New Ubuntu Foundation Announced

AccUser writes "Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Ltd, founders of the popular Ubuntu Linux-based operating system, have today announced the creation of The Ubuntu Foundation with an initial funding commitment of US$10m. From the article: 'The Ubuntu Foundation will employ core Ubuntu community members to ensure that Ubuntu will remain fully supported for an extended period of time, and continue to produce new releases of the distribution. As a first step, the Foundation announces that Ubuntu version 6.04, due for release in April 2006, will be supported for three years on the desktop and five years on the server.'"

Comments

This is exactly what is needed

[Manan Shah]

I am very impressed by Ubuntu ease of use, and even more, by their commitment. When you have such an active community and big money behind such a project, it has a very good chance to succeed. It is amazing how much the folks at Ubuntu pay attention to minor usability issues.

If Linux ever becomes mainstream, it will be because of distributions like Ubuntu.

Oh crikey, not another one!

[Willeh]

Ok, so now we have Ubuntu, Gentoo, Suse, Red hat, Mandriva, colinux, Yellow dog, Caldera and god knows who else vying for a slice of an ever so slowly growing pie, not even counting Brazilian, Chinese, Japanese or german national efforts.

Isn't it time that some of those efforts were combined to get some kind of weight behind Linux as a whole, or are companies like IBM and Novell already moving into their respective trenches when linux on the {Desk, lap, floor}top takes off? While i can understand these companies having their own distro as has been traditionally the case, but do we REALLY need another non-profit foundation that thinks it can topple the 800 pound Red Gorilla on it's own while trying to reinvent the wheel and juggling a mix of community support and paid support? I'm not trying to be an anti-linux jerk, i'm just wondering what Ubuntu has to offer that isn't in another distro already.

Re:Oh crikey, not another one!

[Otter]

On the contrary, what you're talking about was the situation in 2002.

Today, things have basically contracted to Ubuntu, Gentoo, Novell/SuSe, Debian and Mandrake on the desktop and the Red Hat family and Debian on the server. The other desktop distros (Turbo, Caldera, Lycoris, Xandros, Lindows/Linwhatever, and the rest) have mostly faded. In the next few years Ubuntu will cannibalize the remaining Debian desktop share, and Mandrake has been spinning its wheels since version 7. The consolidation you're looking for has already happened -- remaining niche players like Yellow Dog don't affect the overall picture.

Re:Oh crikey, not another one!

[The Warlock]

You forgot Fedora, which has a very large desktop share, and Slackware, which is still popular. And SuSe sees some popularity on servers. It's still pretty complicated. Not that this is nessessarily a bad thing, as others have said.

Re:Oh crikey, not another one!

[bman08]

Furthermore, the whole analogy is wrong. Running a successful steakhouse in a city or large town is going to net you, the owner, more dough than being a McDonalds franchisee, though obviously Ronald is pocketing more than anyone. The thing that's great about the restaurant analogy is that it really highlights the fundamental flaw in the whole 'what linux has to do to win' argument. Microsoft has us all thinking that it's a win-or-lose game. It's not. When I go out in my little town, I can choose three different pizza joints, 2 italian, 4 chinese, McD's and Burger King. The real winner in that situation is me. It's the same thing when I walk into my office... Win, Mac, Lin, BSD... Sometimes I want a quarter pounder with cheese and sometimes I want hand fed kobe beef. Whatever the situation, I'll have it my way thanks.

What more could a company want?

[kebes]

This type of (financial) commitment to linux will do great things to silence (corporate) critics of FLOSS who say that there is no "structure and support" for linux. That's alot of money, and a solid commitment behind Ubuntu now. I'm glad that there are linux distros out there that are putting such an emphasis on having a product that is long-term, stable, and that will be patched/supported for a long time.

From my experience with Ubuntu (installed it with a friend on a brand-new powerbook), it is easy to use and works well. I really hope that the momentum Ubuntu is generating will continue... it is quickly becoming the best option for converting new users over to linux.

Re:How does Debian fit in?

[wasabii]

That's impossible simply because of the organization of Debian. It is not designed to be a supported commercial quality distro. Each maintainer has pure authority over their own packages.

Ubuntu strives to put together a cohesive distro without the infighting that happens so frequently. You must remember, time is money for these people. All the improvements on software that Ubuntu makes are available for Debian to pick up. Usually even submitted into Debian's bug system.

Re:Ubuntu review

[Henry V .009]

Editing sources.list isn't tricky, you're right. But I shouldn't ever have to do it.

I have had three applications total appear on the menu out of the many I've installed. Nvu, VLC, and Bittornado (but not Bittorrent which I installed first). Freecraft, which I installed yesterday, did not show up on the menu (and had the sound problem) even after an X restart. In fact, no game that I have installed from Synaptic has shown up on the menu.

I agree that old versions of Windows are just as clunky as Ubuntu. But Windows XP came out years ago now. It's secure (keep it updated and don't be stupid), stable (on good hardware), and usable. Linux isn't competing with a monster with gaping flaws anymore. It's competing with a well-made product.