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chadeusmaximus
August 31st, 2006, 02:53 PM
Hii. I ordered my free CDs a little over 2 weeks ago, and they arrved in the mail today. I was very impressed to actually get a FREE os in the mail, but it got me to wondering. If they are giviing away their product, how do they make money?

Annybody know?

bruce89
August 31st, 2006, 02:56 PM
Simply put, they don't currently.

They want to make money out of commercial support - http://www.ubuntu.com/support/paid

Anonii
August 31st, 2006, 02:58 PM
Simply put, they don't currently.

They want to make money out of commercial support - http://www.ubuntu.com/support/paid
There are also donations.
And afaik the CDs are from Canonical.

bluenova
August 31st, 2006, 03:01 PM
Yea, don't get confused. Ubuntu is an Open source project that does not make money. The company Canonical make money (in principle) by providing support and it is Canonical that provide the Free CD's

DoctorMO
August 31st, 2006, 03:24 PM
Ubuntu isn't a business, Linux isn't owned, it's not property of one person but almost common property like the ye old commons land.

Linux: feed your pet goat here.

Metacarpal
August 31st, 2006, 04:32 PM
Linux: feed your pet goat here.
Even out of context, that would make a great sig.

Brunellus
August 31st, 2006, 05:14 PM
same way a crack dealer makes the fat stacks by giving out free samples to kids.

Give away the product, they'll come to you for support. Canonical doesn't want *your* money, necessarily--although if you want to pay them for support, they'll give you support at their rates.

They're really trying to capture marketshare from RedHat/Novell. Distributing CDs via shipit is one way of creating mindshare among linux users who would have otherwise gone for Red Hat or SuSE for their corporate deployments.

aysiu
August 31st, 2006, 05:28 PM
Ubuntu isn't a business, Linux isn't owned, it's not property of one person but almost common property like the ye old commons land.

Linux: feed your pet goat here.
Actually, as far as I know, Ubuntu is a business... or plans to be one.

Linux, however, is not a business.

Brunellus
August 31st, 2006, 05:30 PM
Actually, as far as I know, Ubuntu is a business... or plans to be one.

Linux, however, is not a business.
Canonical is a business whose business is Ubuntu.

aysiu
August 31st, 2006, 05:32 PM
Canonical is a business whose business is Ubuntu.
Ah, I stand corrected. So there is no company called Ubuntu? The company is Canonical and produces a product called Ubuntu?

Brunellus
August 31st, 2006, 05:34 PM
Ah, I stand corrected. So there is no company called Ubuntu? The company is Canonical and produces a product called Ubuntu?
http://www.canonical.com/

is Mark Shuttleworth's (for-profit!) commercial venture, based around open-source support.

Dragonbite
August 31st, 2006, 05:53 PM
They're really trying to capture marketshare from RedHat/Novell. Distributing CDs via shipit is one way of creating mindshare among linux users who would have otherwise gone for Red Hat or SuSE for their corporate deployments.
Especially important considering the number of years RedHat and SuSE have had in the "market" already. They need something to "jump start" an Ubuntu user base, let the world see the great work they've put into Ubuntu and draw in the overly-cautious companies wanting $upport!

And it seems they are doin a mighty-fine job of it too (heck, free CDs is in part what got me to try Ubuntu!)

mips
August 31st, 2006, 06:03 PM
Canonical also has a commercial linux version called Impi Linux.

maniacmusician
August 31st, 2006, 06:59 PM
has anyone tried that? how is it? similar to Ubuntu?

az
August 31st, 2006, 08:00 PM
Free-libre software is about the software not being property - it belongs to everybody.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/forum/software/OpenSource/MakeMoneyHowto

One example of how that does not get in the way of making money is Mark Shuttleworth. Using free-libre software, he was able start an internet company and provide a web service which provided encryption and security for things like bank transactions over the net. He would not have been able to do that unless he had access to the world-class tools that were provided by free-libre software.

He sold the company and became a billionare.

Likewise, instead of investing money to buy a software infrastructure, a company would find value in using a free-libre software infrastructure and spending the money on paying developers to make the software do what they specifically need it to do.

In many cases, doing just that is too expensive or takes too long using proprietary tools.


The money spent on the free software goes into making it better and not to pay over and over for the same proprietary code that has not changed.


It's called commoditisation. Your OS is now a commodity. One or the other, they all work and do the same thing. Which one will allow you to do business better?

The thing is, when the software gets better for one company, group or person, it can also get better for everyone. It can happen that you invest a small amount to get a project going and the sit back and reap the benefits of other developers contributing code.

For example, if you manufacture a piece of hardware and release a fully open-source free-libre driver for the linux kernel, chances are, if a lot of people use your product, the code will be taken up by a community that is interested in seeing it keep working.

But I digress...

DoctorMO
August 31st, 2006, 08:47 PM
No ubuntu is not a product of Conical in the traditional sense. Ubuntu development is done by conical though.

M7S
August 31st, 2006, 09:56 PM
Canonical also has a commercial linux version called Impi Linux.
Is Impi produced by Canonical? I know Mark bought Impi Linux and that it's built on Ubuntu, but is it connected to Canonical? It's not listed as a Canonical project on their webpage.

az
August 31st, 2006, 10:29 PM
Ubuntu linux is sponsored by Canonical. I think the amount invested by Canonical into Ubuntu is somewhere around 10 million per year.

I don't think it will happen soon, but I think it's possible that Canonical will make their money back, if this plays out well. They are investing a lot of development into launchpad. One of the big features of the tools provided by launchpad is distributed version control. That means that a patch that is made to work in Ubuntu can also be put into Red Hat, Mandriva, and all the other interested distros.

That puts Canonical is a really nice position of leading the development of the most popular linux distro and having a way for development by third-party software houses to be able to reach the greatest number of linux users (potentially all of them).

So, say you want to manufacture printers. Who are you going to pay to make sure that your printer's drivers are useable in linux (Ubuntu and all the other distros)? Canonical looks like a good choice.

The governance of Ubuntu (the Community council and the Technical Board) is presently filled with present and former Canonical employees, but that is because it is relatively young. They needed some people to seed it.

The plan is for those positions to be filled by community members regardless of for whom they work.

As far as developers, I think Canonical employs less than ten people who work on the distro team. That's it.

The rest of the development comes from upstream and the community.

Impi is based on Ubuntu, and I think Mark Shuttleworth inevested in it. He tends to invest in a lot of South-African ventures.

KiwiNZ
August 31st, 2006, 10:34 PM
It is not cost effective for Enterprises to hire developers to develop software or modify Open source software. Its a better utilisation of resources to outsource that.

az
September 1st, 2006, 03:09 AM
It is not cost effective for Enterprises to hire developers to develop software or modify Open source software. Its a better utilization of resources to outsource that.

That depends on the enterprise. I'm sure google write their own code while the video store down the street probably bought their pre-written and pre installed point-of-sale software. Either way, that is more money poured into the FLOSS ecosystem.

KiwiNZ
September 1st, 2006, 03:35 AM
Google is not a good example , it's a developer.

az
September 1st, 2006, 04:06 AM
Google is not a good example , it's a developer.

What?

Google is a business that makes money by providing a service.


Anyway, there are many many examples of companies who find value in using free-libre software because of the freedom to modify the code. No, I am not talking about every company out there who wants to purchase a computer and run a workstation.

KiwiNZ
September 1st, 2006, 04:18 AM
Yes it provides a service and products. Its also a developer as is Microsoft.