14 DAY TRIAL // With Ubuntu 10.10 barely out the door, Canonical and the Ubuntu community are already looking at its successor Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal. Technically, development for the next release of the popular Linux distro has already begun, but the strategy and goals for Natty Narwhal will be laid out during the Ubuntu Developers Summit next week.
The Ubuntu 11.04 Developers Summit will start Monday, 25th of October and will run until Friday the 29th. Interested developers and companies will gather in Orlando, Florida to discuss plans for the upcoming release.
But, if you're not able to attend the sessions in person, you will be able to watch at least part of the discussion live online.
For the first time ever, Mark Shuttleworth's opening keynote will be streamed live for all Ubuntu developers and fans to watch. Ubuntu's creator will be discussing the main directions of Ubuntu development for this next stage as well as the big goals for Ubuntu 11.04
"What continues to make Ubuntu special is the global community involved in every step of its design and development. UDS is vital to that process by gathering all of the contributors to Ubuntu in a few rooms – and now virtually," Rick Spencer, Ubuntu Engineering Director at Canonical, said.
"We're always looking for smart, creative people to add to the community, and this is a great opportunity for them to see what's possible by working on Ubuntu," he added.
Some of the early indicators say that the upcoming release will focus on the fit and finish of the product, to create a more streamline and pleasant experience.
The Ubuntu visual theme has been overhauled in Ubuntu 10.04 and updated 10.10 and is already a big improvement over the previous ones.
There will also be more focus on creating a better release for the ARM platform, increasingly used in mobile devices and very recently for 'greener' servers and data centers.