linux (and other open-source OSes, obviously) is an environment in which users are able to exercise more freedom in their usage of their computers than virtually anywhere else. Instead of an environment in which "users" are at the mercy of "developers", the instruction manual is included. Anyone can change their computer's behavior to the extent of their choosing--and there's nobody to tell them not to. Ubuntu takes this and ignores it completely, trying instead to copy user interface features from other projects and environments to win users that like the idea of cheap software.

Not everyone is a kernel hacker, obviously... but Ubuntu should be proud that on Linux every user /can/ become one if they so desire. To emphasize the same read-only one-size-fits-all thinking that Apple has popularized is to disregard entirely the philosophy of the foundation on which Ubuntu exists.

The argument that Ubuntu is a pragmatic, get-things-done distribution is founded in fact; it certainly is. But that doesn't mean it has to make it worse for software development and make it difficult to actually alter your system in meaningful ways. I ran Ubuntu for over a year and every attempt to dig into the system's internals (init scripts, configuration tools, what apt actually /did/, etc.) resulted in frustration because of the great complexity and the lack of any help that the OS itself provided. Comparing distros like Arch Linux that guide their users into the system in order to make the changes they want, Ubuntu is about as read-only as I've ever seen in an open-source Linux-based system.

Even so, Arch isn't a distro for beginners by any stretch of imagination. And there I think Ubuntu has the ability to come out far ahead, if they embrace the fact that they are producing a system designed to be improved by the "end-users". A Linux distribution is not a product like a commercial software package. It's an environment that should foster both productivity and learning. To suggest that users should use a static system or merely accept their updates in 6-month-increments is like suggesting that a carpenter should never consider the manufacture of his tools. Sure, there may be a table to craft today, but improving at the craft of doing so is an important goal--and Ubuntu should help its users improve in their usage of their systems by helping them take small, friendly steps into improving the software they use in real ways.

Stop treating users like children and engage them as equals. Apple can't do that because they have to keep their users dependent. Ubuntu is missing out on its greatest source of potential.