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Comment by jiggy2011 | Hacker News Reader

jiggy2011

I wish Ubuntu would stop trying to be a cut price Apple.

Having said that from these screen shots it doesn't look like a terrible interface.

Will this be a distribution you install on a PC then plug into your computer or will it come on a dedicated boxed device?

If it's the former than how is this much different from the hundreds of other Linux media distributions?

If they are going in this direction it really looks like they are moving away from being a Linux distribution company and towards being a more general consumer electronics company in the vein of Sony of Philips.

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To me Canonical and Apple have always been very different. Canonical has no doubt drawn much inspiration from Apple in their user interface elements but I feel from there the comparison really tapers off. Canonical provides services. Apple sells products. Canonical sees value in attaching services like training and maintenance on top of free(as in beer and freedom), open source software. Apple sells hardware and closed source software.

This release is fully inline with that type of strategy. Canonical gives manufacturers the software that's completely modifiable, with sensible defaults, and free. Then provides training and support at a cost to anyone that needs it.

I don't know, I guess I feel that most of the comparisons between the companies are based on a very superficial user interface standpoint. They are quite different, with quite different goals, quite different values and quite different products. But they do both have windows with rounded corners.

Canonical are building an OS for TVs and are talking about building others for tablets and phones.

Who are they going to sell training and support to? I don't really think many people are going to be wanting to go a training course to operate their TV or smartphone.

How do they intend to make their money using this? The only way I can think is by making their own hardware or taking a cut from someone elses hardware.

Either that or doing movie purchase / rental which will probably mean DRM.

The people integrating it into their TV hardware will need consultancy services, not the end-users.

I can't imagine providing a few support services to a handful of TV manufacturers is much of a business model especially since they have the option of not using the support at all or only using it a small number of times until they have enough in house knowledge not to need it anymore or they have customized the setup to the extent that canonical can no longer support it.

It doesn't have the same potential as the server market where there are 1000s of various size companies using Linux servers with different configurations.

If I was developing some software to be integrated into hardware devices I'd want either a license fee payed per month/year to use the software or I'd want a cut from each box sold.

The only way they could achieve this is by making their TV software proprietary.

> Canonical shares post-purchase services revenue from the sale of content, applications and subscriptions through Ubuntu TV products with OEM’s and distribution / channel partners.

From: http://www.ubuntu.com/tv/commercial-info

If it is indeed something that can be installed onto a PC, one key difference between this and the other media distributions may be whether it is cablecard certified. From what I understand, you need to be in order to receive encrypted HD broadcasts over cable tv. This is what I am looking for.

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