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Does it matter?Does it matter?Posted Apr 19, 2010 20:36 UTC (Mon) by ccurtis (guest, #49713)Parent article: Linux and branding
I do not understand what this sentence is trying to say to me:
"ShipIt to put the distribution in the hands of, literally, millions of users and a motivated community of advocates that have provided word-of-mouth marketing for the distribution."
I've read it over a few times but my brain continually NMI resets around "literally, millions".
It appears that ShipIt is a service Ubuntu provides that allows people to request the a physical copy of the distribution on CD-ROM for free. If millions of CDs have shipped I understand that part of the sentence, but I really don't see how that follows to a motivated community; or, are the millions being shipped to a pre-existing (and => as well as) motivated community?
I'm pretty sure that second word, "to", should be removed. And depending on what it's trying to say, this may also work better as two separate sentences ...
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Does it matter? Posted Apr 19, 2010 21:24 UTC (Mon) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
Let's back up.
Is there a authoritative reference for the number of CDs shipped by the ShipIt program? I'm having difficulty finding one.
-jef"If we count the number of CDs AOL shipped, would we get an accurate picture of the number of AOL users today?"spaleta
Does it matter? Posted Apr 21, 2010 7:22 UTC (Wed) by akumria (subscriber, #7773) [Link]
If you assume a one-to-one correspondence between CDs and users; either for Ubuntu or AOL, you are doomed.
As an explanation, newspapers (the actual paper kind) are typically bought by one person.
In some cities, only that one person will actually read it. In other cities it could be ten. This is known as readership figures.
They vary by newspaper, by cities and even area within cities. But, in general, the average readership figure is between 2 - 3 people (animals are typically not counted).
Now with CDs, and specifically, the ShipIt program -- you have a self-selected set of people who already use Linux AND they are interested in advocating it (in general, there will always be occasional people who just keep them to themselves for whatever reasons).
We can be conservative and assume a "CDership" of 1.5
Assuming production runs of 100,000 per Ubuntu release (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc.) and then also architecture (i386, x86-64, PPC, etc). means probably close to 600,000. Over a number of releases (since 2004), twice a year, leads to well over 1 millions CDs being shipped quite easily.
Now assuming a "CDership" of 1.5, it makes the number of users who used Ubuntu via the ShipIt program is quite possiblly as high as 10 million.
That means that 0.001% of the worlds total population have likely touched Ubuntu in this way.
Does it matter? Posted Apr 21, 2010 12:11 UTC (Wed) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] Then you have to subtract the people who get the Ubuntu CD as a way of upgrading from the last version...
Does it matter? Posted Apr 21, 2010 17:17 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
you are also assuming that each CD is only ever used to install one machine. Given that it's common to use one CD to install many machines there is a correction factor the other way as well.
not to mention local copies that get made of these CDs
Does it matter? Posted Apr 20, 2010 9:52 UTC (Tue) by PO8 (guest, #41661) [Link] Seems to me that this "sentence" is intended as a continuation of the previous sentence. A proper rewrite might look something like: What has proven more effective for Ubuntu is its distribution methodology and an effective marketing campaign beyond branding. Ubuntu's ShipIt program has put the distro in the hands of millions of users, while a motivated community of advocates has provided word-of-mouth marketing.
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