If Canonical acquired PCLinuxOS…

Today I managed to help a friend in getting his iPod to work with Amarok in PCLinuxOS using this guide. We were successful and he’s happily using Amarok to manage his music as well as his iPod. At the end of all I was left satisfied and suddenly something really random hit me. It just hit me, seriously. What if PCLinuxOS was taken over by Canonical? Now I assume you are ready to skip the rest of the post and start flaming me already. Go on, but what good would it do? What is the fool talking about you’d say, wouldn’t you?

PCLinuxOS is an excellent distribution. What has proved to be the difference in making it my recommended distro for newbies or users coming from other operating systems is the fact that it runs fine on laptops as well. I’ve tried openSUSE, Mandriva and Kubuntu on my friend’s laptop and openSUSE worked but was overwhelming, Mandriva worked but it wasn’t as up to date as I’d have liked it, but more importantly both distros had slow package management. Kubuntu didn’t detect the sound and wi-fi for some reason from what I was told.

Now, PCLinuxOS depends a lot on donations but still manages to do a fantastic job with its wonderful developer team of Texstar and the Ripper Gang. I have had the opportunity to speak to devnet, one of the lead developers, once on IRC and they are indeed a very friendly community. Texstar has stated in the past that he has tried Debian and other distros before but ultimately decided to use Mandriva as a base. While that in my opinion has proved to be great, I want to try and analyze what would happen if Canonical backed this distro.

The first step would be attempting to work under the banner of Ubuntu. If at all that is accomplished then it would be interesting. It would primarily benefit Kubuntu, which at the moment is under Jonathan Riddell who I must say once again as I did in the previous post, is doing a fantastic job with the distro. Kubuntu would be backed by a hard working development team that would be well-suited to the system of long term releases as well as they do a wonderful job in ensuring stability. The new six-month cycle would, the way I’d see it, be a new challenge to take up. There would be the problem of shifting these developers to another base, from Mandriva to Debian. Would it be welcomed? I do not know.

What would it bring to Kubuntu as a distribution in terms of features? A few more thinking caps? Certainly. Quicker implementation of features that are there in Ubuntu and other distros? Yes. I even think Kubuntu’s artwork could be taken to another level and be made a lot more appealing than it already is. Attention to detail is something the PCLOS developers are good at, and we’d see some splash screens for applications somewhere along the lines of openSUSE as well. I’m sure that can always be done but the fact is that it hasn’t been done. Riddell has earlier stated that Kubuntu makes use of KDE software only. Now with the current potential of KDE 4 yet to be utilized since KOffice, Amarok2, the PIM and other applications for KDE 4 aren’t completely updated yet, it will be interesting to see how KDE 4 further improves usability for such applications.

This deal would not benefit PCLinuxOS as an independent brand. That is one thing that needs to be made clear. You don’t bring a big fish out of the water and put it in a small fish bowl. However, you can set a small fish free into the ocean. That means that PCLinuxOS would have to come to Ubuntu and not the other way around. If Canonical wants the future of Kubuntu to be in very strong hands this

This would also be the “easy way out”. If Canonical were to consider this, it would in some peoples’ perspective, make them look a little ‘anxious’ as well. I don’t think they have learned their lesson yet though, have they? PCLinuxOS took Ubuntu by the storm and overtook Ubuntu on Distrowatch (which I believe does hold a decent stand when in deciding who uses what) at one point of time. That ‘period’ involved using the KDE version of PCLinuxOS which thus increased the usage of KDE indirectly as well. KDE was a hit so why does Kubuntu still have one lead developer? I have not written this to merely ask for an increase in the number of Kubuntu developers.

Its strange that I haven’t mentioned that dissolving PCLinuxOS would be something they would have to do in order to clinch the deal. The PCLinuxOS developers would gain experience working with a larger user base and we know Ubuntu is good in providing commercial support as well when needed so I see it as a positive for the PCLOS developers as well. It paints a pretty picture in the minds of the neutrals I must say. The unifying force would have to be open-source and that alone will keep the project together. But what is Linux and the spirit of open-source? One big community working hard together. If the two parties were to by chances see this idea the way I do, then there would probably be something to consider. Trolltech came along one day to pick up KDE, providing complete backing and helping to turn KDE into what it is today. With things looking promising with the Nokia deal and Qt 4.4, lets stand up for a new distribution revolution, shall we?

Disclaimer: I am simply fantasizing about such a takeover and it would indeed be wonderful if it actually worked out. I do not know how Canonical and PCLOS would be able to settle it, but if done, it would be another step in the right direction, to bigger and greater things… in Linux. Sometimes, a takeover isn’t about money, its about sharing a vision.

Update: At this point of time I would like to say that I did not mean to be controversial or anything like at times some bloggers do to attract attention. I merely wished to share an idea (even admitting that I am fantasizing) and gauge your opinion on it. That said, I would like to raise my hat to those who read or commented on this post because I did realize I said “bought” and this could have been interpreted in an inflammatory way, so I wish to just keep it clearer by saying “acquired.” I know that this would indeed lead to one of the distributions losing its identity and I also wish to emphasize again that I have a lot of respect for the PCLinuxOS community and I do not consider it a minority. What I did not mention before is that I do dislike Ubuntu and I do not like that Canonical hasn’t given Kubuntu the support it needs and have hinted it in my previous post as well.

I share the sentiments of the users who have commented when they imply that Canonical needs to take a good look at itself and lend a hand to Kubuntu. I realize that you do not need to have major backing to be successful. PCLinuxOS is doing a wonderful job I must say again. This post simply suggested uniting two parties however it would mean making a sacrifice. It also shows that PCLinuxOS deserves to have the backing of a powerful company to give it a financial advantage that would indeed take it to the next level. It deserves better marketing and so does Mint as has been rightly pointed out in the first comment below.

On the subject of the base of both distributions (Debian or Mandriva) and considering a question of merging them I’d like to say that I would not be able to decide which. Neither would any of you users. That is why I clearly said that for this deal to go through if it was even considered by both parties, it would need to be agreed upon by both parties. Finally to the user who said that Distrowatch numbers aren’t indicative of a distribution’s popularity. It is true to a good extent and I do not wish to take a side about its validity because that isn’t the point of this post. However judging by the response to this post, I would have to point out that there have been more PCLinuxOS users than (K)Ubuntu users who have had a say about this idea.

That said, I would just like to wish both distributions the very best for the future and I hope they manage to satisfy their respective user-bases.

~ by SoftVision on February 16, 2008.