Amazuntu

It’s no secret that there has been a lot of controversy surrounding Canonical’s latest efforts to monetize Ubuntu.  Since integrating Amazon search results in Unity’s Dash, there has been a seemingly 50/50 backlash in the user community over the idea.  That opposing faction of users have been vocal enough to inspire a toggle switch so that users are able to turn the results on or off, which seems to be more than fair.

Deviant Artist albaux has taken another approach with freedom of speech and has made a clever wallpaper that pokes fun at the partnership.  If it unknown at this point whether or not this wallpaper is designed in protest of the partnership or just good old fashioned fun with the Gimp.  Either way, we think it’s mighty clever and good for a laugh.

Of course this has already started to cause conversation on Deviant Art already, with most commentors simply giving it a pleasant nod of approval.  Others have been more eager to echo negative sentiments we’ve already been hearing over the past couple of weeks, though not distasteful or out-of-bounds by any stretch.  Deviant user XavUK had this to say:

Nice one 

(FWIW I don’t have a problem with them offering affiliate links, but as often seems to be the case with Canonical’s design decisions they’ve gone about it the wrong way and just managed to annoy the very people they need to support their OS)

Good, wholesome comedy

There is a lot of room to expand on this and take the joke a little further.  In fact, it would be quite simply for many users to quickly make a custom spin of Ubuntu 12.10 with this as the default wallpaper.  I’ll admit that this is pretty tempting, though I might save my efforts on this one.

That said, what do you think of this?  Is Ubuntu doing the right thing in trying to monetize its offering or is it taking advantage of users all over the world.  Tell us what you think in the comments.

Source | DevianART