Ubuntu 18.04 LTS To Use GNOME By Default; Unity 8 And The Phone To Be Discontinued

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS will go back to using GNOME as the default desktop environment, instead of Unity.

In what comes as a big surprise for many, Mark Shuttleworh, the founder of Ubuntu and Canonical, explains on the Ubuntu Insights website that Canonical is ending their "investment in Unity8, the phone and convergence shell".

Existing LTS releases will continue to be maintained, so Unity 7 should still see some bug fixes in the future. However, with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (to be released in April, 2018), the default desktop environment will be GNOME.

While Mark doesn't explicitly says "GNOME Shell", I assume that's what he means, especially since Unity 7 has been in maintenance mode for quite a few Ubuntu releases.

"I took the view that, if convergence was the future and we could deliver it as free software, that would be widely appreciated both in the free software community and in the technology industry, where there is substantial frustration with the existing, closed, alternatives available to manufacturers. I was wrong on both counts.
In the community, our efforts were seen fragmentation not innovation. And industry has not rallied to the possibility, instead taking a ‘better the devil you know’ approach to those form factors, or investing in home-grown platforms. What the Unity8 team has delivered so far is beautiful, usable and solid, but I respect that markets, and community, ultimately decide which products grow and which disappear".

- Mark Shuttleworth

Check out the complete article HERE.

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