14 DAY TRIAL // The Ubuntu community is having a vivacious discussion regarding the placement of the window buttons on the left side. From the looks of it, some users would prefer to have the option of moving the buttons to the right side.
Not a lot of people noticed, but it's no longer possible to move the windows buttons (close, minimize, and maximize) to right side. Canonical made some changes to the window manager a while back and introduced stuff like borderless windows, rounded corners, and antialiasing. A collateral damage from that decision was that the buttons could no longer be moved.
Canonical was already shipping Ubuntu with the buttons on the left side by default for some time, so not a lot of people were affected by this decision. It's a not a topic of conversation that pops up, but the discussions on the official mailing list are quite intense, and a lot of good points were made.
Buttons on the right side are a thing of the past
At least in the case of Ubuntu, it makes more sense to have the buttons on the left rather than on the right. It's closer to the Unity launch, which you can't move. So, in theory, the movements of the mouse should be shorter.
There are a number of users out there that say the buttons are on the wrong side, especially the ones who are also using or used a Windows OS. The main problem is that Ubuntu no longer allows users to move the buttons. It's a just a problem of prioritizing. It takes a lot of work, and they have more important things to do.
In any case, you check the mailing list discussion and see if you have anything to add. Who knows, maybe if enough people make this request, the developers will notice that it's an important issue.