Linux start-up takes path to profits (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

ZDNet interviews Mark Shuttleworth. "Ubuntu has been a phenomenon in the desktop Linux niche. But Canonical Chief Executive Mark Shuttleworth, who founded the project, has his eyes on the more lucrative server market. Despite abundant rivals, Ubuntu has risen to prominence within the Linux niche, but that's just a means to an end. Canonical plans to become profitable by 2008 by extracting revenue from the same server market that Linux leaders Red Hat and Novell specialize in."

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Linux start-up takes path to profits (ZDNet)

Posted Oct 31, 2006 13:23 UTC (Tue) by richo123 (guest, #24309) [Link]

This looks like a real shift in Ubuntu to me. The distro has built it's reputation on the desktop and I get the sense that Mark realises he can't turn a buck on this for a long time. Servers and Oracle partnerships have been aired in the last couple of weeks.

The QA problems there recently also suggest that there is a certain lack of will among developers regarding the desktop perhaps connected to the profitability issue.

All sounds a little similar to an earlier distro: Mandrake. I hope not.....

Linux start-up takes path to profits (ZDNet)

Posted Oct 31, 2006 15:58 UTC (Tue) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

"""Mark Shuttleworth: Exactly. There are a couple differences between our strategy and those of the other players. We would never characterize our six-month releases as beta releases or experimental releases. They are fully supported, and you can buy full contracts on them."""

I'm an Ubuntu fan, myself. But I seem to recall him saying, recently, that he felt that they should definitely provide security updates to Edgy for 18 months, but that support contracts should not be offered. I can't remember where I read this. Does anyone else remember more clearly and have a link?

Releases

Posted Oct 31, 2006 18:23 UTC (Tue) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link]

I can not remember SuSE or Novell saying that the SuSE Linux Professional or now openSUSE releases where some kind of beta or experimental. They have always been fully supported including 24 months of security updates.

So where is the great difference? That Ubuntu actually delivers less security updates?

Releases

Posted Oct 31, 2006 19:29 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

You can buy support for openSUSE ? Seriously ? News to me. Ubuntu is different: free version and suppoorted version is one and the same. This is how RedHat did many years ago. Novell was always proprietary and while there are openSUSE today it's still "ugly step-child", to get the support you should buy the Professional version first.

This is not what (a many others) want: I want free (as in beer) distro for the usage on my desktop (where I can support myself perfectly fine, thank you) and the same stuff on my server (where support is big issue). SUSE never offered such an option (and does not offer it today). RedHat did many years ago - but not now.

Releases

Posted Nov 1, 2006 6:04 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Well both the supported and unsupported versions of Redhat/Fedora are free and Free.

It's just that Redhat doesn't provide installation cdroms for no cost for their 'Redhat Enterprise Linux" version. CentOS does that for us.

Redhat isn't even doing the old failed game of 'Linux with propriatory add-ons' like Suse tried to do before being bought by Novell.

Fundamentally the only real difference between Ubuntu and Redhat is that Ubuntu is offering support for their 'cutting edge' version and Redhat is not.