Contributing to Ubuntu = Working for Canonical for free?

[Santaji]

This thought occurred to me some time ago, Canonical owns the Ubuntu trademarks, Canonical markets/advertises Ubuntu, They earn money from Ubuntu by providing support services for it, And through Ubuntu One which is a part of the OS. They make all the major decisions and stuff.
So when somebody contributes something to Ubuntu, Is it like them working for Canonical and not getting paid for it? I really like Ubuntu and the direction Canonical is taking it in and everything, But to me it seems like they have brainwashed people into working for them for free.
Please share your thoughts about this.

[wojox]

How much did you pay for your different versions of Ubuntu?

You can't give a little back?

You don't necessarily have to. No one is forcing you.

[KiwiNZ]

Ubuntu was started by and funded by a large donation from one person. The servers here are funded by and supported by Canonical. The international conferences are funded by Canonical. Remember all those free Ubuntu CD's? pay for any ? no ...funded by Canonical.

I guess Canonical should pay all it's users to install Ubuntu.

[Ghost|BTFH]

Yeah, I don't think you're gonna find a single supporter for your line of logic there, OP.

Canonical was built (correct me if I'm wrong here people) by a philanthropist, not a capitalist (Like say, I dunno, Novell) and the whole philosophy has been to create a F R E E operating system for the world that Just Works(tm) and is community driven.

I am who I am because of who we all are.

Ghost|BTFH

[JDShu]

Canonical is supposed to be profitable, it is not a charity. And I think most of us hope that they do succeed even if we may not agree with their methods in some cases. Ubuntu itself is a somewhat distinct entity, although it's obviously heavily funded by Canonical. Besides Canonical, there is a vibrant community around it that would likely still be there even if Canonical ceased to exist.

Canonical can go bankrupt. As an open source project, Ubuntu can never disappear, theoretically.

[tgm4883]

Unless you are contributing to the artwork/design of Ubuntu, you aren't "working for canonical for free".

I contribute to Ubuntu by writing certain applications and working on Mythbuntu (community distro). I don't get any money from Canonical, but I don't think of myself as "working for free". To say that I don't benefit (by getting my software into peoples systems, by learning so much from other OSS projects) from the progress that Canonical has made with Ubuntu is disingenuous.

[lulled]

Well, being open and free is part of the Linux culture. It is what it is because there are people willing to help to get helped. It's a circle. I help here and I'm helped there.

[collisionystm]

Canonical can go bankrupt. As an open source project, Ubuntu can never disappear, theoretically.

Thank god its so popular in Europe. I cant imagine my life without Ubuntu. It makes my every day computer experience a better place

[Gremlinzzz]

This thought occurred to me some time ago, Canonical owns the Ubuntu trademarks, Canonical markets/advertises Ubuntu, They earn money from Ubuntu by providing support services for it, And through Ubuntu One which is a part of the OS. They make all the major decisions and stuff.
So when somebody contributes something to Ubuntu, Is it like them working for Canonical and not getting paid for it? I really like Ubuntu and the direction Canonical is taking it in and everything, But to me it seems like they have brainwashed people into working for them for free.
Please share your thoughts about this.

This isn't work its fun like a game
a free game!

[aysiu]

What kinds of contributions are you talking about, exactly? If you offer a bug fix for Network Manager, it benefits anyone who uses Network Manager, not just Ubuntu users. That's the whole point of open source. Ubuntu doesn't write all this stuff from scratch. They use the same open source software Red Hat and Mepis and Arch and Gentoo all use.