I recently received a curious e-mail from Canonical. I believe this e-mail was not intended for me, but it provides a fascinating look at the future of Ubuntu, and I would like to share it with you.

Below is the e-mail:

With Intrepid Ibex now past feature-freeze it’s time to start to plan
features that are being lined up for inclusion after Ubuntu 8.10 is released in October. And so I’d like to introduce you to Jabbering Jackass, the release which is planned for April 2009, and which is likely to have the version number 9.04.

With Jabbering Jackass, we will be working on creating a stubborn … I mean stable … user experience. At this stage in the process, design work is preliminary, but some parts of the plan have been worked out.

For example, we already have a desktop background* for Jackass:

(Click on the picture for a closer look at the folders.)

In addition, Jackass will feature a new Ubuntu log-in sound. The leading candidate right now is this*: WAV | FLAC | Web (Not Recomended). However this is still preliminary, as some people thought it was too annoying, especially since it loops forever.

Finally, Jackass will introduce a feature never before seen in any operating system, a cuddly cartoon donkey, something like the Microsoft Office Assistant, that will help you get work done. For example, if you make a mistake, the cuddly donkey will pop onto the screen and bellow, “You jackass!”

I believe this will be a very useful (Shutup, jackass. I really did mean to type useful.) feature that will change forever how we interact with the operating system.

Please keep this e-mail confidential until April 1 when the formal announcement will be made.

–Mark

For more information on this, see here.

Note: I think Ubuntu is one of the best if not the best Linux distro out there. I use it myself and in no way am I trying to say it is bad or imply anything bad about it.

* - Credit for the desktop background image goes to Orin Optiglo. The image is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

* - Credit for the donkey sound goes to Acclivity. The sound is licensed under Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0.

Recently Adobe announced that it is joining the Linux Foundation, according to Fox Business. The Linux Foundation is “a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux,” according to their website. When things like this happen, it is hard to tell if it is just a press release or if Adobe really intends to pay more attention to Linux, but we can hope they really do care about Linux.

Assuming this announcement is more than a press release, it could mean a number of things. For one thing, it could likely lead to a better Flash Player for Linux, which would be very nice. Another, perhaps more significant possibility, is that Adobe will bring their applications like Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, etc. to Linux. If that happened, it would be a huge deal, because Adobe’s applications are almost all often considered #1 in their category (not that I am a fan, grr… monopoly grr…)

While it may seem crazy to some people (myself included) that Adobe would put all the effort into porting their applications to Linux, there is another way they could do it. In order to make Picasa for Linux, Google took the Windows version and packaged it with a custom version of WINE. With all the attention being put into Adobe applications on WINE already, something similar might work.

Adobe joining the Linux Foundation could just be a press release, but I am hopeful it means more than that for Linux.

With the new Windows Eee PC approaching, Laptop Magazine recently reported that the price of the Windows Eee PC 4G is $400. The price of the current Eee PC 4G is also $400 (Amazon) with Linux. This means one of two things happened.

The first possibility is simply that there is going to be a price drop. That would be just fine and good. Yay. Whatever.

The second possibility, however, (and please note, this is only a possibility, not a fact) is that either Asus is absorbing the cost of Windows or that Microsoft is giving XP to Asus for free. If either one of these is happening, it is not OK with me.

For Asus’s part, it is not their business to determine what operating systems cost. By making Windows free, they give Microsoft an unfair advantage that they should not be given. If Windows is the one giving XP away for free, that is just as bad as bribing bloggers with expensive laptops.

Keep in mind that the explanation could just be a price drop, which would mean nothing bad is going on, but the EU should keep an eye on this.

One common complaint about Ubuntu, and many other open-source projects, is that the release notes or feature lists are too hard for non-geeks to understand. A post on Fsckin tried to fix this problem, by “translating” the Ubuntu release notes into English, in other words, removing all the geeky terms to make it easier to understand. That is a good first step, but I don’t think it is quite enough to make the features easy to understand, they also must be made exciting to non-geeks.

Because of that, I decided to take a shot at writing a feature list for Ubuntu 8.04 that only includes the most exciting features. Not all the features are new to 8.04, but I think that is OK, because most users have not used Ubuntu or Linux at all before.

• Install Ubuntu right from within your Windows system. Once installed, you can use both operating systems.
• Ubuntu includes pre-installed free and fully capable alternatives to most of the programs you use.
• Amazing graphical effects make working or playing more fun and productive.
• You don’t have to worry about maintaining anti-virus software, since there are no viruses that Ubuntu is susceptible to.
• Ubuntu 8.04 comes with amazing new artwork.
• Ubuntu allows you to easily install lots of new, free software right from inside the operating system.
• Easily configure multiple monitors so they work just the way you want.
• Easily run other operating systems right from inside Ubuntu.
• Ubuntu is completely free.

This list, however, is still not quite enough. The content of a list like this should be combined in an attractive layout along with pictures to illustrate the features.

It would seem as though there is little left to do in the world of word processing and office suites but fix bugs, ensure compatibility, and add tiny little new features to advanced features no one uses. That is not necessarily true, though.

Imaging you had only ever used a browser that browsed the internet and did nothing else. What else is there to add to that browser, you would think? But, now, if you had a browser that did nothing but browse the web, it would seem like a feature-free browser and you would switch right back to Firefox will all your extensions. The same thing could happen in office suites.

If you have not already figured it out, what I am saying is that extensions are likely to be the next big innovation (or copied innovation from browsers) in office suites. (After all, OpenOffice is already starting to put more focus on extensions.)

It is easy to think “oh yeah, extensions will be great,” but what kind of extensions would you really use in an office suite? Well, for one thing, there are always the time-wasting extensions. You could have RSS feeds, or a media player, or whatever just to waste time have fun. On the more useful side of things, you could have an extension that looks up words on some website and displays the result right inside the office suite. Another example would be an extension that could pull in data, such as stock prices, from a web site.

If extensions do take off, it will give OpenOffice another advantage over Office. Since OpenOffice is already moving in the direction of extensions and Microsoft is often slow to implement new features, it seems almost certain that OpenOffice will get a boost over Office from really supporting extensions. This is turn would give Linux a boost, because the more people who like OpenOffice, the more people who don’t have to worry about Office not existing for Linux.

Brilliant Brainstorms is a weekly-ish summary of some of the best brainstorms from the Ubuntu Brainstorm site. In the beginning it may not always come exactly once a week or on the same day, but, if it becomes popular, it should become more regular.

I don’t think anyone likes making backups or checking on the health of their disk, but it is important. Having one GUI to do all of this and more would be great, as long as everything is presented in a way that non-geeks can understand.

Every few releases of Ubuntu, Canonical puts out an “LTS” (long term support) version. These releases are supposed to be more stable and are supported for longer. Unfortunately, you cannot directly upgrade from one LTS to another. That must be fixed.

Although I don’t know anyone who has actually lost data due to pulling out a flash drive too soon, that is not a good reason not to try and prevent it from every happening. I don’t know if it is technically possible to implement this idea at all, but, if it is, it would be great.

One of the best things about Linux is the ability to use a separate partition for /home. If Linux is going to expand, that feature must be available for the average user.

This is just a small thing that bugs me, but I hate it when a distro overwrites my bootloader.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I do not want to know that Linux Kernel 2.3.4.2.3.4.34.232.3.23.2.3.2.3.2…5454. was included in the latest release of Ubuntu. I want to know what that means for the average user. (OK, yes, I am exaggerating and Ubuntu is pretty good about explaining things, but still.)

We already knew Asus was planning on releasing a new Eee PC, but today Digitimes is reporting on a few more rather important details of the upcoming Eee PC - it will have a touchscreen and possibly GPS support too. (The price is supposed to be $500 with 1GB of RAM and probably around an 8GB SSD.) Apart from this being a cool feature, though, how is this really important?

In the past, the Eee PC has mostly been about the hardware. Yes it is cool that it runs Linux, but there is nothing amazing about the software. Now that there is going to be a touchscreen on the Eee PC, software will be much more important.

If the touchscreen is only used as an alternative mouse, it may well become the kind of feature that gets old after 10 minutes. On the other hand, if Asus creates software the fully takes advantage of the touchscreen, it could make the touchscreen the main selling point of the device. I don’t think Asus will pass up an opportunity like this. Chances are there will be much more attention put into the software in the second generation Eee PC, which is good.

This increased attention to the software could be a way for Linux to stay the main operating system on the Eee PC, not just a secondary choice for geeks, when Windows is added as an option. Because Linux, and most of the applications that run on it, are open-source, Asus can modify them to work really well with the touchscreen, whereas with Windows, Asus will not be able to modify the software as easily. In this way, the Linux version of the Eee PC could have a significant advantage over the Windows version.

If you have been watching the Linux UMPC space, you may have noticed a new trend: style. Asus said fashion would be more important in future Eee PCs, HP has a rumored Linux UMPC that is very sleek, and, most recently, ECS announced a Linux UMPC that is designed to be very sleek. Apart from, obviously, just making Linux UMPCs look cooler, this new trend could also expand the market for Linux UMPCs.

Before the Eee PC, the few Eee PC-ish laptops were generally very high end, very expensive, and targeted at business executives. Although the Eee PC is a similar form factor and it is only $400, compared to over $2000, the Eee PC was not targeted at business executives at all. Now with the increasing attention being paid to making Linux UMPCs sleek, a Linux UMPC might be a reasonable consideration for business executives, not only expanding the Linux UMPC market, but also potentially making people more comfortable with using Linux in the office.

Although there are, of course, many other factors involved, Linux UMPCs with attention paid to style seem likely to expand the market considerably, not just for Linux UMPCs, but potentially for Linux in general.

A recent Computer World article suggested that the iPhone’s biggest competition might be the Eee PC. While I disagree that a device the size of an Eee PC could ever compete with a cell phone, it turns out there is a way that in the future a Linux UMPC could become a serious iPhone (or <insert name of smartphone>) competitor.

A company called Miu has created a concept phone/UMPC that would mix the two groups into one smartphone-sized device, according to Linux Devices. With many smartphones already moving towards being a small computer, it seems almost obvious that UMPCs will mix with smart phones to create serious competitors to devices like the iPhone. You could even argue that the iPhone itself is already a UMPCphone, but with it’s limited productivity features, it does not quite seem to be a full UMPC.

So how is this related to Linux? Linux already has a hold in the UMPC market and it is starting to become more important in smartphones, so Linux may well be the first choice for a UMPCphone. Apple’s OS X has very little hold in the UMPC world, if you even consider the Air a UMPC. Microsoft has had little success so far in the UMPC market and their smartphones have not be, lets just say, great. Although Linux’s smartphone territory is not yet established, Linux has a solid position in UMPCs and a growing presence in smartphones, making a likely choice for a UMPCphone.

(Alright, give me a break, finding anything to write about on Sundays in general is hard enough, let alone a holiday Sunday.)

Even wondered how Easter eggs are like open-source/Linux? (Answer: No.) Anyway, if you are really stuck for something to write about, it turns out they are quite similar. Here is why:

• There are many different types just like there are many different Linux distributions.
• They are made by many different people from many different places in the world just like open-source software is often developed by people all around the world.
• People share them and give them away.
• They are often not created for profit.

Since they are already so similar (at least if you have nothing else write about), I decided to turn some Easter eggs into Linux eggs, continuing on the Linux pumpkin idea: