Closed Design or No Design? Something is better than nothing.

"As a practitioner and someone who has managed design teams, I have to agree with this move. It is a hard decision especially in open source but sometimes you have to make an attempt to balance the signal:noise ratio.

"Last December, Ubuntu came under fire when they unveiled the Notify-OSD design which was developed behind closed and locked doors. In response to the criticism of closed design, the Ayatana project was founded as a way of opening Ubuntu design processes and providing a way for others to participate. However, as with many mailing lists, the value in opening design and having a public forum is questionable as to how much value it provides compared to the overhead of managing noise."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• Ubuntu Podcast Interviews Mark Shuttleworth(Apr 03, 2009)
• KDE4 overtaking GNOME in terms of usability?(Oct 16, 2009)
• Shuttleworth at LinuxCon: Will Ubuntu Lead Free Software?(Oct 07, 2009)
• F/OSS Marketing: Attracting Users AND Contributors(Sep 29, 2009)
• Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software (Sep 12, 2009)
• The GNU/Linux Desktop and Borrowed Assumptions about Usability(Sep 04, 2009)