Congratulations and thanks to the entire extended Ubuntu community for today’s release of Ubuntu 13.04, the Raring Ringtail. Feedback over the past few months on raring has been fantastic – pretty much universal recognition of the performance and quality initiatives Rick’s team have led and which have been embraced across the platform and the community.

In the work to underpin a rolling release, we made huge strides in automated quality assessment and performance testing. From here on out, I’m going to treat the cutting edge of Ubuntu as a rolling release, because the team have done such an amazing job of making daily quality a reality. That’s a value that we have all adopted, and the project is much better off for it.

Slipping the phrase ‘ring ring’ into the codename of 13.04 was, frankly, a triumph of linguistic engineering. And I thought I might quit on a high… For a while, there was the distinct possibility that Rick’s Rolling Release Rodeo would absolve me of the  twice-annual rite of composition that goes into the naming of a new release. That, together with the extent of my travels these past few months, have left me a little short in the research department. I usually spend a few weekend afternoons doodling with a dictionary (it’s actually quite a blast, and I recently had the pleasure of actually knowing what some ponce was talking about when they described something as ‘rugose’).

So today I find myself somewhat short in the naming department, which is to say, I have a name, but not the soliloquy that usually goes with it!

Which is why, upon not very deep reflection, I would like to introduce you to our mascot for the next six months, the saucy salamander.

The salamander is one of nature’s most magical creatures; they are a strong indicator of a pristine environment, which is a fitting way to describe the new world emerging around Ubuntu Touch – new applications, a new SDK, a gorgeous clean interface. You’ll find salamanders swimming in clear, clean upstreams – which is exactly what’s forming around Ubuntu’s mobile ecosystem. It’s a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the tremendous community that has joined the effort to create a single unified experience from phone to PC, with tons of crisp and stylish core apps made by people from all over the world who want to build something fast, fresh and free. And we’re saucy too – life’s too short to be stodgy or stilted. Our work is our play – we make amazing things for a huge audience, we find space for pretty much every flavour of interface and do it with style.

Happy release day everyone! Here’s to a super saucy cycle.

37 Responses to “The Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Scorpionfish. Not.”

  1. Rick Spencer Says:

    Rugose: Having many wrinkles or creases; ridged or wrinkled

    I think 13.04 is our best release yet, and I am pumped about Saucy!

  2. Vibhav Pant Says:

    I can just imagine writing “saucy” in all of my changelogs 😀

  3. NoahY Says:

    At the risk of being stodgy, it should be: “life’s to*o* short”

    Congratulations Ubuntu, 13.04 is top notch!

  4. mark Says:

    Good catch, thanks!

  5. ssorbom Says:

    Mr. Shuttleworth,
    Congratulations on Raring!

    If I may ask though:
    I have always wondered something about your naming scheme. What will happen after Ubuntu reaches “Z”?

  6. Shrikant Says:

    http://www.saucysalamander.com

    There’s already something!

  7. Robert Says:

    I like it! BTW what will the naming scheme become after Z?

  8. Matthew Says:

    13.04 is seriously, good stuff! Looking forward to my mobile future on Ubuntu.

  9. JayDee Says:

    Another step twords the next LTS! super exciting stuff!
    Mark can I give you and everyone at canonical a high five?

  10. Ali Najafi Says:

    LOL was my first reaction to your post title first I saw! 😀
    Raring Ringtail’s quality made release date meaningless for me! Because it’s more than two months I’m using it “daily”, however I’m not a developer. Sounds strange: daily builds for daily use!
    I’m a real raring to see the highest quality in next releases.

    Whenever you talk about tremendous community and their efforts I get impressed. It’s not so long that I’m with Ubuntu – I’ve been since Unity – but I fell in love with it and the philosophy behind Ubuntu and Canonical since the first day.

  11. Flopsy Says:

    Sleek, Slinky and always sure Ubuntu will succeed. Soaring surely skyward.
    Great Release!

  12. Kevin Smith Says:

    Hi Mark,

    Can you elaborate alittle more on this statement :

    ‘In the work to underpin a rolling release, we made huge strides in automated quality assessment and performance testing. From here on our, I’m going to treat the cutting edge of Ubuntu as a rolling release, because the team have done such an amazing job of making daily quality a reality.’

    Is the long term plan to move to a rolling release now? Or is there a method where we can stay on the developmental releases so our systems are automatically upgraded as 13.10 is developed?

    Regards,

    Kevin

  13. SaucySmurf Says:

    A small request, please consider using the numbers (13.10) as the formal names. It’s always a mess trying to find packages, images, install instructions etc. for versions a few releases back. I frequently work with older installs or applications designed to run on one particular version etc. I have more than one time found myself without google access trying to figure out what silly animal was used for a particular release.

    Not to mention the looks you get from managers if you happen to mention some of the names.. “the softwware running our critical servers is called WHAT you said?”. If they compare something named Professional Server 2008 to something called Saucy Salamander the argument of free or anything else you say past that point doesn’t really take you very far…

  14. Alex Says:

    Well done, another awesome name!
    Can’t wait to see the logo and goodies, design geek that i am.

  15. PePa Says:

    OK, if catching is appreciated, then:
    have lead -> have led
    here on our -> here on out
    🙂

  16. Zach Says:

    This is the first Shuttleworth announcement in the last few months I could wholeheartedly agree with!

  17. Kushal Says:

    Oh man… I look forward to the soliloquies every six months. Please don’t drop the ball on these Mark!

  18. Marcos Oliveira Says:

    I want to congratulate all the team behind the ubuntu. I have been using it for three years. I confess that at first I did not really have delighted with unity, but then I realized where the project wanted to take ubuntu. Today is my hope that we can take ubuntu for many people. I am a student of computer science in Brazil, not a linux expert, and ubuntu has been on my computers since I started university, thanks for your work, I know it’s not easy. I wanted to place an order, please quickly publish a book on Qt quick. A book for beginners help us a lot.

  19. Ahmad Bilal Says:

    Congratulations on a great release. The next one should be named Terrific Tortoise – because it will be a terrific release with the potential of being the slow and steady tortoise who managed to finish first in the race against the arrogant hare. 🙂

  20. trev Says:

    Can’t wait to try it, and thank you. 5 years ago I took up Ubuntu as a person with a curiosity about open source software. 5 years later I feel confident in saying I’m a web application developer. Ubuntu just makes it so easy to jump in with just a simple sudo apt get [whatever]. This is the technology that makes me feel good about the future.

  21. gnumonk Says:

    Mark,
    As I see that Unity is growing fast and smooth on Ubuntu platform . I would like to know that what is the plan to port it to other OS like Debian or no plan so far?

    Congratulations for new release.

  22. Ali Najafi Says:

    What can be worse than my first comment in your website is flagged as spam?!

  23. Jeffrey Thompson Says:

    Nice job on the new Raring Ringtail Ubuntu release 13.04. I look forward to seeing what you will come up with next. (hint: TV Edition!)

  24. Rodrigo Silva Says:

    I liked the name a lot, but when I searched for “saucy salamander”, to read news and repercussions about the new name/release, the very first google hit is…

    Saucy Salamander Cafe and Catering Services
    http://www.saucysalamander.com

    :O

    It is very unfortunate to have a release name that is *exactly* the name of an unrelated existing place, specially given their website url.

    I’m sure that very soon Ubuntu’s 13.10 will completely eclipse a small cafe in Maryland in search engines, but it’s still a sad coincidence, one that, AFAIK, never happened in any other Ubuntu release.

  25. Lawrence H. Bulk Says:

    Dear Mr. Shuttleworth:

    Just a suggestion for v.14.04 – Twitchy Turtledove.

    I can’t thank you enough for making Ubuntu and its variants (my wife and I use Xubuntu and Ubuntu Studio) available to everyone and for improving the usability with each new release.

    Lawrence H. Bulk

  26. primefalcon Says:

    In the second paragraph you said…..

    “From here on our, I’m going to treat…..”

    I think you meant ‘out’ instead of ‘our’ right?

  27. Neil Y Says:

    That’s a bit dull. Solipsistic Scorpion would be a more lively sort of name.

  28. dguitarbite Says:

    \m/. Ubuntu has changed my life by bringing me to Linux and FOSS world. Feels great to know that its going to be in my first smart phone (when I buy one)

  29. Richard Says:

    How about ubuntu implement a built in remote support and screen sharing app like teamviewer or a tunneling VNC. This would be an epic feature for the OS and great for phones and tablets to have out of the box.

    -R

  30. Warwick Says:

    Mark

    Your posts are notably impeccable so allow me to be a pedant: “From here on our” should be “From here on out” …

    Raring is *much* faster and runs cooler on my Lenovo X301. I’m stoked and very excited for Mir and Touch.

    -W

  31. Nguyễn Thanh Toàn Says:

    Mark Shuttleworth, does your company Canonical Ltd have subsidiary in the country where you were born South Africa?

  32. matzipan Says:

    Speedy Shuttleworth would’ve sounded way better, and Superb Sloth would’ve made it a internet sensation straight away!

  33. Patrick Says:

    Hello mark,
    Good job with ubuntu 13.04 it’s the best release since i’ve bee starting using ubuntu(10.04).But it will be better if ubuntu can have all the necessary package for a fresh install(build-essential,openjdk, ubuntu-restricted-extras) and if possible the support of optimus(preinstalled) on recent laptops.Here in africa we don’t have real time internet and some are low, then you see how it’s painful to reinstall the distribution you love the most and start programming or listen music, you need to find have access to internet to download all stufs.I believe in the future of ubuntu as the best os in the world ,
    thanks you for all!

    Patrick T.

  34. tumutanzi Says:

    I will keep using my Ubuntu 12.04 for the next five years. Thank you, Ubuntu.

  35. foo Says:

    Why don’t you hire the Linux Mint guys to take care of Ubuntu UI?

    They really know how to make a beautiful desktop!

  36. mark Says:

    Appreciated, and fixed!

  37. mark Says:

    @Kevin, yes, there will be a way to configure your software sources so you roll on the development edge, and also, we are hooking up our testing suite so that package updates don’t migrate to the development edge if they break tests in dependencies.