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UbuWu
July 8th, 2005, 12:46 PM
From the announcements mailing list:

Below is the press release sent off to the wires announcing the
creation of a new foundation by Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical to
help support Ubuntu and employ core Ubuntu developers over the long
term and to help distinguish the commercial support and certification
programs of Canonical from the truly community-based nature of much of
Ubuntu's work.

There are some other big announcements buried in there as well like
the introduction of longer-term supported releases. :)

I hope you join me in thinking this is fantastic news for the Ubuntu
community on a number of different levels.

Regards,
Mako


LAUNCH OF $10m UBUNTU FOUNDATION

08 July 2005

Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Ltd, founders of the popular Ubuntu
Linux-based operating system, have today announced the creation of The
Ubuntu Foundation with an initial funding commitment of US$10m.

The Ubuntu Foundation will employ core Ubuntu community members to
ensure that Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com) will remain fully supported for an
extended period of time, and continue to produce new releases of the
distribution. As a first step, the Foundation announces that Ubuntu
version 6.04, due for release in April 2006, will be supported for
three years on the desktop and five years on the server.

The Foundation was established on July 1st 2005 with an initial
funding commitment of US$10 million, to ensure the continuity of the
Ubuntu project and create a legal vehicle that represents the
community structures of the project.

"It's important for us to distinguish the philanthropic and
non-commercial work that is at the heart of the Ubuntu project, from
the commercial support and certification programs that are the focus
of Canonical Ltd." said Mark Shuttleworth, who is founder of the
project and is making the initial $10m commitment to the
Foundation. "The core team members employed by the Ubuntu Foundation
will ensure that we can meet public commitments to keep Ubuntu
entirely free of charge, as well as meeting commitments of support for
extended periods. I'm very excited at the progress that has been made
in bringing free software to the global marketplace, and pleased to
continue my support for the project in this way."

Ubuntu has quickly become a leading distribution in the free software
world, taking the #1 place in DistroWatch popularity rankings over all
timescales which are published. The distribution focuses on usability,
security and stability on desktops and servers, and on making free
software widely available for individuals and organisations who are
ready to switch from proprietary platforms, such as Microsoft Windows.

Ubuntu has also become the basis of many other derivative
distributions, particularly those backed by govenments for widespread
deployment. The government of Andalucia, Spain recently announced that
its own version of Linux would be based on Ubuntu, and deployed in all
educational operations.

LONGER SERVER SUPPORT CYCLE

One driving factor behind the creation of the Foundation was the need
to ensure that an Ubuntu release can be deployed on servers, which
demand much slower release and upgrade cycles. "In order to support
the use of free software on database and other servers, we will be
offering security support for the Ubuntu base and major server
components for a full five years", said Matt Zimmerman, CTO of the
Ubuntu project.

As Ubuntu and free software in general become more mainstream, it has
become costly for companies and large organisations to keep track of
the rapid pace of development. In the desktop environment the problem
is more manageable, and steady improvements in the usability of
desktop office and productivity applications have been welcomed. In
the datacenter, however, where Linux and free software are considered
mature, deployments have a preference for fewer releases with long
lifecycles. Ubuntu version 6.04, to be released in April 2006, will be
aimed at meeting those requirements with a full five year commitment
to provide security and other critical updates for servers. This also
meets the needs of OEM distribution providers and ISVs, who have
expressed strong interest in supporting free software environments but
who prefer to be able to plan for releases and support them for longer
periods of time.

The extended service support for Ubuntu version 6.04 will remain free
of charge, under the same terms as the support currently provided to
every release of Ubuntu. The extended service support program will
only apply to designated releases of Ubuntu. Other releases, which
will still be made on the current six-month cycle, will continue to
receive the current commitment of 18 months free security and critical
updates support.

KEEPING FREE SOFTWARE FREE

A primary goal of the Ubuntu Foundation is to ensure that a high
quality distribution of free and open source software is available
free of charge, throughout the world. "Free software is produced by
expert volunteers who make their time and work freely available - our
goal is to ensure that anybody in the world can make the best use of
that work, at no charge." said Benjamin Mako Hill, Ubuntu Community
Relations. Both Canonical and the Ubuntu Foundation have made public
commitments that Ubuntu will always be freely available, without the
need for royalties or licence payments of any kind. "We include only
free and unencumbered applications, ensuring that users have the
ability to share and modify their software."

CONTINUED SUPPORT FROM CANONICAL LTD.

The establishment of the Ubuntu Foundation enhances the commercial
commitment already made to the Ubuntu project by Canonical, Ltd.
"Demand for the commercial services offered by Canonical to users of
Ubuntu continues to grow. We welcome the very large number of
companies that have announced support for Ubuntu both regionally and
globally, and expect to continue to create additional partnership,
certification and support programs in coming months," stated Jane
Silber, head of marketing at Canonical.

The extended life support program for Ubuntu version 6.04 is in line
with Canonical's efforts to broaden the OEM base for Ubuntu. "The
distribution has been selected by several hardware manufacturers for
sale with PCs and laptops, and the availability of a long term
supported release of Ubuntu that's independent of the commercial
success of Canonical meets the needs of specific manufacturers in the
hardware marketplace", continued Silber.

The Ubuntu Community Council will act as the advisory board of the
Foundation. Current members of that Council are Benjamin Mako Hill,
Colin Watson, James Troup and Mark Shuttleworth (Chairman).

Great news I think!

ubuntu_demon
July 8th, 2005, 12:48 PM
or just go here : http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=47323

good news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-D

Knome_fan
July 8th, 2005, 03:59 PM
Wow, just wow.
This is amazing and great news. :grin:

The only thing I'm worried about is what this will do to the Ubuntu - Debian relationship, as Ubuntu now clearly aims to be an as complete, or even more complete in many ways, distro as Debian.
Or am I reading too much into it?

poofyhairguy
July 8th, 2005, 06:32 PM
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=47323

Thats just the annoucement...this is a better place to discuss it.

I personally think this is a great thing. I'll quote what I said on /.:

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155224&cid=13014862



This is great news for Ubuntu. Up until now its fans knew it was in good hands (Mark has a lot of money) but we didn't know his level of commitment. Now we do. I think part of the reason the foundation was made was because of Ubuntu's success as a new distro (few have their name so known in such a short time) and because there will be a push in the future to get Ubuntu in places that demand stability in organization- businesses and schools. In particular, the next release Breezy will begin Edubuntu [ubuntu.com] a goal of Mark to turn Ubuntu into an OS that can meet the needs of schools.

Hopefully this will once and for all establish Ubuntu as one of the big players in the Linux scene, and further legitimize its claim to the great Debian heritage.

I personally hope that some of this money will be spent on creating more bounties [ubuntu.com] to create some of the GUI tools the distro currently lacks. [ubuntuforums.org]For now this is a great thing.

Lets discuss more. This is the biggest change since Ubuntu was created.

sapo
July 8th, 2005, 06:42 PM
wow.. thats veeeeeeeeeeeery good news :grin:

poofyhairguy
July 8th, 2005, 07:11 PM
I want to explain real quick why I think this is such a big thing.

It might not matter to most of us...we use Ubuntu and we like it without the organization. Why this matters is because it is a needed step if we ever want to see Ubuntu succeed in the business world.

Before this event...Ubuntu seemed like nothing more than the pet project of some millionaire. For us it was enough to know that Mark back it...but for a business it might have seemed to be little more than a hobby. Without a definate commitment on Mark's part, it almost seemed like that at any time if he got bored he would just take his OS and go home.

Now Ubuntu is no longer backed by a nice an eccentric millionaire...it is the product of a $10 million organization. This legitamizes the whole thing in the eyes of the business world. A smart owner won't base his/her business's IT on a rich man's hobby but they would base their business on the product of a well funded organization.

So basically the whole thing "gets Ubuntu into the business world like it never could before." That might not matter to us...but if Ubuntu ever wants to sell support options then some businesses have to get involved (we sure don't have the capital needed to keep this thing running).

This a commitment. To us. To a future with Ubuntu..

Thats why its a big deal.

ubuntu_demon
July 8th, 2005, 07:51 PM
I want to explain real quick why I think this is such a big thing.

It might not matter to most of us...we use Ubuntu and we like it without the organization. Why this matters is because it is a needed step if we ever want to see Ubuntu succeed in the business world.

Before this event...Ubuntu seemed like nothing more than the pet project of some millionaire. For us it was enough to know that Mark back it...but for a business it might have seemed to be little more than a hobby. Without a definate commitment on Mark's part, it almost seemed like that at any time if he got bored he would just take his OS and go home.

Now Ubuntu is no longer backed by a nice an eccentric millionaire...it is the product of a $10 million organization. This legitamizes the whole thing in the eyes of the business world. A smart owner won't base his/her business's IT on a rich man's hobby but they would base their business on the product of a well funded organization.

So basically the whole thing "gets Ubuntu into the business world like it never could before." That might not matter to us...but if Ubuntu ever wants to sell support options then some businesses have to get involved (we sure don't have the capital needed to keep this thing running).

This a commitment. To us. To a future with Ubuntu..

Thats why its a big deal.

Yeah I agree. Having a well funded organization together with longer support for some releases makes Ubuntu ideal for a lot of businesses!

jimcooncat
July 8th, 2005, 08:41 PM
Ditto. As someone who wants to promote this distro to local small business and non-profits, this is a huge step ahead.

I felt the same way when the Gentoo foundation took over the care and feeding of their distro from its founder.

Having one's software be licenced at the whim of the author isn't good for business. I think qmail and daemontools are superb software, but Dan Bernstein's control over their license scares me away from using them.

It's the right thing to do, and thanks to Mark Shuttleworth the foundation starts out on solid financial ground. Ubuntu has skipped what must have been a painful step for the Gentoo Foundation.

Lovechild
July 8th, 2005, 09:35 PM
Good luck Ubuntu Foundation, I wish you the best from the Fedora camp.

matthew
July 8th, 2005, 10:34 PM
This is great news! Thank you, Mark!!!!!!!!!!

weasel fierce
July 9th, 2005, 08:27 AM
Fantastic news :)

chadauld
July 10th, 2005, 06:02 AM
Great news indeed! :grin:

aragorn2909
July 10th, 2005, 07:56 AM
Um, wow. I was pretty sure Mr. Shuttleworth was an astute businessman, but I am completely convinced of that fact now. Watching Ubuntu from (almost) its inception grow to where it is today, and now knowing the direction this os will take in the future, I have to admit that I am very impressed. When I first read the release, I was a little aprehensive. Ubuntu could easily take the path that Red Hat took, leaving it's non-enterprise users in the lurch (I use this for lack of a better word, forgive me, I think Fedora is an excellent distro with wonderful community support. No disrespect meant), but I was quickly reassured by the words on www.ubuntu.com 's main page:

Ubuntu will always be free of charge, and there is no extra fee for the "enterprise edition", we make our very best work available to everyone on the same Free terms.
I know I'm just repeating what most people here know, but the above statement has made all the difference to me in terms of migrating to open source, and ultimately, migrating to Ubuntu. The commitment and support that Mr. Shuttleworth and Ubuntu (as a whole) has shown myself and the Community, has been rewarded by our commitment and support of this distro. Without either, none of this would have been possible. I think we all should give ourselves a little pat on the back.

As a side note, its interesting to see that the ultimate target here is "proprietary platforms" (MS obviously, but I also read into this Apple). Kind of reminds me of a poster my high-school guidance counsellor had hanging in their office. "Better to aim for the stars and hit the moon, than aim for a pile of sh*t and hit it dead centre"