Ubuntu plans for Jaunty Jackalope
Ubuntu founder and Canonical chief, Mark Shuttleworth, yesterday announced his ambitions for Ubuntu 9.04, now called “Jaunty Jackalope”.
In an email to developers last night, Shuttleworth said: “As we approach the launch of Ubuntu 8.10, it’s time to create space for future plans, and so I’m writing to introduce you to The Jaunty Jackalope.”
Shuttleworth says that the bar for Ubuntu 9.04 is set very high. “We move into a year where we can reasonably expect Ubuntu to ship on several million devices, to consumers who can reasonably expect the software experience to be comparable to those of the traditional big OSV’s – Microsoft and Apple.”
Dell last week announced its new Inspiron Mini 9 netbook which ships with Ubuntu pre-installed. Shuttleworth is obviously expecting more of those types of deals in the coming year.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to shine, and we want to make sure that the very best thinking across the whole open source ecosystem is reflected in Ubuntu, because many people will judge free software as a whole by what we do.”
Plans
Shuttleworth says that one of the priorities for Jaunty is to reduce the amount of time it takes to boot the system. “We want Ubuntu to boot as fast as possible – both in the standard case, and especially when it is being tailored to a specific device.” Better boot times were also objectives for the Hardy and Intrepid releases. That this is still a priority suggests that Intrepid may not match expectations for boot times when it is released in October.
Shuttleworth also emphasises the need for Jaunty to blur the line between web services and desktop applications.
“We have already laid some foundations for weblications in the online services discussions that took place in Prague, but since we fully expect those services to ship in 9.04 the discussion will be that much more intense in Mountain View [Ubuntu Developer Summit].
Jaunty will also mark the first time that all of Ubuntu’s software will be managed by Bazaar, Ubuntu’s revision control system.
Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex, is due for release in October this year. Ubuntu 9.04 will be released in April next year.
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9 Responses to “Ubuntu plans for Jaunty Jackalope”
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September 9th, 2008 @ 7:00 pm
Why not just wait? Why not work out bugs. There talking about a version and the alpha just came out. They put these versions out too quick.
September 9th, 2008 @ 7:31 pm
They are on Alpha 5. Next step is Beta and they should be able to do that before the end of October. The idea is to keep the blood moving and innovate. The LTS releases like 8.04 are designed for long term support and benefit from the 6 month development cycle. 8.04 to 8.10 does not really feel that different, but some of the innovations are nice (NEW THEME FINALLLY!!!!) and will work their way back to 8.04. The 9.04 tweaks will also be backported.
They put the new versions out quickly because they can. That is what makes them different from anyone else.
September 9th, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
they don’t put out new versions too fast.
they’ve chosen a time-based release schedule (see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeBasedReleases)
September 10th, 2008 @ 9:04 am
@tony:
haha, may be you’re accustomed to m$ release schedules (promise a ton of features, substitute these features with bloat, make a “new” gui, scatter choices in the control panel here and there, prepare 17 versions of the same thing, promise more wallpapers (ehhh, i mean features) for the flagship version, release after 2 years from the “promised” date and there you have it: m$ winblows vista!!!).
for next release promise more unix-like features (minwin –> separate kernel from gui) and bully vendors to “embrace” the sweet child o’ yours (offering “flexible” options like downgrading to the previous os for those b#st#rds who don’t like the new — fud needs numbers to show that the world is fond of the new os, even if they downgrade!). this will also help your financial managers/accountants “take care” of your stock price from the bad press/bad sales…
well, i prefer ubuntu’s approach for scheduling releases!
September 11th, 2008 @ 10:11 pm
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September 23rd, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
Theres a small mistake in the article: Obviously is obviously
“Shuttleworth obviously is obviously expecting more of those types of deals in the coming year.”
September 23rd, 2008 @ 3:47 pm
@Tjaart:
Thanks. Fixed.
September 28th, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
Can’t wait untill this comes out
I shall defintaly be upgrading as soon as it does.
Jam
September 28th, 2008 @ 7:58 pm
I shall upgrading as well. Every 6 months, haha