Distributions

Canonical courts financial contributions

Financial contributions are part of many free software projects. Users can, and do, contribute in lots of different ways, but helping the project keep the lights on and, perhaps, even cover some development time, is fairly common. Financial donations may also be used to champion certain features for a project; by ponying up some money, the donor may get some input into the direction of the project. The latter seems to be part of the motivation for Canonical's recent push to more prominently feature—but not require—financial contributions as part of the desktop download process.

On October 9, Steve George, Canonical's VP of Communications and Products, posted a message to the company's blog that described the change:

It's a bit surprising to see a large, company-backed distribution looking for financial contributions, but George made it clear that there has always been a way to do so, "albeit in a not-easy-to-find spot on our website". He said that users have been asking for a simpler way to contribute money, so Canonical was making one available. Now, clicking through to a desktop download page brings up a web application (seen at right, click to see a larger version) that allows contributions of up to $125 in each of eight categories.

According to community manager Jono Bacon, the application was inspired by the various Humble Bundles, which allow people to pay what they wish for computer games or ebooks. While the sliders used by Humble Bundles allow users to choose the amount to pay the authors, charities, and the company, the sliders in the Canonical application allow a choice of features contributors would like to put their money toward. The possibilities are:

• Make the desktop more amazing
• Performance optimisation for games and apps
• Improve hardware support on more PCs
• Phone and tablet versions of Ubuntu
• Community participation in Ubuntu development
• Better coordination with Debian and upstreams
• Better support for flavours like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu
• Tip to Canonical – they help make it happen

To aid the user in evaluating how much to give, the application suggests products that would cost roughly the same as the total contribution. Those range from a "grande extra shot mocha latte chino" at $2, through a "pair of LP Matador bongo drums" at $100, up to "an eight year-old dromedary camel" at $1000. Visitors can either choose their donation level and contribute via PayPal, or click through a link to go on to the download.

While Canonical undoubtedly does a great deal of work for the benefit of millions of Linux users, this is a rather unconventional approach. It is a little hard to imagine that it will generate a significant revenue stream, at least for an organization the size of Canonical. But the real value to Canonical (and by extension, Ubuntu) may be in the feedback it gets from users.

The categories for features are fairly broad, but a consensus among users on one (or a few) of them is certainly useful information. The fact that those users are willing to pay something to make that vote makes the data all the more interesting. There have been persistent complaints that some of the other Ubuntu flavors, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and so on, have lacked for financial backing in comparison to the number of users they bring to the table. This effort would give those flavors an opportunity to send a message, for example.

It would be great if the community were to get some visibility into the contributions. Canonical may be understandably loath to give out direct financial information, but there are other ways to do the reporting that would still benefit both the Ubuntu community as well as the larger FOSS ecosystem. Information on the "votes", perhaps as percentages of the number and dollar amount of the contributions, would be useful. That would help Ubuntu see places where more effort is desired as well as identifying potential trouble spots for other distributions and projects. According to George, the company is working on a schedule and format for reporting on the contributions.

Canonical has pursued other non-traditional revenue sources in the past, so this could just be another. With enough different revenue streams, even if some are fairly small and unpredictable, the company could reach a profitable state. That can only be a good thing for the long-term prosperity of not just Canonical, but the Ubuntu distribution as well. Ubuntu has millions of users worldwide and the Linux ecosystem is richer for its presence, so anything that helps its continued existence is definitely a net positive.

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