The Man and the Myth Behind Ubuntu
The New York Times ran a story today about Ubuntu and its prospects for beating Microsoft. Focusing on Mark Shuttleworth, the South African billionaire who founded the Ubuntu project and leads Canonical, the Times reporter concludes that the idea of Linux on every desktop remains a bit “quixotic,” and suggests that Ubuntu has only come so far thanks to Shuttleworth’s wealth. I don’t think that’s true.
Certainly, the patronship of a billionaire is a unique advantage enjoyed by Ubuntu alone. Fedora, Mandriva, SUSE and the like could only dream of having a single supporter with that kind of cash to back them up, and the more militant proponents of these distributions might like to think of Ubuntu as the undeserving rich kid of the Linux community, only here thanks to the wealth of its father.
On the other hand, Ubuntu isn’t a charity, and the fact that Shuttleworth has millions of dollars doesn’t mean he gives them to Ubuntu. He’s a leader and he helped the project get off the ground, but at the end of the day, Ubuntu and Canonical have to be self-sustaining.
Besides, if money were the chief ingredient in free software’s success, the GNU project would have never made it out of the womb twenty-five years ago. There may be some big-name contributors, like Intel and IBM, supporting Linux, but the vast majority of its $10.9 billion value is derived from the work of volunteers.
I would contend, moreover, that the key to Ubuntu’s success so far has been its focus on the desktop. While Red Hat and Novell chased the server market, Canonical established itself as the preeminent Linux distribution for desktop users, which it has used as a base to pursue servers.
And catering to the desktop market doesn’t just mean a focus on being user-friendly. Ubuntu’s aggressive pursuit of desktops in schools (via the Edubuntu spin-off) and its partnership with IBM to power workstations in large businesses, for example, reflect a commitment to the desktop that surpasses simple usability, and which no other distribution has tried to match.
As for the charge that Ubuntu remains a quixotic dream: as the article points out, Ubuntu already counts 10 million users, and Canonical collects $30 million in annual revenue. That may be a drop in the bucket compared to Microsoft’s budget or Shuttleworth’s personal fortune, but it’s a figure that means Ubuntu is already successful and self-sustaining–the battle is no longer uphill.
The fact that a desktop-centric Linux distribution has managed to become solvent enough to independently ensure its continued existence, regardless of the size of its budget, is proof enough that Ubuntu amounts to more than a rich hippie’s dream.
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You write:
Certainly, “…the patronship of a billionaire”
Either you haven’t got your facts right, or Mark Shuttleworth is one of the world’s the best investors!!!
Mr Shittleowrth sold Thawte for, at the most $590M so I can hardly think that makes him even a dollar millionaire.
Andrew: It’s true that Thawte only sold for less than $600 million, but according to the Times article, “Through investments in the United States, Africa and Europe, he has amassed a fortune of more than $1 billion.” So I guess he is a pretty good investor 🙂
Thanks for the comments here and elsewhere.
It’s nice to see Ubuntu getting some real press. Ubuntu and Shuttleworth are worth the attention.
While the NY Times focuses on the fairy tale life story of Mark Shuttleworth,
I feel they are incorrect in assuming that Ubuntu would falter and fall without Mark bank-rolling Canonical.
Many would argue that its the leadership, organisational and community building skills of Mark and Hundreds of developers working with thousands of contributors that continue to be the driving force behind Ubuntu, rather than cold hard cash.
So far I’ve always read Mark saying that Ubuntu is far from profitable, so I don’t think it’s self-sustaining in its current form at this time, its cost must be more than $30M.
I heard the same thing, that Canonical is not profitable yet but their bottom line is getting better (closer) each year.
Canonical’s revenue with Ubuntu is the same business plan that Red Hat had adopted until post-Red Hat 9 when it split into RHEL (paid/corporate owned) and Fedora (free/community).
Ubuntu as a desktop Linux OS is successful because Canonical and all the contributors in the Ubuntu community put in the work to turn out an awesome OS. And of course we can’t forget the tireless efforts of the Debian community. Then of course there are all the kernel developers, Xorg developers etc.
Ubuntu is basically the inevitable outcome of strong and clear leadership combined with hard work and quality input from people who are free to collaborate without the normal barriers the old and tired shrink wrapped software development model brings.
Big deal if Ubuntu has a rich backer. It’s also backed by the likes of IBM and Intel. And it was IBM in particular that gave Microsoft their big break. A privileged opportunity they have abused ever since.
But alas I stopped reading the article at the bottom of the first page. Why these reporters continue to drag up bull about the technical issues surrounding Linux is beyond me. It’s almost as though Microsoft owns the media. If I remember rightly, Vista killed things as simple as MP3 players and Vista SP1 killed compatibility with Vista and there are already some application compatibility problems with Windows 7.
Anybody would think Linux was the only OS that didn’t work with “unsupported” stuff or occasionally encountered a problem. How many Windows users can even get to the Windows recovery console? Bearing in mind you normally need a Windows CD to boot from to get to it. And once at the Windows recovery console, how many would know how to use it?
It’s so annoying! Rant over. Please continue :o)
aikiwolfie: I agree completely, actually on your rant Linux namely Ubuntu since that’s what I use supports much more hardware than Windows out of the box. btw I really appreciate your input on the Ubuntu Forums helped me get sli running yesterday 🙂