Is Ubuntu selling out or growing up?
By Jeff Gould, Peerstone Research / Interop News
Yes, yes, I realize Ubuntu is not a company at all but a free Linux distribution, GPL'd and open source by definition. But still, the Ubuntu distro is sponsored by a traditional for profit company, Canonical Ltd, and it is very fair to say that the distro would not exist without the company. Ubuntu describes itself on its web site as "a community developed and supported project," but in reality it has no separate existence from Canonical and that firm's owner and founder Mark Shuttleworth.
Legally speaking, "Ubuntu" is a trademark owned by Canonical. In practice, it's a brand. As far as I know, the Ubuntu project has no source of revenue other than the Ubuntu Foundation, which is funded by Canonical and Shuttleworth. Most of the key developers behind the Ubuntu distro work for Canonical or the Foundation. So really it isn't so unfair after all to treat Ubuntu as a proxy for Canonical Ltd. And therefore the question at the start of this post is legitimate, to wit: is Ubuntu really an open source – um, well – outfit?
The answer that has recently emerged to this question is, "yes and no."
Yes, of course, because Ubuntu's web site promises that the distro "will always be free of charge, including enterprise releases and security updates." Don't go thinking that this is some fast moving beta like Fedora that will only be supported for a few quarters and is therefore designed to push you into paying real money for a more stable version like RHEL. No, Ubuntu Server Edition 8.04, released just last week, comes with a guarantee of five years of bug fixes and security patches. And "free" covers not just the source code but also the binaries (contrast Red Hat's restrictive policies with RHEL).
You can download the desktop or server versions directly from Ubuntu's site, but if you don't have a fast Internet connection they will actually mail you a free CD (a very nice touch). Be warned, though, that "delivery may take up to ten weeks" (hmm, are they mailing it from the South Pole?). So you may want to buy one from Amazon instead of waiting. Or just break out your credit card and buy a 20-pack of CDs for about $32 from the Canonical online shop.
But no, Ubuntu is not completely open source, not as long as you understand that "Ubuntu" is ultimately just a brand name exploited for commercial purposes by Canonical Ltd. Ubuntu the distro – a cleverly packaged flavor of Debian with many useful value-add features, all properly GPL'd – is free, as we saw. But Ubuntu the enterprise ecosystem – understood as the collection of desktops and servers running Ubuntu in a given organization – is not.
Canonical makes no secret of the fact that it is eager to sell Ubuntu support contracts to enterprise users. 24x7 support on Ubuntu Server will cost you $2,750 per year, or $750 for 9x5. That's basically the Red Hat business model (with free binaries thrown in), and is perfectly uncontroversial, though surprisingly expensive.
Lately however Canonical has introduced a new twist into the Ubuntu business model with the launch of its Landscape systems management and monitoring tool. Basically Landscape is very similar to Red Hat Network. It allows you to track the configurations and status of all your Ubuntu desktops and servers, and to install updates under central control (though with full customization options). And the catch is? This is completely proprietary code. It's not GPL'd, you can't see the source, and you can't get it for free. In fact, you can't even have the binary, because Landscape is provided as an online service only. Only the Landscape client is free and open source, which it has to be of course because it cohabits physically with the kernel on each of your Ubuntu machines.
With Landscape Canonical has effectively abolished the distinction between its business model and Red Hat's, at least as far as enterprise customers are concerned. To use Landscape you must either have a support contract for the Ubuntu instances you are managing or pay $150 per node. One unstated consequence of this model is to push large Ubuntu users into buying support contracts for all of their managed instances instead of only a few (as a friendly Ubuntu sales rep once encouraged me to do).
Now personally I don't think there is anything wrong in Ubuntu – pardon, Canonical – adopting the Red Hat way. On the contrary, I think it's a good thing. It's a clear sign that Mark Shuttleworth – who has been funding Ubuntu out of the half billion dollar fortune he earned from closed source software back in the 90s – wants the Linux distro he created to be able to stand on its own two feet one day as a viable business. My guess is he has a long way to go before that happens, given that Canonical counts 130 employees today against Red Hat's 2200. Converting free users into paying customers has turned out to be a much tougher sales job for the commercial open source players than they imagined. Even Red Hat appears to be struggling to move the revenue needle on JBoss, and I doubt that MySQL's owners would have been so prompt to sell if the database's sales had been growing as fast as its free installed base.
But no matter. Canonical and Ubuntu have the right to choose whatever business model they please. What's comical though is the blatant, almost Orwellian contradiction between their hard-nosed desire to make money and the grandiose Ubuntu philosophy:
"Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees."
Yes folks, all open source software programs should be free. But some are more free than others.
Jeff Gould
in Open Source, Linux
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Reader Comments (78)
You seem to have missed out several important things. Fedora is as much a beta to RHEL as Debian is to Ubuntu.
Red Hat is not selling the software bits but a support subscription with RHEL. The software bits are free (public mirrors) and the binaries are easily reproducible (CentOS etc).
Ubuntu is far from completely GPL'ed. No distribution is. Everything is a mix of several free and open source software licenses and Ubuntu includes several packages which are proprietary too.
I can't believe you. Microsoft kicked me out of my own machine (WGA False Positive) and put me on the street. Kind strangers came to my rescue and restored my hope and dignity. These kind strangers were Ubuntu, Mepis, Mint and Sabayon. Now I am better off than before. And before you say people just want something free, I have since bought disks, shirts, mugs and other products from these wonderful people who saved me from M$ and gave me a whole new and wonderful world to inhabit.
If you read this, thank you, Mark, Warren, Clem and Fabio. You guys are the best! Thank you also to all the wonderful GNU/Linux people who have given freedom and hope not only to me, but to the rest of the world, especially in the underdeveloped places in the world.
Your making a moutain from a molehill. If your using any GPL software in a Corp. and don't want to pay for updates or support your on your own like anyone else. On the surface is sounds like a great service.
You really don't know what you are talking about. The fact that a company back a distro doesn't make the distro less free. You in fact can take that distro and make it into your own, in full GPL compliance.
In addition you seem to make a coarse approximation in confusing open source software and free software. The former relies on the fact that the source is provided. If so BSD, MIT licenses are open source. Free software in the GPL is different in the sense that the source will always be available no matter the changes. Canonical (and RedHat) are fully compliant, and whenever impossible to provide a free software package, proprietary software is provided, but you, the user are fully warned. The same is true for proprietary codecs, not included by default.
I really don't get your point. For me Canonical is providing commercial support. Nothing wrong with that. You fail to mention the great community support that Ubuntu has, again in full GPL spirit.
As has been pointed out, ubuntu doesn't become less free because the company financially backing the distribution offers "add-on's" for money. Ubuntu remains a part community based part enterprise based distribution and canonical can sell all the extra closed source software for ubuntu they want to, just as any other company can.
It's the moment they start to use their influence over ubuntu to cripple the distribution you can talk about selling out.
Oh, and john... fedora is a testing ground for Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases. Debian is a completely separate project from ubuntu.
Canonical has to make money somehow or they would cease to exist. The fact that they provide the OS free of charge, and in turn make money on the support is perfectly acceptable. Everyone needs to make a living, and Canonical have never tried to imply that they are non-profit. Personally I think their business plan makes a lot of sense.
this is a fool of a blog entry.
Let's see - Canonical managed to do what nobody else did, a distributions usable by humans.
Did I have to pay a cent for it's usage? No.
Does it include proprietary software out of the box? No.
I think it's just fine, and I do hope Canonical makes money for the millions it's invested in Ubuntu.
You seem to be utterly confused about the various concepts you're randomly pontificating on.
Second...
If you don't want to pay for managing GNU/Linux boxes, then do it yourself. That's one of the main tenets of DIY and FOSS cultures. Do you have too many to do it by hand, but still don't want to pay for the tools? Then by god, man, zip up your pants and buckle your belt and start an open-source project to either develop a new tool or add modules to the several web-based GNU/Linux configuration tools that already exist.
I guess you were just having a slow day and didn't have anything more substantive to rant about. It's cool. Happens to me all the time.
Your article is disjointed and mis-aligned. You begin by acknowledging the difference between Ubuntu and Canonical, and then proceed to completely ignore that for the rest of an article.
What license a distribution has, what company backs it, and what business model that company uses are three separate variables.
I also agree with the other reviewers that you could use a refresher on gratis vs libre.
First off, Jeff, you are an idiot.
And Anders, Fedora may be officially backed by Red Hat but the Fedora Foundation and Red Hat are both purposely distancing this relationship. While it may have been true that Fedora was a testing ground in the past, it is really nothing more than a regular (though often bleeding edge) distro.
Gotta say here, you're really looking FAR too deep into this. Ububtu comes to mind as the "Google" of the OS world. Their promise of "always free, and supported for a defined amount of time" is somewhat equivalent to "Do no evil." Now, obviously, Shuttleworth wants to make some money at some point, but he's doing that in other ways. Just search Google for examples.
Additionally, Ubuntu is one of the driving forces in making Windows obsolete and bringing Linux to the masses. Sorry, I just don't see what your complaining about here. Even your main points barely register as "circumstantial evidence."
There is nothing wrong if Canonical tries to make money with FOSS. But it should be clear that Ubuntu is no free software distribution. They provide proprietary Software and even sell it through their online shop. In gutsy there were trial packages enabled by default (sun's desktop vm).
I don't think that Canonical has figured out how to make money with ubuntu yet. They can't compete with Novell and Red Hat in the business world. It's hard to distinguish a distribution that is mainly Debian.
Hey Steven Glass, why are you even writing about tech? clearly, you don't have a grasp, which is why you are making things up.
I'm afraid I don't see the "blatant, almost Orwellian contradiction". Their philosophy says every user should have freedom with respect to *their* software. I'm certain they're referring to the software one runs on one's own machine.
I just don't see how this is contradicted by running a free client on a free operating system just because the client connects to a service which isn't free or open and charges money for the service provided. The user has no right or need to have access to the backend source code; it doesn't run on his machine, it executes on the server, which outputs source code (html, javascript, etc.) which the user is free to intercept and modify on the way to his browser (ala greasemonkey, etc.).
Big surprise, a bunch of comments from ubuntu fanboys that can't stand anything bad said about their god shuttleworth or their precious distro.
Jeff Gould,
There is no "paradox" in selling Free Software.
Many people (wrongly) believe that you should not charge money for distributing copies of Free Software, or that you should charge as little as possible -- just enough to cover the cost.
Richard Stallman, one of the most radical defensors of Free Software, explains: "Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can".
"Free programs are sometimes distributed gratis, and sometimes for a substantial price. Often the same program is available in both ways from different places. The program is free regardless of the price, because users have freedom in using it.
Non-free programs are usually sold for a high price, but sometimes a store will give you a copy at no charge. That doesn't make it free software, though. Price or no price, the program is non-free because users don't have freedom."
"By funding development, you can advance the world of free software."
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
So, that's exactly what Canonical do. They make money from free software and that doesn't make the software less free.
So this isn't a specific question about Ubuntu but any open source project assisted by a money making company?