How does Ubuntu Earn

[hacker_at_linux]

Hey all I am a bit confused about how this big organisation Ubuntu runs.
I dont understand how does this organistaion gets its funding from.

I get Ubuntu Cds for free I get free net updates(which require huge server farms) plus they pay their employs too and they only charge for the DVDs and other items in their shop.

I dont think so that they earn so much profits out of selling Key chains or laptop bags that this can run a whole MNC. And neither donations can do so much.

I understand how Red hat Or Suse would get their incomes but how do these companies like Canonical or Debian get income from.

Neither they have any add on their websites.

And this is the same case with Open softwares. They dont take money still give better platforms than other proprietary software.

How do they get funding for all this.

Please Share your Ideas

[James_Lochhead]

Canonical gets money by selling technical support. Not sure about Debian.

[Simian Man]

Debian is not a company, it is a group of volunteers and hobbyists so they don't need much. I imagine their servers run off of donations.

Canonical is actually losing money hand over fist, and I doubt they will ever turn a profit.

[LowSky]

Debian is built by some guy named Ian whose wife is named Debra working in his basement... (kidding about the basement)


Ubuntu server farms(lol) are servers set up at mostly schools and universities, like MIT and Northwestern (two I know of off the top of my head. they are paid for by the schools and maintained by students.

Most progrmas are designed by students and professionals for free on their spare time or as part of a company for bug fixing (lik Redhat and Novell)

[philinux]

Canonical get money from business via support contracts and from Mark Shuttleworth I've not doubt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth

Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life, abbreviated SABDFL

[hacker_at_linux]

Oh
Support you said for canonical!!!!!
I dont think so that giving support to one can produce income equal to sending 10 CDs of ubuntu any where in the world for free.

Most of the of the people take support from forum like this one
So I dont think so Canonical can afford to employ ppl

Plus the server thing how much donation would they be getting I dont think so that it will be more that $5 million per annum. So in this cost how can you support a large no of mirrors and torrent downloads from Berlin to Bejing.

It is not possible to make an operating system and give so much good support without taking money in any form

I don't get how they would be getting with this OS

[Penguin Guy]

Poeple donate money, and some people just program Ubuntu from home in their spare time for free. A lot like a charity really.

[Simian Man]

I dont think so that giving support to one can produce income equal to sending 10 CDs of ubuntu any where in the world for free.
Sending CDs isn't *that* expensive compared to just one companies support. And I already told you Canonical has never been a profitable company yet (unlike Red Hat or Novell).


Most of the of the people take support from forum like this one So I dont think so Canonical can afford to employ ppl
Businesses don't get support here (at least most don't).



Plus the server thing how much donation would they be getting I dont think so that it will be more that $50 million per annum. So in this cost how can you support a large no of mirrors and torrent downloads from Berlin to Bejing.
As someone else said, schools and companies donate server space for mirroring. Hell even Facebook mirrors Fedora and CentOS. Besides the whole point of torrents is they cut down on needed server space!


It is not possible to make an operating system and give so much good support without taking money in any form

I don't get how they would be getting with this OS

Keep in mind a lot of what you see as Ubuntu is provided by upstream projects that are supported by many volunteers and other companies.

Canonical is funded by Mark Shuttleworth and recoup some of their losses through support contracts. They use a lot of upstream stuff, and have volunteers, so the costs aren't really *that* high.

[bgerlich]

Oh
Support you said for canonical!!!!!
I dont think so that giving support to one can produce income equal to sending 10 CDs of ubuntu any where in the world for free.

Most of the of the people take support from forum like this one
So I dont think so Canonical can afford to employ ppl

Plus the server thing how much donation would they be getting I dont think so that it will be more that $5 million per annum. So in this cost how can you support a large no of mirrors and torrent downloads from Berlin to Bejing.

It is not possible to make an operating system and give so much good support without taking money in any form

I don't get how they would be getting with this OS

You are right, the business model is flawed, that is why Ubuntu is making it's money another way: They are sponsored by terrorists and pedophiles that hate us for our freedoms and don't think of our children! Canonical also sells crack in kindergartens.

Seriously through, Canonical is where Red Hat was in the nineties. Even now the revenue is growing (30 mil $ last year), not enough to be profitable in the next year or two, but in a few years, who knows? Shuttleworth thinks he does, I hope he is right.

[3Miro]

Google Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds and/or use Youtube to see something about the philosophy behind Linux.

I think Ubuntu and the repository database should be moved to some sort of torrent technology. That way it would be server independent and while canonical is making money now, they will make even more in the future.

[Simian Man]

Google Richard Sullivan and Linus Torvalds and/or use Youtube to see something about the philosophy behind Linux.
Richard Sullivan LOL.


I think Ubuntu and the repository database should be moved to some sort of torrent technology. That way it would be server independent and while canonical is making money now, they will make even more in the future.

That's a terrible idea, P2P updates would be an incredible security hole.

[hacker_at_linux]

You are right, the business model is flawed, that is why Ubuntu is making it's money another way: They are sponsored by terrorists and pedophiles that hate us for our freedoms and don't think of our children! Canonical also sells crack in kindergartens.

Seriously through, Canonical is where Red Hat was in the nineties. Even now the revenue is growing (30 mil $ last year), not enough to be profitable in the next year or two, but in a few years, who knows? Shuttleworth thinks he does, I hope he is right.
Oh man I think you misunderstood my words.
I dint mean that.

But still If there are no profits in Free software business other than moral so why one should do a lot of hard work and sell it for free. the propitiatory software ateast make the software its self a profitable debenture. Where people can actually make millions and more millions. Where as above stated we would be stuck only with non-profitable organisations. I don't understand who can do professional work and then distribute it for free . I know there are a lot of moral reasons but all people need some source of income. So this implies development of free software can only be a part time job for self satisfaction and cannot be taken as a professional work.

I know how these MD and CEO get paid but how is a programer aligned to these companies gets any benefits. He neither can get monitory benefits or any thing.

My main Issue is about those programers only.

[TyrantWave]

Same reason that any images I make (I'm a fractal artist / 3D artist mainly), I'll gladly give the parameter and source file out for anyone that asks.

I enjoy making my art, and people who work on Linux enjoy working with it - we don't want money out of it (Although it would be nice if I could ever sell any prints...), we just like to make it and help each other as a community.

[Simian Man]

But still If there are no profits in Free software business other than moral so why one should do a lot of hard work and sell it for free. the propitiatory software ateast make the software its self a profitable debenture. Where people can actually make millions and more millions. Where as above stated we would be stuck only with non-profitable organisations. I don't understand who can do professional work and then distribute it for free . I know there are a lot of moral reasons but all people need some source of income. So this implies development of free software can only be a part time job for self satisfaction and cannot be taken as a professional work.

I know how these MD and CEO get paid but how is a programer aligned to these companies gets any benefits. He neither can get monitory benefits or any thing.

My main Issue is about those programers only.

Look at Red Hat as an example (since they actually make money). They employ programmers to work on the kernel and X.org - more than any other company - and are the maintainers of a *lot* of other software. And they release all of that as open source.

They make money by providing support contracts for companies. When a large company buys a bunch of servers, they don't want to go to some forum and hope that someone can answer their question. They want to call a company and get results. Red Hat also implements features that their customers want. Imagine calling Microsoft and saying "I want such and such feature added to your software". They'd laugh at you, but that's one of the things Red Hat does.

Red Hat's stock recently went up despite the harsh economy so open source *is* a valid business model. Maybe Canonical can get there soon. Maybe not.

[bgerlich]

Red Hat profit beats forecasts, shares rise

"I don't think people are quite as scared as they were a couple months ago," he said in an interview. "A couple months ago people were really worried we were falling off a cliff. It has stabilised since then."
(...)
Profit, excluding items, of 22 cents per share for its fiscal fourth quarter ending on 28 February, beat analysts' average forecast of 20 cents, according to Reuters Estimates.

Revenue rose 18 percent to $166m (£115m), versus the average forecast of $167m, as the company persuaded existing customers to sign bigger deals when they renewed subscriptions on service contracts.
(...)
Red Hat forecast that full-year revenue will grow between 10 percent and 13 percent this year to $720m-$735m. Analysts were expecting revenue of $735m.

It projected full-year profit, excluding items, of 58 cents to 62 cents, versus an analyst forecast of 59 cents.
(...)
The company also forecast that it will report first-quarter profit, excluding items, of 13 cents to 14 cents, on revenue of $171m to $173m. Analysts were expecting profit of 13.5 cents on revenue of $172m.

The company reported fourth-quarter net income fell to $16m, or eight cents per share, from $23m, or 10 cents per share, a year earlier, when it had more shares outstanding.

Shares of the Raleigh, North Carolina-based company rose eight percent to $16.22 in extended trading, from their New York Stock Exchange close of $15.

Sorry, hacker_at_linux, but you are simply not right. Source (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39632703,00.htm)

EDIT:
Besides, there are a lot of business models that sell something you get for free - botted water, Starbucks (all the office crowd who buy coffee that they have for free back at the office). The key is added value and Canonical as Red Hat provides that.

[bodhi.zazen]

Moved to the cafe.

There are two schools of thought , free as in free speech and free as in free beer.

IMO if one uses Linux one should be willing to contribute back to the community, similar to PBS or NPR. Fro some that may be $$ for others it may be time or code or what have you.

I promote free as in free speech :


Just a comment about Linux being "free". Yes it is true, but are you willing to contribute to the cause?

By that I only mean to point out that many of the applications in the open source community are written and maintained by developers.

If you like this service consider donating 25-50 $ yearly to your favorite developer, application, Ubuntu, whatever. This will keep the Linux community going and is certainly a small investment in return for the service. Think of like contributing to NPR or PBS.

...The beer may be free, but you should tip the bartender 8)

[Mehall]

To anyone saying Canonical are losing money, as one person said, "hand over fist."

Shuttlesworth has said in an interview recently he believes 2009 will be the first year Canonical will not require any money from him to continue to exist, and may even make a profit.

Canonical will quickly be self-sufficient, thgough SABDFL only wants that in case something happens to him (maybe he'll find God. I mean Gentoo. I mean God.)

[sadicote]

I tried to convince some people i knew to switch to Ubuntu, (showed off my Ibex--upgraded to Jaunty--Desktop)..and i am sure the %$^& Wintendos sneered just because it was free!! I have a feeling that Ubuntu would capture a much larger share of the OS market if people had to pay an arm and a leg for it.;)

Today, i hang my head in shame, my brother, my own flesh and blood has revealed himself to be a Wintendo!

[CraigPaleo]

This was posted here somewhere in another thread: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/20/1627243


"Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, claims that the company is very close to the $30M mark, at which point, they will be a self-sustaining company. While people feel that this should not worry Microsoft, the real question is whether a 10,000 person effort on a failure like Vista can actually be the paradigm of a long-term strategy. From the article: 'Microsoft had 10,000 people [the article is unclear whether these were all developers, or administrative and support staff were factored in] working on Vista for a five year period ... huge profits in any given year can mean relatively little five years on. Canonical's self-sustaining revenue may not be threatening — but it leaves one wondering how sustainable Microsoft's development process really is.'"

[cinna]

If i go to London where Coninical and Mark are is it possible to donate

[cinna]

This was posted here somewhere in another thread: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/20/1627243

Yup that and that MS have not bet on the age old philosophy that "all good things come to an end" :popcorn:

[hacker_at_linux]

So in the end I conclude that Linux business model (including all linux) is very efficient and even better than one with MS.

One can both learn and earn a lot form it.

I just have a last question that do these companies have stock indexing ??? If yes what is their stock rates or there is a potential for these companies to go for stock market and earn a better out put.

*While I heard Red Hat and VAlinux have stock listings*