Ubuntu's breakout

Ubuntu and Canonical, the Mark Shuttleworth-founded commercial entity that supports it, have done something that seemed improbable a few years back. They've emerged as a third Linux distribution to have commercial market momentum on a worldwide basis. Prior to Ubuntu, the distribution landscape consisted of commercial and community-supported versions from Red Hat and Novell's Suse--together with some regional and "flavor of the month" distros. (See my "The Scene at the Distro" from April 2006.)

Canonical and Shuttleworth have managed to make Ubuntu into a third commercial Linux distribution that's here to stay; "Intrepid Ibex," Ubuntu 8.10, is the latest release and will be available this week. In one sense, Ubuntu simply represents the commercialization of Debian, an aggressively noncommercial Linux flavor that was long the long-favored distro of the self-identified techno-elite. However, Ubuntu distinguishes itself from Debian by its willingness to include proprietary components when open-source ones aren't available. This is especially important on the desktop (for example, codecs required for certain kinds of media support). Ubuntu has also received all manner of usability and "fit and finish" upgrades that make it far more consumable than the notoriously difficult-to-install-and-configure Debian.

At the same time, Canonical distinguishes itself from Red Hat and Novell in that it offers a single product (in desktop and server flavors); it does not have "enterprise" and "community" versions that are effectively separate distributions. The advantage (for customers) of this approach is that they can deploy Ubuntu for free and then, without changing the "bits," simply start paying for support when they go into full-scale production.

The downside (for Canonical) is that they have to persuade users to actually buy support. Historically, getting a high enough "conversion rate" with this business model has been difficult for open-source companies. Indeed, this was essentially Red Hat's initial model, abandoned in favor of having a separate Red Hat Enterprise Linux version. In general, proprietary software or services factor into a lot of the revenue that companies make around open source.

Viable long-term business models are no small thing, of course. Although Canonical now has a respectable number of paying customers such as Wikimedia, Mark Shuttleworth (who founded security firm Thawte and sold it to Verisign in 1999) continues to support the company to a significant degree. Supposedly, at some point, Canonical has to become self-supporting. (Although Shuttleworth has said that he has no objections to funding the business for three to five years.) And low cost, which is a big part of Canonical's Ubuntu pitch against Red Hat, also means that it's harder to make money.

That (big) caveat aside, however, Canonical has established a legitimate worldwide presence as a Linux supplier for businesses. It's had wins on servers and Ubuntu has emerged as pretty much the de facto desktop and notebook Linux choice for developers. That's no small feat given how many others have tried--and largely failed--to do so.

[rdelfin]

Ubuntu [non-geek] user here.

I've been interested in the unix / linux world at the end-user level for a bunch of years now, and I have to say that it wasn't until Ubuntu that I really got to use linux on a daily basis as my OS of choice for *other* tasks (web surfing, email, office tasks) and not as a hobby (exploring a new OS, but going back to windows for my regular tasks). And this is what I consider where the big achievement of this distro lies.

Now, I can safely confirm that Ubuntu will be an ubiquitous part of my life when it comes to the use of a PC.

[ghaff]

I was primarily focusing on the server side here but ease-of-install/ease-of-use has been one of Ubuntu's big wins on the desktop/notebook.

[QMT]

Ubuntu makes for a good backup plan if Windows 7 turns out to be as horrid as Vista.

[Sesetamhet]

Doesn't the fact that it's windows, and still based on DOS pretty much mean it will be worse than Ubuntu by definition?

[ferretboy88]

Ubuntu works very well in all of my 7 computers. Unlike other linux distros. Very super hardware detection.

[BNUX]

Ubuntu is one master piece. Every 6 months evolutes and get better. In this instant is far better than any windows version. And in more two years I believe it will have a big boom if the evolution and compatibility work continues.

[Maarek Stele]

Ubuntu is simple, I run it as a server for internal and external web sites. Having a central site helps me access data from anywhere and from almost any device.

[KevinK]

I like uBuntu linux a lot and plan to switch completely when my current hardware wears out. (Currently winxp and some dual boots) I've installed it on a number of machines for newbies and it seems to work well in many situations. It's robust, leverages available hardware, and seems to run on just about anything that meets the minimum requirements. I plan to download and install intrepid ibex on my dual boot when it becomes available this week. It's cool..

[minnlinux]

Thank you for the note. While not necessarily one of the techno eliite (although I confess to finding debian less problematic to install than an average user, perhaps), I began using Unbuntu in my office, along with the openoffice suite and other open source applications, about three years ago. The entire office (a law office) now runs on ubuntu. After a slight learning curve, that was much less demanding than anticipated, we have no regrets, and have encountered few glitches. In this modern world, where we have replaced outlook with web-based calendars, contact managers and mail clients, the importance of the OS has steadily diminished. We no longer worry about "syncing" devices (like pda's) with office computers, because our pda's have been replaced by internet phones, and we no longer have anything left to "sync." We could have kept the mix of windows and linux computers, perhaps, but to make things easy, converted the entire office to ubuntu, and now run 8.04 on all of our equipment. The truth is that the era of the OS, as a dominant force in computing, will soon be behind us.

[Dave54o]

You made a big mistake in this article. You said, "Although Canonical now has a respectable number of paying customers such as Wikimedia...". In the article you referenced, it says, "Incidentally, while Wikimedia is using Ubuntu to run the company, and that might seem to imply commercial-grade support contracts from Canonical, this is not the case."
Isn't it interesting that it's almost impossible to find a single good example of one of Canonical's paying customers?

[ghaff]

Fair comment. They've touted Wikimedia as a user but not clear if there is any specific revenue from that source yet. They do have revenue coming in but clearly not cash flow positive yet.

[ucjb]

I am a Windows IT dude and I converted from XP to Ubuntu Studio as my primary desktop system over a year ago. I love it so far, installation was a breeze. I run it on a Dell Precision 490 that came with Red Hat, I blew it away and install Ubuntu Studio. Configuration of the nvidia graphic card with dual monitors was a little trouble. I am running it 1TB software raid 5. When I need XP (rarely) I fire up a virtual machine.

[doughoist1]

My sons and I have built 4 computers and could always build them economically and would perform well. However, when I had to buy the MS OS, any economical advantage was lost. I am glad that I found out about linux and Ubuntu as they are free and Ubuntu really rocks. I also boot to Puppy Linux as it boots quickly, runs very fast in ram and I can put the OS on a bootable thumb drive. I have had so much fun with Ubuntu. It is truly amazing. My thanks to the Ubuntu community, Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth.

[tm_anon]

And Ubuntu reports keep rolling in. I just tried it for the first time a month ago. Without it, I'd still be using XP. I've already got 3 other people interested in trying it out including; the manager at my local bank, my landlady and a teacher friend who I've mentioned the variation of edubuntu to and who seems genuinely interested.