The Business Model of Ubuntu 254
Andareed writes "Open-source software companies, such as Ubuntu (an open-source Linux distribution), are better able to respond to user request and bugs than traditional software companies, such as Microsoft. Simon Law, head of the Quality Assurance department at Ubuntu in a talk given to the UW Computer Science Club, explains why this is, and how Ubuntu is leveraging the open-source model. Simon explains how the QA department at Ubuntu differs from traditional QA departments, through its use of the open-source community at large. Most interesting is Simon's views on what motivates open-source developers to develop software, and how open-source oriented businesses (specifically Ubuntu) are making money."
QA at Ubuntu? (Score:4, Insightful)
Geez (Score:5, Insightful)
Matter of scale (Score:5, Insightful)
Just my US$0.02 worth.
Re:Matter of scale (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sounds Swell... (Score:1, Insightful)
You expirience isn't everybody's expirience.
Business model (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:QA at Ubuntu? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then maybe this supertastic QA department that is so much better because it's open source and what not should, you know, like, support it or something?
Re:X & NVidia Drivers (Score:5, Insightful)
Ubunto (Score:2, Insightful)
IMHO, the problem with Linux for the desktop is users have no loyalty. Once something better comes along they drop thier old distro like a bad habbit. This ultimately makes it impossible for a distro company to be profitable more than a few years.
Natural Selection (Score:5, Insightful)
Watch natural selection at work. It's a good thing. The problem with Windows is that its users do not abandon it if they find something better. Hence, no incentive for Microsoft to improve Windows (see: Vista).
Distros most certainly can have staying power, if they keep working on themselves and improving their distros. If they don't, good riddance.
Re:Matter of scale (Score:5, Insightful)
The reasons for faster response, from my point of view (having had a commit bit for FreeBSD for almost a decade now):
- The developers actually do support. They're in contact with the end users. And some of the end users are other coders, and are allowed to do things with the OS code. This allows them to send in suggestions for how to fix their own problem. As opposed to the rumours, we only use these as is less than half the time - yet they're useful for pointing out things.
- The developers are allowed to prioritize their own time. This result in both higher quality code (developers clean up when they feel cleanup is warranted), and easy end user problems being prioritized. Especially in combination with developers doing support.
- Open source software is mostly designed based on what's technically reasonably easy, not marketing. This makes for simpler and more nimble codebases.
- Open source goes through evolution: Those codebases that aren't nimble mostly die. In closed source software, those codebases that sell can add more resources (programmers) to get around not being nimble.
I think these things are much more important. Especially the first two.Eivind.
Linux desktop and user loyalty (Score:3, Insightful)
That may be very true for the home desktop, but probably not the business desktop. Ubuntu is targeting the business desktop with it's feature list, paid support options and now longer support guarantee. A business is much less likely to start switching distros based on the flavor-of-the-week mentality.
Redhat recognized this by targeting the server market first. Then they made in-roads on the business desktop. Ubuntu, likewise has server offerings and business desktops.
It's not that either one of them can't be used for home or hobby use, it's just that their default setup is not that. What is the biggest complaint for new users to either Ubuntu or Redhat? They can't play mp3s or watch videos. Those aren't normally high priorities in a business setting, but are for home use. Both distros have pretty simple instructions to add that capability, too, but neither include it out of the box (or ISO, so to speak). Why not? Because, ultimately, it's not their target audience.
So, unless Ubuntu does something really dumb, it's going to be a major player. Will it always be number one on distrowatch? Probably not, but it's here to stay.
Re:Shuttleworth (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:QA at Ubuntu? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's with the general lack of security? On Xandros I've got what I need for laptop security: Private home folders by default, Encrypted home, firewall control, VPN client. On Ubuntu, its all "install/configure it yourself" and "use the HOWTOs n00b".
The display detection is about the worst I've seen from the current crop of distros. Heading into xorg.conf is almost a forgone conclusion even with mundane graphics cards.
(I wondered if the alpha had addressed any of these problems, so I installed edgy for a look: Default would not boot at all, and selecting "safe video" mode put me into a fully-accelerated hires desktop! So I will probably stay away from it until beta2.)
Ubuntu is elegant and uncluttered, but it isn't very functional beyond office apps and ethernet connectivity; Not if you take its GUI-centered mission seriously. Ubuntu is morphing into another distro/community that tries to whip desktop users into hackers.
Linux (Score:1, Insightful)
When is Linux going to "be ready"?
I dunno but I got a ton of work to do and I haven't got time for the pain.
Re:Sounds Swell... (Score:3, Insightful)
I searched for my question and found "edit the xorg config file, and some syntax tips. I googled the location of the config file, but didn't find anything. I knew that
I shouldn't have to do anything but pick a resolution from a list. Things like this should just work. A good OS doesn't require reading a manual for every little thing.
If I was using Gentoo, or making my own distro, I wouldn't really have a problem. But Ubuntu is supposed to be easy to use. Not something that people should have to hire someone to set up.
And thanks to all the moderators who modded me troll for pointing out a legitimate problem.
Re:Shuttleworth (Score:1, Insightful)
Say what you will about Microsoft.
Bill, on the other hand, knows pretty damn well what giving feels like, arguably more so than any one else does. Take a Look [wikipedia.org]
I don't know about you, but screw the "OS community", quite frankly, I'd think global health, education, and global development to be much more worthwhile causes. But then again, who cares about the helping people in need, who cares about starvation desiese and illiteracy, as long as your OS is free and open, and spiffy, right?
Re:Shuttleworth (Score:3, Insightful)
It is commendable that Gates is making all of those charitable donations to alleviate hunger and poverty and disease. Nobody can fault him and his foundation on that. However, it will never solve the real problem keeping those people and countries in poverty.
What the third-world really needs is investment in infrastructure, industry, educational institutions, etc., so that they can become self-sufficient. As long as they are dependent on subsidies from the U.N. or other countries or the Gates foundation, they will always be in poverty. What's the old adage? Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
Unless there is real investment, whether through Gate's foundation or other sources in business that can provide jobs, and a market for their output, there will always be poverty and disease in those countries. If you want to alleviate world suffering, ultimately, you are going to have to give people in the rest of the world the means to support themself, not just a handout.
Re:Linux desktop (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux columnists like to talk about how Linux is ready for the desktop, but it's just not.
Regardless of what your experience has been, regardless of what columnists say the fact is I run Ubuntu on three computers in my house, for me, my wife and my kids. And my mother uses it too.
And out of those four machines I am the only user who knows "what a Linux is". The most insightful comment I got from my clueless but happy Linux users was from my daughter... "Oooh, it looks kind of like Aunt Mysha's Mac!".
"Ready for the desktop" [lxer.com] is a relative statement anyway, but me, I think Ubuntu is ready. More telling still; so does my mom.
Re:QA at Ubuntu? (Score:5, Insightful)
This support isn't going to happen any other way. If you think it's simple to write drivers for your black-box wireless card, go for it! I think you'll find that it's not. We get the cooperation of all hardware manufacturers by only buying from those that cooperate. The ball is in your court.
Can we please stop with the Ubuntu stuff? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Matter of scale (Score:3, Insightful)