Next after Natty?
Monday, March 7th, 2011The naming of cats is a difficult matter
It isn’t just one of your holiday games.
– T S Eliot, The Naming of Cats
For the next cycle, I think we’ll leave the oceanic theme behind. The “oddball octopus”, for example, is a great name but not one we’ll adopt this time around. Perhaps in 13 years time, though!
The objective is to capture the essence of our next six months work in a simple name. Inevitably there’s an obliquity, or offbeat opportunism in the result. And perhaps this next release more than most requires something other than orthodoxy – the skunkworks are in high gear right now. Fortunately I’m assured that if one of Natty’s successors is a skunk, it would at least be a sassy skunk!
So we’re looking for a name that conveys mysterious possibility, with perhaps an ounce of overt oracular content too. Nothing too opaque, ornate, odious or orotund. Something with an orderly ring to it, in celebration of the crisp clean cadence by which we the community bring Ubuntu forth.
There’s something neat in the idea that 11.10 will mark eight years since Ubuntu was conceived (it took a little longer to be born). So “octennial” might suit… but that would be looking backwards, and we should have an eye on the future, not the past. Hmm… an eye on the future, perhaps ocular? Or oculate? We’re certainly making our way up the S-curve of adoption, so perhaps ogee would do the trick?
Alternatively, we could celebrate the visual language of Ubuntu with the “orange okapi”, or the welcoming nature of our community with the “osculant orangutan”. Nothing hugs quite like dholbach, though, and he’s no hairy ape.
What we want is something imaginative, something dreamy. Something sleek and neat, too. Something that has all the precision of T S Eliot’s poetry, matched with the “effable ineffability” of our shared values, friendship and expertise. Something that captures both the competence of ubuntu-devel with the imagination of ayatana.
Which leads us neatly to the Oneiric Ocelot.
Oneiric means “dreamy”, and the combination with Ocelot reminds me of the way innovation happens: part daydream, part discipline.
We’ll need to keep up the pace of innovation on all fronts post-Natty. Our desktop has come together beautifully, and in the next release we’ll complete the cycle of making it available to all users, with a 2D experience to complement the OpenGL based Unity for those with the hardware to handle it. The introduction of Qt means we’ll be giving developers even more options for how they can produce interfaces that are both functional and aesthetically delightful.
In the cloud, we’ll have to tighten up and make some firm decisions about the platforms we can support for 12.04 LTS. UDS in Budapest will be full of feisty debate on that front, I’m sure, but I’m equally sure we can reach a pragmatic consensus and start to focus our energies on delivering the platform for widespread cloud computing on free and flexible terms.
Ubuntu is now shipping on millions of systems from multiple providers every year. It makes a real difference in the lives of millions, perhaps tens of millions, of people. As MPT said, “what we do is not only art, it’s performance art”. Every six months the curtains part, and we have to be ready for the performance. I’d like to thank the thousands of people who are actively participating in the production of Natty: take the initiative, take responsibility, take action, and your work will make a difference to all of those users. There are very few places in the world where a personal intellectual contribution can have that kind of impact. And very few places where we have such a strong social fabric around those intellectual challenges, too. We each do what we do for our own reasons, but it’s the global impact of Ubuntu which gives meaning to that action.
Natty is a stretch release: we set out to redefine the look and feel of the free desktop. We’ll need all the feedback we can get, so please test today’s daily, or A3, and file bug reports! Keep up the discipline and focus on the Narwhal, and let’s direct our daydreaming to the Ocelot.
March 9th, 2011 at 1:29 am
we Brazilians have suggestions for names like:
perereca panicats
quejada quantica
rinousscerus reluzent’s
sapus sabugus
tipicus taradus
umbiguo umbigus
viadus afrescalhadus
do you like, Mark “unpronounceable name” Shuttleworth
;-))
Please: Please remember the Brazilian fauna. but use a decent name…
March 9th, 2011 at 2:11 am
[…] Shuttleworth, fundador del proyecto Ubuntu anunció a través de su blog oficial el nombre de la nueva versión (11.10) de su sistema operativo, se trata de “Oneiric Ocelot”, […]
March 9th, 2011 at 4:31 am
[…] Publicado el marzo 9, 2011 por Develux Como lo anunciara Mark Shuttleworth en un post en su blog, a dado a conocer el nuevo nombre para la version de Ubuntu que saldrá a la luz el próximo […]
March 9th, 2011 at 4:44 am
[…] Quer ler o artigo do Mark então clica aqui. […]
March 9th, 2011 at 9:13 am
[…] […]
March 9th, 2011 at 11:15 am
My question still is what will be next after Ubuntu 17.04 (that might be as well called “Zesty Zonure” for instance)
Then what? Start over from A to Z again?
March 9th, 2011 at 1:35 pm
we have more names for brazilian fauna…
Minhoca Mexilhona;
Tatu Temático;
Jegue Jagunçado
Lesma Lerda
Arara Arruaceira
Besta Bastarda
Bode Beligerante
Onça Ovacionada
Tamanduá Telúrico
Esquilo Esmerado
Jararaca Jactante
Perereca Pública
Gato Guinorante
March 9th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
[…] שטלוורת’ כותב בבלוגו שבגרסה זו, אובונטו 11.10, ימשיכו לעבוד ולפתח את סביבת […]
March 9th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
[…] Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical, has a fantastic blog post that discusses how the developers of Ubuntu arrived at Oneiric Ocelot. Oddball Octopus was almost chosen, because it has been eight years since Ubuntu was first […]
March 9th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
[…] sales were there. I’ve been told by sources both at Dell and Canonical that pre-installed Ubuntu Linux PC sales alone have been in the millions. That may not be a lot compared to Windows, but given how hard most PC companies have made it to […]
March 9th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
[…] Shuttleworth bejelentette, hogy a következő, várhatóan idén ősszel megjelenő Ubuntu kiadás az Oneiric Ocelot […]
March 9th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
If Natty and successors will be based on Qt, why didn’t Shuttleworth aquire Qt instead of the licensing shell who got it a little while ago? Couldn’t he just buy them out and put it straight in the hands of the foundation, so it can live happily like LibreOffice?
March 9th, 2011 at 7:28 pm
[…] Mit Staunen wie Verzweifeln. Aber das ist eine gänzlich andere Geschichte. Nun plaudert eben Mark Shuttleworth in seinem Blog über die Zukunft von […]
March 9th, 2011 at 8:17 pm
[…] sales were there. I’ve been told by sources both at Dell and Canonical that pre-installed Ubuntu Linux PC sales alone have been in the millions. That may not be a lot compared to Windows, but given how hard most PC companies have made it to […]
March 9th, 2011 at 9:24 pm
[…] сообщении «Next After Natty?» в своем блоге Шаттлворт описывает цели следующей […]
March 9th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
[…] publicó en su página Mark Shuttleworth, CEO de Canonical, con el nombre Oneric Ocelot buscan capturar la esencia del trabajo de la […]
March 9th, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Meow, had my heart set on “Odd Ox” but guess it’s time to start practicing this one phonetically “oh-nee-rick oss-a-lot”.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Salvador_Dali_NYWTS.jpg
March 10th, 2011 at 1:04 am
[…] quote diatas dari blog Mark Shuttleworth, Oneiric berarti impian, sesuatu yang bisa dicapai hanya dengan kerja keras – begitu saya […]
March 10th, 2011 at 4:06 am
http://ray-tm.deviantart.com/art/Pavibuntu-icons-198334752
should think about the next icons.
March 10th, 2011 at 6:36 pm
[…] on Ubuntu 11.10 are “in high gear right now,” Shuttleworth wrote in a blog post […]
March 10th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
[…] Pues bien, el nuevo Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, puede traducirse, según el encargado de la empresa (Mark Shuttleworth), en una simplificación de esto: “En parte soñar despierto, y disciplina en parte“. O sea, atreverse a soñar, innovar y mantener un ritmo disciplinado de trabajo para desarrollar y crear estos increíbles sueños y hacerlos realidad (al menos así es como lo entiendo), esto lo explica en su blog personal. […]
March 11th, 2011 at 10:17 am
I am seriously looking forward to this release, and I’m loving the name!
March 12th, 2011 at 6:05 am
[…] (omgubuntu.co.uk)Canonical tips Oneiric Ocelot release amid Ubuntu controversy (linuxfordevices.com)Next after Natty? (markshuttleworth.com)The end of Ubuntu Netbook edition (omgubuntu.co.uk) var […]
March 12th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
[…] Se llamara Oneiric Ocelot según lo informa desde su blog Traducido al español sera Ocelote Onírico. […]
March 13th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
[…] блогоороо дамжуулан 11.10 хувилбар ямар байх талаар өөрийн төсөөллийг хуваалцсан байна. Мөн хувилбарыг Oneiric Ocelot хэмээн […]