http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com guidelines and check if your idea has been posted already! ]]> en-us Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC QAPoll module http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/12592/
Number of employees from Wikipedia:
---------------------------------------------------------
Canonical: 130
RedHat: 2200
Novell: 4100

While this is not necessarily 100% accurate of how many linux contributors each company employs, it provides a good hint.


I recently read an article here about kernel contribution:
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php
-----------------------------------------------------------
RehHat: # changes 9,351 or 11.2%
Novell: # changes 7,385 or 8.9% (up from 3.6% last year)
The lowest number of changes by a company in that article was 285 and canonical didn't even make the list.

I understand that canonical is not a hardware company and as such may not contribute to add support for additional hardware, but it can still contribute. THis also is not isolated to the linux kernel.


Canonical employs only a couple of people to work on gnome. Most of the people are employed by Redhat/Novell. Similarly for KDE, this is likely Novell/Trolltech.

I imagine the situation is the same for core applications that are relied on by the average user.


HOW CAN AN ORGANIZATION THAT IS TRYING TO MARKET A DESKTOP, BE CONTRIBUTING SO LITTLE TO THE DESKTOP PART OF THE DESKTOP?


I understand that this is given:
- Ubuntu is about community and building up that community
- Ubuntu relies on outside contribution (unpaid hackers and other companies)
- Canonical has limited staff
- Canonical is largely funded by Mark S. (afaik) and even his $$$ is not infinite
- Canonical has done a good job in certain things... launchpad, brainstorm.

Having said all that...
I would like to see more paid contribution from Canonical as well. There should be more emphasis placed on hiring artists, GTK hackers, gnome hackers, usability experts, etc.

It is hard to imagine how the great ideas that come from the brainstorm will be fulfilled by such a small set of people, even given the backing of a great community. For example... Ibex has 5 implemented ideas and 15 ideas being worked on. This number should be much higher... a 10x factor. Similarly, launchpad has 30 or so entries per release.

Imagine if Microsoft/Apple employed only a handful of people to work on the user interface parts of windows/macos.

Canonical needs to make the desktop part of the desktop a priority. I'm not an expert, but here are some proposals for getting this to work (whether by getting more money or spending it efficiently):
1. Get some serious outside vc funding to be able to hire more people
2. Offer small bounties for ideas
3. Offer meritocracy rewards for unpaid contributors
4. Offer programs like Google Summer of Code.
5. Pull in more support/service revenue to be able to hire more people; to build a better desktop; to get more marketshare; to sell more services/support :-)


GO UBUNTU ! I am very impressed how such a small company can sponsor the biggest home linux desktop install base. It would be nice if the rate of progress was faster... which is what this posting is about.





Attachments:
No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/12592/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/10985/ Make this information available using dbus for other applications(online banking).Using this information they can stop the user from doing anything dangerous like banking over an unencrypted and open connection.

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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/10985/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/336/
Similarly Linux uses terms such as "Root" (compared to "Admin") represent a new vocabulary that users must learn in order to feel comfortable with the system. Similarly the folder structure uses abbreviated forms of words that while make it faster to type when in the command prompt confuse users who can't understand their meaning. Examples are plentiful here: /bin, /sbin, /etc, /root, /dev, /mnt, /lib, /boot, /tmp

Obviously this is a "hard" problem with the structure of the OS, Renaming folders isn't an easy thing to do. But the fact that these folders and many programs don't use "natural language" makes the OS and experience inhumane and provides another learning curve.

My proposal would be to give natural language names to all parts of the OS and to also support abbreviated forms when in the command line.

I would also propose changing application names that are ambiguous and confusing in favor of sexier natural language versions (preferably single words). Applications that have their names changed could have a footnote stating the original name in an About/Info dialogue box.



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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/336/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/7248/
What I want to know is if it is possible to store data in the RAM of a computer and keep it there while the computer is off. If this is possible in any way (preferably on most hardware today or on DDR2 RAM), then wouldn’t it be great if startup speed could be dramatically increased due to the faster read speeds of RAM compared to Hard Disk Drive read speeds?

I think this should be implemented; store boot up data in the RAM while the computer is off and default to check the RAM for this data first, and if there is something there, access it first. Some people may not have enough RAM to store all of their boot up data, but this can be solved by storing parts of it in the RAM (say, one section of loading instead of randomly scattering it between RAM and HDD, because that would completely defeat the purpose. At least part of the boot-up sequence would be much faster.

The easiest and fastest place to implement this would be in Linux, notably Ubuntu Linux. Because of the Freedom and open-source nature of the OS, it would be easy to put something that was well-coded to good use.

In a dual-boot setup (because there are plenty of people who have to have Windows and decide to dual-boot), the alternate OS can clear the RAM and continue with its normal startup process while that boot data is recopied to the RAM the next time Linux is started up and shut down.

I do not know if this is possible or if it is, has been implemented already, but I wanted to get it out there so at least I know the idea is floating around online.


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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/7248/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/6243/
/bin /system/executables
/boot /system/boot
/dev /system/devices
/etc /system/config
/lib /system/libraries
/home /users
/media /storage
/mnt /storage
/proc /system/processes
/root /users/Administrator
/sbin /system/executables/admin
/tmp /system/temporary
/usr /system/applications

(idea taken from http://blog.drinsama.de/erich/en/linux/debian/2008040101-renaming-directories.html)


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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/6243/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/8505/
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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/8505/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/5753/
There also needs to be a simple plugin for editing colors. Like changing the amount of color in the image, contrast, etc.

Attachments:
Ubuntuforums.org thread #735896
]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/5753/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/3294/
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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/3294/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/3095/
Aside from that I am interested in how ideas I have commented on develop in the course of time. Otherwise you had to have a good memory or bookmark everything.

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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/3095/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1135/
I modified Xms and Xmx arg in eclipse.ini file, still error.

but my memory is 2G RAM, I have to used Netbeans 6.01, but it not Hibernate support.

Shi Lei, from Beijing China.

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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1135/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1536/
We have Selinux enabled by default, but no PaX. PaX could help to memory bugs. And so we will have more robust linux system.



Attachments:
Bug #152078 : [Information on this bug will be retrieved soon]
]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1536/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1025/
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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1025/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1397/
The problem: when user needs to configure e-mail client, instant messenger, some other software, he always have to do it by hand. Reading manuals and setting values s/he can barely understand.

Here is how I see a solution. There should be some application that can "play" some configuration files (a-la .reg files in windows). So, for example, when I need to set up SIP client, I can just download configuration fragment from the service provider and run it with configurator. It will then set up only those parameters, which present in downloaded file and leave all others as they were.

It has a potential to become a security nightmare, but if implemented correctly can be a big win for linux usability.

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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1397/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1413/
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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1413/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1426/
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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1426/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1423/
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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1423/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1430/
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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1430/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/203/
Maybe a page with random ideas?

And remove the grades if not specifically requested, since it will affect peoples voting.

Attachments:
Bug #197019 : [Information on this bug will be retrieved soon]
]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/203/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/564/
ie. If a idea drops below -10 then hide it.
this could be configured in the profile
or could use a slashdot-like system

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No attachments. ]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/564/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/389/

Attachments:
Ubuntuforums.org thread #361124
]]> Mon, 13-Oct-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/389/