<quote who="Alexander Jacob Tsykin"> > Two things:
Sorry, but this mail really needs to be corrected. > firstly Ubuntu is already a major distribution, and arguably > the most major considering it has the most users according to most polls. Totally non-scientific polls that have an extremely thin audience profile even within the community. There is no sure-fire way to judge our install base right now, but any kind of educated guess would suggest that Red Hat has a larger commercial install base, and I would be deeply surprised if Ubuntu had the largest non-commercial install base this early on - we've only been around publically since September 2004, remember. *Yes*, we have had an amazing growth period, but that's 18 months of growth from zero. > Secondly, Ubuntu doesn't seek to differentiate itself from Suse and Redhat > by offering support as an optional extra which you pay for. It definitely does. That is a major differentiating factor. We achieve huge distribution by allowing anyone to use the complete version of Ubuntu, with reliable security and bugfix support - without requiring a commercial relationship with Canonical at all. For SLAs and additional support, you can go to Canonical or one of the many Ubuntu support providers around the world (see the Ubuntu Marketplace and Ubuntu Partner Programme on the website). If you want to use a supported version of Red Hat or SUSE, you must purchase at the very least a basic support agreement - ie. you must have a commercial relationship with either Red Hat or Novell. This is *definitely* a major differentiator for Ubuntu! > It simply has different goals. It's not really created with a profit in > mind (witness shipit). While Canonical is in the black, it is there for > the distribution, and no the other way around. It works both ways. The symbiotic relationship between Canonical and Ubuntu is very important to our growth and sustainability. Profit is definitely part of that picture - Canonical is a for-profit company, and provides an opportunity for other for-profit companies to build business around Ubuntu. That is what the whole Ubuntu Marketplace and Partner Programme are all about - a global business ecosystem. In that context, you can see shipit as a marketing expense. It's not a donation! :-) Also, Canonical, as stated publically numerous times, is *not* yet in the black. Thanks, - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2007: Sydney, Australia http://lca2007.linux.org.au/ Two words: Japanese technofetishism. -- ubuntu-marketing mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
