OStatic

Mark Shuttleworth, the man at the helm of Canonical and Ubuntu, went into greater detail last week about his thoughts on making future Ubuntu releases more user-focused. In the past, Shuttleworth has made no pretense that he feels Apple has, historically, offered a superior user experience.

Shuttleworth's comments have elicited striking reactions, ranging from enthusiastic support to concern about what innovation really means.

Apple's recent SDK announcement set off an interesting friendly discussion among bloggers about free vs. nearly free software. Jens Alfke says he appreciates all the work open source software developers do, but notes ...a lot of freeware gets abandoned by its developers, because the developers are just doing it for fun and run out of time or energy. Thatﾒs sad. And I think a moderate infusion of cash can definitely help alleviate those problems.