Hey guys "What does the customer want ?"

Pre-text from the author: Rick Timmis

I appreciate that the subject matter here is deeply rooted in the Linux Desktop, which many of our clients do not use as they use the Windows Operating System. I write all of my blogs on the Abazander website. I think the relevance here in this situation / dispute is getting the message across that Linux is an awesome computer operating system, that of course should be main stream and sold in PC World and other Retail outlets. To achieve that you must put your customers first! Give them what the want. I feel for a company that specialises in utilising Open Source technology to create powerful CRM and Sales / Marketing systems like iSAM that's what makes this blog relevant here."

Why is there chasm of the Open Source Community

There has been much conflict recently - spats between Ubuntu, The GNOME Foundation and the Banshee creators, all really fired up around decisions that Canonical have been making for the recent releases of the Ubuntu Linux Distribution.

It seems that Mark Shuttleworth is on a mission to address the desktop interface look and feel and the end user usability. I think his vision is to try to create an open source product that shapes up as strongly as Apples’ Mac products do and that appeal to the wider user base. Obviously, there is an open source development community at play here, not least to mention The GNOME Foundation and obviously the creators of the Banshee Media Player, which is where there have been many issues brought.

I think the unpopularity started when Ubuntu decided to drop GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) from the Ubuntu desktop. There was a lot of noise made about the fact that Canonical was not really paying attention to the community, and complaining that Canonical has tried to stamp rough-shod over The GNOME project by forking its code and developing its own Unity interface. We also have the Banshee dispute, all based around the fact that Canonical wants to introduce the Ubuntu One cloud service and Music store effectively redirecting a portion of the Gnome foundation income stream. This has been seen as a move by Canonical to simply generate revenue for themselves.

It seems to me that we have got two distinctly different sides to the chasm and I think there is an important principle that the open source community is completely missing here. The community is very much involved and interested in the products it develops and how it they should work and function. It’s interested in its new GNOME 3 and the GNOME shell desktop interface. It’s interested in software development and program features.

Equally, of course, Canonical, funded by Mark Shuttleworth, is very interested in the  community because that is its research and development department. The fundamental question missing, is that in all of these arguments and disputes, is anybody actually asking ..

‘What does the customer want?’

To be frank, the customer doesn’t care about our product. The customer doesn’t care about what’s going on with our software development. If we want to have a main stream Linux distribution that is utilised by the general populous on every PC desktop, quite frankly we are going to have to give the customer what they want. So, that means giving them a user interface that they want to enjoy and experience. That user interface is going to have to be different to Windows and different to Apple. It’s going to have to be distinctive in its own way, otherwise why would the user possibly want to change?

Does the new Unity desktop achieve that ?

Of course the desktop needs to be a very useable interface, functional and simple to use. It simply is not good enough to expect a customer to type in command line instructions into a terminal, when the want to install new software.  We need to be able to create an operating system that can be installed onto PC's by default in retail stores like PC World so that customers come along and look at that interface and see it as a viable product that is interesting and exciting to buy. That, in some ways, is where Android has been successful, where Linux has consistently failed over the last ten years. Android has managed to get itself installed by default mobile devices a platform that it’s managed to give the user an experience that they understand and that they can use simply.

Is Mark Shuttleworth deliberately trying to create these ructions in the community? Probably not, I am sure that Mark has been trying, as have the Canonical team, really hard to work with The GNOME Foundation and other people to get the product right. What’s typical of the Open Source Community is that inside the community we are so product orientated and interested very much in the software, we are forgetting to look at it from the customer’s point of view.

Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth and the team are trying to create a product that the customer wants to use because it fits the customers’ needs. He is concerning himself with, ‘What does the customer want?’ and that is what is creating this chasm. Cannonical is trying to deliver a product to market, where as the Gnome foundation is trying to deliver to its own objectives which are internal to its existing community and user base.

I think what is needed is a little bit more tolerance by the community and a little bit more understanding of the commercial perspectives if we are to reach our end goal together. If we are not able to reach that level of understanding, then we are going to see more projects getting forked and divided. Community software developers will benefit from understanding that the customer doesn’t give a damn about the product development or its internal, they just want to get something that functions and satisfy their needs.