Open for Discussion

Mark Shuttleworth announced Unity this morning, Canonical's new netbook interface that will be at the core of it's new Ubuntu Light platform. Going head-to-head with SplashTop and similar instant-on environments, Ubuntu Light could offer a direct path to consumer Linux migration.

After Ubuntu made a concerted effort to change (and therefore highlight) it's brand, the Linux and open source community have started to examine the question of branding more closely. Some members, like Aaron Seigo, are wary of the whole notion of distribution/application branding. Which begs the question: are they right?

Yet-another-accusation of patent infringement today from Microsoft (this time against Android). It's the only legal tactic they have to try to slow Linux, but an upcoming Supreme Court decision may render such accusations moot.

It seems like just yesterday the UK-based company was capitalizing on the goodness of Debian and rocking out the Linux desktop with all the shades of humanity and then the shades of eggplant. But here we are, on the essential eve of the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS release, and it looks like Canonical is a company that has quietly re-cast itself as a cloud platform builder.