Commercial Services for Bazaar
In news that will be of interest to both open- and closed-source developers, Canonical is about to open a new revenue stream by offering a suite of commercial services for deploying and managing Bazaar, the open-source version-control system. Here’s the scoop, with some thoughts.
In a press release shared with WorksWithU and set to be made public on December 10, Canonical announced its plan to offer a series of commercial services centered around Bazaar. The details of the three services–named Consultancy and Conversion, Training and Support–are as follows, according to the release:
- Consultancy and Conversion Services – Canonical consultants and engineers are experienced in converting a wide range of version control systems to Bazaar. Following a thorough analysis, they will design and implement a customised migration process that ensures businesses and development teams can get up and running rapidly.
- Training – In addition, Canonical is now offering comprehensive training in Bazaar to get staff up-to-speed quickly and transfer best practice knowledge. Both the content and delivery are tailored to meet the needs of individual teams and development environments, so developers can get the most out of the training sessions.
- Support – Canonical’s Global Support and Services Centre works closely with Bazaar development engineers, making it easy to access their expertise. For more complex cases, users are put in touch directly with Bazaar engineers. Companies interested in support should visit http://www.ubuntu.com/support/services.
Canonical will charge for the services on a per-day and per-developer basis, and will make them available to both open- and closed-source projects.
Building Canonical’s cathedral
Clearly, Canonical is hoping to push more developers to adopt Bazaar for version control, and make some money while it’s at it.
Given the number of alternative open-source versioning solutions available–git and subversion are the most popular–as well as the hassle associated with migrating from one system to another, that task could prove difficult. It will take a lot to convince many developers to make the switch from what they’re already using.
But Bazaar offers a number of attractive features, such as a de-centralized management model and greater scalability than many of its competitors. Moreover, Canonical’s new services will go far in making the conversion to Bazaar easier, for projects that have the cash to pay for assistance.
It’s also important to note that there are already some big-name projects using Bazaar. Besides Canonical’s own endeavors, like Launchpad and Ubuntu itself, GNU Mailman, Emacs and MySQL deploy Bazaar. Those projects are major players in the open-source world, and their developers may well be likely to take advantage of Canonical’s new offerings.
Engaging closed-source developers
Perhaps the most interesting line in the press release is the one noting, “Although bzr itself is open source, there is no requirement for commercial projects to make their code publicly available.” In other words, Canonical seems to want to emphasize that it’s happy to work with closed-source coders, as well as those already in the open-source ecosystem.
Proprietary development, of course, is nothing new for Canonical. Much of its own code remains closed, or was developed initially under a closed-source license.
While many Ubuntu fans tend to have qualms with Canonical’s lack of universal commitment to the ideals of the free-software world, they should keep in mind that the company is one of the only major players in the ecosystem that has consistently put pragmatism before ideology. The decision to offer the Bazaar services (and Bazaar itself) to closed projects is an example of that commitment to practicality, and there’s a lot to be said for it.
I think that this is great for Ubuntu and the community! As long as Ubuntu is generating revenue, it will be able to continue its development and partnership with the big players like Dell and Amazon. I personally like what they are doing in this area. I am a developer that likes open source (to a point), but I also like to be able to purchase groceries and pay rent, etc. I would like to offer my software on the Ubuntu App Center with a small nominal fee (maybe $5 or $10) attatched and after purchace I will be happy to provide the source for personal use (read hacking), but NOT REDISTRIBUTION! This is major flaw in the open source licenses, as it stands if it is licensed under (L)GPL(v2, v3), ASL, or EPL and I charge for the service of download or distribution media they can just take the source code and give it away! Why would anyone trying to make living as an ISV use these licences?
adam:
Without the redistribution clauses on thousands of individual software projects that you say are a problem… Ubuntu would not exist. I think your point of view is a bit narrow.
Emacs developers are not going opt for paid support services from Canonical. If you are using open source SCM’s subversion in the past and now Git have basically won the game. Canonical is not going to get much if any money from this offering.
“While many Ubuntu fans tend to have qualms with Canonical’s lack of universal commitment to the ideals of the free-software world, they should keep in mind that the company is one of the only major players in the ecosystem that has consistently put pragmatism before ideology.”
And if Red Hat, Intel etc but “pragmatism” as a reason to continue developing proprietary software, how would Ubuntu have been able to reuse them? Don’t see the rich irony in this?
Adam: you ask “Why would anyone trying to make living as an ISV use these licences?” but you ignore many ISV’s doing exactly that. Aren’t you denying reality.
Both of you (neon amp; jeff) are missing the point! Red Hat makes its money from corporate support services, Intel of hardware, and the SCM’s and OS’s make money off corporate support services like what this article is about! Now, me as a single developer, and not a corporation selling support services or hardware, is not going to be able to sell services for an game I develop (NOTE: not an online game), as it will not be geared toward corporations, but end users. So, tell me again, how am I to make a living using an open source license for my software, when those licenses state that users are free to DISTRIBUTE MY HARD WORK? This is precisely the problem with the open source licenses, it does not take the little guy, trying to make a living, into account. It works great in a situation were you are offering services to go along with your software, but not when there are no services to be had.
adam:
The assumption there is that you should be able to make a living writing these sort of applications. Maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe computer programming is more like being a musician where a very small percentage of the people creating content actually make money from from selling copies of their music and most get a paycheck some other way.
In any event.. I think you are going to find that the Ubuntu community is particularly less likely to pay for software applications than other cultivated communities of software users. That’s part of the attraction to use Ubuntu isn’t it.. the no acquisition cost model? Why would the people attracted to a no cost operating system be interested purchasing small value-add applications? I don’t see it happening. But good luck to you none-the-less.
-jef
“Now, me as a single developer, and not a corporation selling support services or hardware, is not going to be able to sell services for an game I develop”
You are missing the point. You are not entitled to make any money unless you convince the value of what you are selling to potential consumers. Whether or not, software is open source is orthogonal to it.