The founder of Canonical is holding out a hand

May 6, 2015 13:11 GMT  ·  By

Mark Shuttleworth had a very interesting keynote at the opening of the Ubuntu Online Summit for 15.10, and he said the developers from all the desktop environments should work together towards a common goal.

One of the most important aspects that Linux is criticized for is the fact that there are too many desktop environments, and the developers are not working towards a single goal. Each team sits its corner and enjoys doing what they want. Some people feel that this is the wrong approach, and others feel that this kind of separation gives Linux the power it has.

Canonical is making some big waves right now with its phone OS, the Snappy packages, Ubuntu Snappy Core, Mir, Unity 8, and a ton of other stuff. It's safe to say that they have their plate full and that they are at the forefront. It's not hard to understand why Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical, would extend an invitation to other developers, from other projects.

Collaboration would be a great idea, but it's unlikely any significant will happen

Mark Shuttleworth explained why a collaboration between various Linux projects would be a good idea at this moment. He feels that the industry is at a crossroads and that the PC landscape is being disturbed by the progress made on the mobile platform.

"There is a reasonable prospect that if we work together, as a community and we are opened, and were focused, generous, thoughtful, and our story is great, that we can, in fact, bring all the worlds applications to a free software platform. So, I'm issuing a call to people who participate in every desktop environment [...] to set aside our differences, to recognize that the opportunity now is bigger than those differences, to create experiences that spans phones and tablets, and PCs, to bring all of our applications, none of which are on one desktop environment or another," said Mark Shuttleworth.

You can check the entire keynote of Mark Shuttleworth below.