Seven Projects Killed by Ubuntu (but I Still Miss Them)
hubie writes:
Ubuntu 9.04 was my first distribution. Back in 2009, I was a post-grad student at Politecnico di Torino and we had an Operating Systems class in the curriculum. As this course relied heavily on Linux and thus I kind of forced myself to replace Windows 7 with Ubuntu 9.04. I borrowed the CD from a friend. And yes, CDs were used for operating system installation at that time.
That was 16 years ago. I have not looked back since then. Linux has been the primary operating system on my personal computer. And Ubuntu has been my choice of distro for the most part of it.
And I have seen the transition Ubuntu has taken since then. I was there to see new projects launched by Canonical and not take off, sadly.
This article here is a trip down the memory lane. From Ubuntu One to Ubuntu Unity, all those experimental ideas that could not sustain and were eventually discounted.
Ubuntu One: The iCloud for Ubuntu
Ubuntu One still exists but not in the same format and doesn't have the same features it was once created for.
Today, it's just a single sign on (SSO), a way to log in to Ubuntu related online accounts to be used with websites like Ask Ubuntu, Ubuntu Community forum, Ubuntu Pro account etc.
Back then, Ubuntu One was a lot more. It was equivalent to Apple's iCloud. I think iCloud was the inspiration behind it. Ubuntu wanted to give you a unified, connected experience. Cloud storage was at the beginning stage and so was streaming music.
Ubuntu One account gave you 5 GB of free cloud storage with provison to buy more storage if required. You could save your contacts and automatically backup images taken from your Android smartphone. You could also sync Tomboy notes and some other application data (if the apps supported them) between two Ubuntu computers. [...]
Ubuntu One Music Store: iTunes's Ubuntu version
I did not mention it in the earlier sections, but Ubuntu also sold music through the Ubuntu One mechanism.
As I said, it (seemed to be) modeled on iCloud. Back in 2010, streaming music was still a few years away. People bought digital copies of their favorite songs through platforms like iTunes.
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