Shuttleworth's Position: "Less Is More!"
Mark Shuttleworth has expressed in his blog why he considers his motto "Less is More" to be important. He has applied it to certain design decisions for Ubuntu 10.04.
Hardly has the blush fallen from the issues of window decorations and button arrangements when another topic of interest has hit the discussion mill in the Ubuntu community - the missing tooltips in GNOME panels. While opponents of the change charge that Ubuntu is thereby less user-friendly, proponents counter with the "clean up!" argument.
Shuttleworth has now once again affirmed his decision in his blog with his favorite expression "less is more." As he said, "It turns out that all of those extras add some value, but they also add clutter. There's a real cost to them - in attention, in space, in code, in QA." He stands by his decision, even if time will tell whether they were made with the best thought in mind:
"I apologise in advance for the mistakes that I will certainly make, and which others on the design team may make too, but I think it's important to defend our willingness to pare things back and let the core, essential goodness shine through. We have to balance innovation and change with clarification and focus. We can't *stop* innovating and changing, and we have to be willing to remove things that someone will miss."
At the same time, Shuttleworth remarked that generally much too little emphasis was put on design in the past and that he was glad it was getting some attention lately. Here, too, he defended the decisions of his team: "It's hard to bring clarity in a crowd. Or mob."
Shuttleworth encouraged everyone to participate in bug reports and the discussion as a whole, with constructive criticism sought even in the Ayatana mailing list.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
openSUSE Tumbleweed Ditches AppArmor for SELinux
If you're an openSUSE Tumbleweed user, you can expect a major change to the distribution.
-
Plasma 6.3 Now Available
Plasma desktop v6.3 has a couple of pretty nifty tricks up its sleeve.
-
LibreOffice 25.2 Has Arrived
If you've been hoping for a release that offers more UI customizations, you're in for a treat.
-
TuxCare Has a Big AlmaLinux 9 Announcement in Store
TuxCare announced it has successfully completed a Security Technical Implementation Guide for AlmaLinux OS 9.
-
First Release Candidate for Linux Kernel 6.14 Now Available
Linus Torvalds has officially released the first release candidate for kernel 6.14 and it includes over 500,000 lines of modified code, making for a small release.
-
System76 Refreshes Meerkat Mini PC
If you're looking for a small form factor PC powered by Linux, System76 has exactly what you need in the Meerkat mini PC.
-
Gnome 48 Alpha Ready for Testing
The latest Gnome desktop alpha is now available with plenty of new features and improvements.
-
Wine 10 Includes Plenty to Excite Users
With its latest release, Wine has the usual crop of bug fixes and improvements, along with some exciting new features.
-
Linux Kernel 6.13 Offers Improvements for AMD/Apple Users
The latest Linux kernel is now available, and it includes plenty of improvements, especially for those who use AMD or Apple-based systems.
-
Gnome 48 Debuts New Audio Player
To date, the audio player found within the Gnome desktop has been meh at best, but with the upcoming release that all changes.