Ubuntu is for everyone, not only for newbies (was: Delay auto-updates of software to reduce downtime)

[Alexander Jacob Tsykin]

On Friday 22 September 2006 19:52, Jan Claeys wrote:
> Op vr, 22-09-2006 te 09:17 +1000, schreef Alexander Jacob Tsykin:
> > Ubuntu must provide a solution which works for it starget
> > market, which is not techno geeks. While I use the command line regularly
> > formany things including compiling from source, I am not the target
> > market of Ubuntu and should not be treated as such.
>
> Why do people keep spreading the false statement that Ubuntu has *only*
> newbie GUI-only users as its target market?  It's not true, Ubuntu is
> for everyone, including both "techno geeks" and newbies, and thus such
> statements make things difficult for Ubuntu advocates (and the marketing
> team).
>
Ultimately, somebody with Linux expertise is not really going to need what 
Ubuntu offers in terms of ease of use features. If we think about it for a 
minute, for those people, Ubuntu offers nothing over Debian. I think that 
people who Ubuntu really appeals to are the people who are already using it, 
obviously, and people who don't have an in depth Linux knowledge because it 
is easy to use. I learned about Linux from Ubuntu, but had I learned from 
another distribution, say Fedora, and reached my current level of expertise, 
I doubt that I would have bothered changing, because once I learn a 
distribution well, it's harder for me to change than it is for me to simply 
put up with or fix whatever minor flaws my distribution of choice might have. 
Ubuntu should and does seem to aim for people who have not reached that level 
yet, particularly as it is making some fairly fundamental changes which would 
require experts to relearn, something they are rarely willing to do, 
particularly when they are happy with the status quo, e.g. replacing 
sysv-init with upstart in edgy. It is important to remember target market. 
It's what leads to success. I cannot offhand think of any things about Ubuntu 
which will appeal uniquely to the experienced Linux user among all 
distributions, unless he learnt about Linux using Ubuntu. I can think of a 
great many reasons it might appeal to those with a less advanced knowledge of 
Linux, quite uniquely.

Sasha