Looking Past the Jackalope, What We Know About Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Earlier today, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth announced the latest addition to the Ubuntu development ecosystem: the Karmic Koala. This release (also referred to by its scientific classification, Ubuntu 9.10) will be unleashed six months after Ubuntu 9.04 (the Jaunty Jackalope) debuts in April.

Shuttleworth hints creatively at some goals for the Karmic release, and manages to make servers, desktops, and netbooks seem as though they're only a link or two away from koalas on the evolutional chain. The server edition will have a special focus on cloud computing, and will include Amazon EC2 tools as well as (you guessed it) Eucalpytus for creating custom, localized cloud configurations. Karmic Koala's server edition will focus on reducing energy consumption.

Desktop Koalas could have some internal genetic alterations -- such as flicker free X initialization (in the spirit of Fedora 10) and boot speeds that suggest "jungle cat" over "arboreal marsupial." Shuttleworth also hints at how different this desktop will look. Will the Karmic Koala break from the traditional Ubuntu brown?

How would you like to get involved in engineering the Koala?

On the heels of Shuttleworth's announcement, Ubuntu community manager (and head zoo keeper) Jono Bacon gave some details concerning the Karmic Koala Ubuntu Developer Summit that will take place in Barcelona at the end of May. This is an opportunity for community members (developers, packagers, and others) to meet with Canonical developers to discuss the direction of the release. Canonical regularly sponsors community members, helping to cover costs so that they may attend the event. Any community members who are interested in contributing and attending, but don't quite have the financial means to attend the event, are welcome to apply for a sponsorship. The deadline for submitting a sponsorship application (as well as blueprint and discussion proposals) is March 4, 2009.