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Shuttleworth Says Canonical Is Not Cash-Flow Positive
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:02 AM
from the can't-say-i'm-surprised dept.
from the can't-say-i'm-surprised dept.
eldavojohn writes "Mark Shuttleworth, the millionaire bankroller who keeps Ubuntu going strong, has revealed 'Canonical is not cash-flow positive' just as version 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) of the popular Linux distribution is released today. In a call, he said he 'had no objection' in funding Canonical for another three to five years. He did say, however, that if they concentrated on the server edition of Ubuntu that they could be profitable in two years."
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Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:5, Informative)
.
It depends, I suppose, on how low your expectations are. Top Operating System Share Trend [hitslink.com]
Parent
Re:Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not amazing. Vista is raising at more than 100%. The old "my sales are up x%" gimmic is just that; a gimmic.
Re:Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:4, Insightful)
Vista is raising at more than 100%.
Yes, but Vista+XP+2000 is down 2%. Linux and Windows are both general categories, so if you're going to compare them you need to measure the right things.
Parent
Re:Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:5, Interesting)
Saying your sales are up x% is a gimmick when the entire market is actually up x+3% sure, but when you say my marketshare is up by x%, that's not a gimmick. And Linux's market share is definitely up according to that chart. Vista doesn't particularly count IMO, you have to take Windows as a whole - because those who are used to Windows will often just take Vista with their new machine. You don't get many machines that come with Linux by default, but lots of PCs just come with Vista these days, and obviously a lot of people either don't know the difference between Windows versions, or still want Vista just because it's the latest thing. So for Linux adoption to be on the rise it shows that people are choosing Linux over Windows.
I wonder how much of the Linux adoption was spurred by devices like the EEE PC or Linux based mobile phones, how much was just webservers, and how much is due to more user friendly distros on desktops and laptops? And if they count Linux on mobile phones in their stats, do they count Windows Mobile as Windows? There's also the matter of what websites the stats are gathered from.. I'd love to see the stats google have on OS hits to google for each country they operate in.
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Twice nothing is still nothing (Score:4, Interesting)
.
What I see is Linux at 0.57% in Nov 07 and 0.91% in Sept 08. MS Vista at 9.19% in Nov 07 and 18.33% in Sept 08.
The MacIntel alone with six times the market share of Linux on the desktop. W2K with twice the market share.
Think hits to Fox News.
W2K never saw significant sales as a consumer OS.
Yet eight ? years later this industrious little workhorse still out polls Linux on the web.
Parent
Learn to play chess. (Score:5, Interesting)
Then check the prize given to the mythical inventor of the game.
If the same speed of growth would continue Windows would be over sooner than you think.
But to know this we have to talk again next year. What I remember is when Linux was literally smuggled in any datacentre, what I saw this afternoon in a major PC shop here in London is that 20% of the laptops in offer had Linux installed.
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Re:Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:5, Informative)
Note that the stats you provide are from hitslink.com -- that excludes any users of adblock and any other crapblocker worth its salt.
Windows users will typically use MSIE and thus will be included unless their net admin installed some DNS or squid-based exclusion list. The rest of us are quite likely to have cesspools like hitslink blocked.
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Re:Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:5, Interesting)
ouch, I bet that smarts.
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Re:Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:5, Informative)
Wow. Did anyone else notice that Win2K is actually going up? Maybe folks burnt on Vista are going back to the fugly goodness that is Win2K Pro. ;-)
You might want to double-check the dates on that chart, friend. Win2000 is only going "up" when reading in reverse chronological order.
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Re:Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3)
hmm... if I did my (bad) math right, it takes _only_ 267 years until Linux covers 100% of the market. Desktop Linux ... here we come...
I knew it! I knew this was going to be the Millennium of Desktop Linux!
Re:Of course they should concentrate on the server (Score:5, Insightful)
but it does not have to be. honestly mediabuntu the unofficial and technically "illegal" offshoot is mainstream ready. If they have to charge to have a legal mediabuntu released so if you install it's ready to go even for the unknowing home user then that is what they need to do.
If joe sexpack can buy a $19.99 ubuntu cd from worst buy and get it installed and on the net watching people getting kicked in the nuts on youtube and playing his music it will take off fast. When it works on that old pc and they dont have to buy a new one and Vista....
but then it will also take advertising....
Hello I'm a Windows PC, and I'm a Ubuntu PC......
WPC: I'm good at business!
UPC: you suck dude... wow!..... suckage! sssssuuuuuccckkkkkk!
WPC: that's rude.
UPC: Looooser! You suck! Loser!
WPC: What is the matter with you?
Ubuntu..... because windows sucks...
well it would make people laugh :)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hello I'm a Mac.
And, I'm a PC. And so is he. And so is that guy with the beard over there.
Hi, I'm a Linux box.
In fact my buddies the server and the workstation are PC's too. Even this little guy.
Hi, I'm a netbook!
Is a PC.
Of course it's more of an Intel commercial than an MS one.
Really (Score:5, Insightful)
They are late to the party, and while I am glad for the strides they have made, Novell and Red Hat can eat them for lunch with other tie ins with their product line.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps huge companies still use Redhat and Novell just for the name, however all of the linux sysadmins I know for smaller companies prefer ubuntu hands down.
Re:Really (Score:5, Interesting)
The name helps sell PHBs, but the support from either RH or Novell is far better. I am sure Canonical can do well, but will they put boots on the ground in enough time to support outages?
What is the model for cloning machines, deploying machines and such?
What is the structure for connecting to various directories?
Parent
Re:Really (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Really (Score:5, Informative)
When I was administering a Novell/SUSE network, and we had issues where SAMBA would drop kerberos tickets in our environment, Novell provided us with a custom package for SAMBA to fix the errors.
In another situation on RHEL, Red Hat provided patches for OUR company to fix issues we had with Red Hat Cluster.
Just because you have never hit on interoperability or configuration issues that make and break business does not mean it is not important. Just because you think having an instance of Apache running, without load balancing application routers doesn't mean that is how the enterprise world works. There are a LOT of Oracle App and DB servers on Linux. RAC is very popular as is Oracle 9i and 10g database. Being ignorant does not make you right.
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Hands Down (Score:4, Interesting)
Hands down?
I'm curious to find one single major advantage Ubuntu has over Red Hat, CentOS, SLES, or openSUSE in an enterprise environment.
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Re:Hands Down (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Hands Down (Score:5, Insightful)
"more current" in relation to Debian stable, maybe. In relation to the competition it is always subjective, given that RHEL/CentOS have 7+ year support lifetimes. I don't think anyone has done a "newness" and "correctness" metric for LTS vs. RHEL ... my guess is that they are about equal at GA.
This is hard to qualify statement, rpm is a super set of dpkg and it's hard to argue that yum is anything but a superset of apt-get (in terms of features, UI and speed). You could probably argue that Debian packaging is stricter than Fedora/RHEL/EPEL, mostly due to the above (which also means it's harder on the packager, but somewhat easier on the tools). Maybe you just mean that Debian/Ubuntu "offically support" apt-get dist-upgrade, whereas Fedora/RHEL/CentOS don't, yet, for various reasons ... which while valid is much less so in a real company setting, IMO.
I can only assume that you haven't used rpm/yum recently ... or that you have seen cases where bad external packages are imported into rpm case but not in the dpkg case (as the resulting dpkg hell is often much worse).
I can only assume this is some kind of weird joke, or maybe you are trolling. Ubuntu is infamous for kludging their kernels and not working upstream ... and personally if you are not running the distro. kernel on RHEL then you might as well set fire to your money instead.
Parent
Re:Hands Down (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to start an argument, but
Have you tried Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS lately?
Package Management through Yum, or the Package Manager is easy to use, works fine and is much easier than loading individual packages through Rpm and divining dependencies on your own.
I assume you problems with Rpm are with the package installation program and not the file format itself.
The weirdest problem I have had lately was uninstalling Samba ripped Nautilus off a system, and my Desktop icons disappeared. Reinstalling Nautilus fixed the problem, and also re-loaded some tiny piece of Samba it thinks it needs.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Really (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hey, don't worry. I posted at 9AM. In a few hours, somebody will respond with something that may fix the problem" doesn't seem to cut it in that scenario
Parent
Re:Linux is for suckers (Score:5, Informative)
I'd agree with you if you weren't a) an idiot and b) wrong.
You've totally missed the point of the open source model. Linux doesn't *need* a profitable parent company. Projects like PostgreSQL, FreeBSD, the Linux kernel itself and others prove that companies are not needed in order to create excellent software. Debian existed long before Ubuntu, and will live long after it, should Ubuntu die. If Ubuntu dies, you can be damn sure a community will spring up to take the slack up now that demand for an apt based distro that isn't 3 years behind has been proven and an appetite created.
As for the impossibility of Linux profitability, Red Hat's financial statements [google.com] show a consistent, increasing profit, quarter over quarter, for the last 2 years. Go troll elsewhere please.
Parent
Re:Linux is for suckers (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you've totally missed what's been driving Linux progress for the last few years. Money. Lots of it. Corporate money paying developers. Virtually every single successful open source project has large corporate backing of some sort, be it Apache, the kernel, Firefox, mysql, etc..
Without a profitable parent company, they can't afford to pay those developers, and thus paid development goes away, and then you're left with the snail pace of "in my spare time" development. You're also stuck with the "only doing what scratches my itch" development, and many of the finer fit and polish elements that have gone into Ubuntu and other projects would be hard to find.
Would these projects die? No, but they would greatly slow down, possibly to the point that the majority of users would give up waiting for them.
Parent
The server version? (Score:5, Interesting)
The server version, otherwise known as Debian.
Hasn't this gone full circle? The Debian release cycle is too long and uncertain so out comes Ubuntu. Ubuntu takes from unstable, fixes some bugs, adds some polish and makes a decent desktop OS. Now Ubuntu wants to concentrate on the server which is exactly what Debian stable is for? Please. Canonical would be better served by just supporting Debian.
Re:The server version? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hasn't this gone full circle?
No - the predominant attitude in the industry is "if you don't like it, then fork it" - so they did. Why did they do it? I think that you answered it yourself with the very next sentence:
The Debian release cycle is too long and uncertain so out comes Ubuntu.
When you see how the mirrors are getting slammed right now (8.10 is on most of them), you simply must realize that Ubuntu has stolen most of the mindshare aware from Debian. Is that not good?
Parent
Re:The server version? (Score:5, Interesting)
I totally agree. Debian is great, but as they don't have as good release cycle as Ubuntu, there are quite many packages which are way beyond usable as those cannot be upgraded in a stable Debian.
Of course it's a matter of stability also, but a release cycle would eventually do only good for Debian also. Just think what would happen if Debian and Ubuntu Server could unite at one point.. Not knowing the specifics, but I guess many debian devs/maintainers already receive paychecks from Canonical.
Debian has great number of great maintainers, and have set the bar on package management to a whole another level for everyone in the operating system field.
Ubuntu in the other end has revolutionalized the desktop, essentially by adding "listening users needs" and "release cycle" to already good Debian recipe.
For support, Debian based (server) system is something I could consider buying that. As long as they can handle cost being accessible to ISV's.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>You only get 18 months of support for those.
>Debian stable will always give you more than that.
First, you can't get official commercial grade support Debian for stable at all. Second, even if you could, the LTS in the average lasts longer than Debian stable usually does.
Not only are Debians unpredictable releases a disadvantage compared to Ubuntu LTS, but even the community grade support you _can_ get for a stable does not last long enough to compare with Canonicals LTS.
Ubuntu beats Debian on polish,
A Hypothetical is NOT a Fact (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they don't want to concentrate on the server.
From the summary (emphasis mine):
A hypothetical does not a fact make.
Parent
Re:The server version? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a great idea. Supporting Debian will give them the support revenue, and eliminate all the development costs associated with maintaining their own derivative distro. They'd also be strengthening the Debian community, which is the underlying reason Ubuntu can exist in the first place. Ubuntu hasn't the resources to duplicate even a fraction of Debian's activity, so they serve both themselves better and the Debian community by simply supporting Debian stable and, if they *really* want, maintaining a custom patch set for whatever changes they may want (different process scheduler or whatnot).
I never understood why they needed or even wanted to create their own server distro when Debian stable is a rock solid, well known, highly regarded distro that they could profit from by supporting the existing users rather than trying to create a server user community of their own by convincing sysadmins (who are very hard to change by the way) to use their own, new, shiny distro that is untested and unproven, especially when compared to the likes of Debian stable.
Dumb move from Canonical, IMHO, and it smacks of the NIH (not invented here) mindset.
Parent
... and bless him (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. Shuttleworth is truly praise-"worthy" (forgive the pun) because he's willing to put his money where his mouth is, and pay out of pocket to support his principles.
In the end, nothing is actually "free". While people can and do put in their time, without expecting to be compensated for their work on the various Linux distributions, or other open-source software, they do so because they have other jobs that support them financially. As the Linux desktop market expands, there will be a need for even more people to dedicate even more time to maintaining and perfecting the codebase... and this will require a positive cash flow into the industry. One way or the other we (the consumers of these wonderful products) are going to have to pay... and we shouldn't be apprehensive about it. I have no problem with paying let's say $50/year for Ubuntu, because it has worked great for me.
Re:... and bless him (Score:5, Insightful)
And here you go:
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/donations [ubuntu.com]
Personally, for myself, I would think with every release, $20 is warranted... Microsoft would love to fleece me of much more for the amount of computers I put it on.
Parent
Doesn't surprise me (Score:5, Interesting)
Desktop users are not the ones likely to need to purchase support contracts, aside from business environments. Every business that I've worked for that has used Linux has used Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation for that very reason. Canonical's big problem here is that they have taken over a market where the majority of sales come from people buying off-the-shelf licenses or through OEM sales. the only way that they could get around that would be to charge say... $20/copy of Ubuntu to Dell, Asus, etc. to provide support for their netbook users.
Slack vs Ubuntu (Score:4, Interesting)
Here at the University, our department has a few clusters and a few standalone processing machines with a bit of disk attached. We were using ROCKS on the clusters and Slackware on the standalones, but then ROCKS went south in terms of hardware recognition, installation ease, and reconfiguration ease (so says my cluster admin). Now we use Slackware on everything.
However, when I asked him if he would like to try to use something with dependency checking, he suggested, not Debian, but Ubuntu...as he felt the server version of Ubuntu was essentially Debian anyway. Ubuntu's nice, but for us it all comes down to how easy it is to change, install our non-standard apps, and how often it requires updates.
Thoughts from the /. community?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"how often it requires updates"
I am uncertain what you mean. No Linux distribution 'requires' updates, although you are certainly encouraged to update them from a security (and stability) point of view.
If you on the other hand mean operating system upgrades, then the Long Term Support releases from Ubuntu which comes out once a year are supported with security and stability fixes for three years (same time scale as Debian I think). This may be slightly too short for you, in case you might want to consider f
Focus on one more.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Give me a Commercial version that is a bit more polished and has the important stuff already installed and ready instead of me having to go and run the installers to get everything ready. also get a "remote help" system in place so aunt millie can press "help me" and type in my email address and then I can easily help her with it, or she can call you and get paid support.
Honestly, Ubuntu is ALMOST there. if it takes a pay for version for me to point the Friends and family at then so be it.
Canonical should consider pay-services (Score:5, Interesting)
... for users.
I'm thinking easy on line storage integrated with OS and applications. Similarly they could offer backup space, email accounts, web space, picture storage and sharing,, Jabber service, OpenID, etc.
Think ".Mac/MobileMe" style services.
I would certainly be willing to pay a reasonable subscription fee for a nicely integrated service.
Open Source Funding (Score:5, Interesting)
This raises an interesting point that I'd like to see /.ers discuss:
Without the charity of well-to-do geeks or companies that fund open source development from profitable product lines, can Open Source succeed at the enterprise level?
This thread is a good example of the first case. Sun/Open Office, the Google/Mozilla "relationship", IBM, et al./Eclipse are examples of the second as is the general practice of different companies employing Linus, Guido and a few other key people to keep Linux/Python/etc going.
Without the strong investment from those with deep pockets, can Open Source software progress at the rate needed to remain viable in the enterprise? What happens when the product lines funding those projects start losing money?
If you respond with counter-examples, make sure you do a proper accounting of who is really doing the development work on the project. Is it people in their spare time or is it paid workers being funded by the revenues from other projects? And, of course, focus on Open Source software that is being pushed and is _viable_ for enterprise use - hobbiest level software and boutique libraries will always have volunteers available.
-Chris
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On the one hand... (Score:3, Interesting)
...the Renaissance relied heavily on such donations from sponsors. People like Leonardo da Vinci simply could not have operated without them. This is a valid model to work with, as history has unquestionably shown, but it's unstable if the rich and powerful get unseated, as happens when the economy collapses.
The other option is to have a public sector Open Source laboratory, funded through the tax system. Americans hate taxes, though, even in those cases where the alternative costs them more, gives them les
You know what I'd pay Canonical for? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a network engineer, like a lot of Slashdotters here. I focus on Ubuntu & LTSP in educational type environments.
I would *gladly* pay Canonical for upper-tier support, if it were affordable to me, the small-business. As of right now, Canonical support services [canonical.com] offers server support (which includes LTSP servers) for $750/year, PER SERVER - and this is just 9-5, weekday only, 10 "cases/issues" maximum, support. This is pretty difficult for me, as one of my clients is a 7-site elementary school district, which have all migrated to Ubuntu and LTSP. That would be US $5,250 a year. It seems that you can't span the 10 support cases over different servers, which is one of the reasons why this support model is so unattractive to me.
It's amazing how much LTSP has developed over the past few years, but there are still tons of things that can be improved, with a little TLC and bugfixing. As it is now, I am very active in helping report and troubleshoot bugs - but again, I want support from Canonical because IANAP, and they employ people who work directly on LTSP in Ubuntu. I've heard straight from them that they just don't have enough time to work on it - and it's a shame, given the number of people with LTSP up and running. If the support model was a bit more flexible for us smaller tech businesses (usually the ones who push Linux in the first place), I think Canonical could be incredibly successful.
Re:Linux desktop has never been profitable (Score:5, Insightful)
To me Linux has never been profitable in the Desktop-User side, but in the Servers Side.
How can one make profit in the desktop world? Free software is mostly based on services not software license selling and it's not only libre but gratis (free as beer).
You're focused on the wrong thing. It doesn't matter if it's "desktop" or "server". What matters is who is doing the buying. Consumers / end users don't spend the big money on services. Enterprises do. And so what you want to do is provide a product that meets needs of the Enterprise. If enterprise customers want desktop Linux support, then that's a nice market to be in. The reality is that such a market is still very limited and niche. But enterprise customers are doing plenty of Linux deployments in the datacenter. That market is sizable and growing. That's where the money is.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now hold on right there billy joe!
When you say
...Linux users are mostly advanced users which can take care of themselves rather than paying for support...
it gets right up my craw, and I'll tell you why. To demonstrate, lets rewrite that line:
Windows users are mostly computer-ignorant users which try to take care of their own stuff rather than paying for support.
Yes, it does sound a bit ridiculous, but Ubuntu is aimed at replacing the Windows desktop environment, and thus aiming at being the OS used by computer-ignorant users, NOT sysadmins and technically savvy Linux users. When the Linux ball gets rolling a b