Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
A similar situation exists with graphics cards. Granted, Ubuntu does provide a decent graphical interface and configures it with minimum user input during installation. But when your monitor can do 1680x1050, it looks rather silly to have to work with a 1024x768 screen resolution.
If one has an NVIDIA-based card, one can opt to install the proprietary NVIDIA drivers and bingo, the full potential of that monitor is realised. This will have to become the norm. It doesn't matter that Linux and Windows are different beasts, the average punter will always compare the two no matter what particular function one is discussing.
There is some mimicking of Windows-like behaviour in the latest Ubuntu: playing an MP3 file off a website isn't possible but once that file is downloaded, a double-click on the file results in the right codecs being installed. Of course, the user is advised that the codecs are proprietary.
There is no flash player installed along with the standard Ubuntu install - and this will need to be fixed as well, if the desktop enthusiast market is to be exploited. In other words, Mister Shuttleworth, some compromises will have to be made.
It's all very well to have nice-sounding promises like "Ubuntu CDs contain only free software applications; we encourage you to use free and open source software, improve it and pass it on"; one can stick to this and provide the additional proprietary bits and pieces from an online repository during the installation, similar to a network install. Or else, supply a second CD for a small fee.
Can this be done without incurring the criticism of FOSS supporters? Unlikely. Shuttleworth will have to wear a lot of flack if he does begin to think along the lines I have indicated. But I doubt there is any way out - that is if marketshare is important.
Despite the flack that he may invite, it might be better to go down that path rather than sitting back and realising three years down the line that an excellent chance to make a dent in worldwide domination of the desktop and provide a decent alternative was allowed to slip by. As the old saying goes, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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