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Paid Support Not Critical For Linux Adoption

Posted by Soulskill on from the why-buy-the-milk-when-you-can-get-the-cow-for-free dept.

ruphus13 writes "At the LinuxWorld expo, an analyst for the 451 Group pointed to a growing trend in enterprise — the increase in adoption of community-supported Linux distros. From the article, 'Companies are increasingly choosing free community-driven Linux distributions instead of commercial offerings with conventional support options. Several factors are driving this trend, particularly dissatisfaction with the cost of support services from the major distributors. Companies that use and deploy Linux internally increasingly have enough in-house expertise to handle all of their technical needs and no longer have to rely on Red Hat or Novell.'"

1 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How did Ubuntu get it's community? by Fri13 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It is the slogan and good time when distribution came out.

    The first 4.04 version was bretty bad, because Gnome was not in so good shape, on 5.04 and speciality 6.07 became in good time because Gnome got desktop in good shape.

    Only thing what Canonical did, was taunting "Ubuntu means..." slogan and had cleared menus for few applications so there was easy to find needed application.

    And Linux got that time good hardware support up, so the monitors and 3D cards were easy to install.

    Many Windows user was tried Linux few years before Ubuntu and were not satisfied but when they tried again first with this new distribution called Ubuntu, they believed that Ubuntu did something remarkable on that area, even that openSuse, Mandriva and so on were in exactly same shape, but actually even better because they has Yast and MCC what allows easier complete system management, what Ubuntu still lacks.

    Then came XGL from Novell and soon it was running well on Ubuntu too.
    And because Ubuntu got first all 14-16 years old Windows users, they started to taunt it on forums etc, it was like plague trought internet. News corporations/sites noticed it too and believed it too...

    And everything happens actually by false believing what novice computer users does, they believe that what you see, is what makes things happends.

    Without Gnome's good development, Ubuntu would be nothing
    Without Linux good HW support, Ubuntu would be nothing
    Without clean menus, Ubuntu would be nothing
    Without nice slogan, Ubuntu would be nothing
    And last but most important thing, without great luck for releasing Ubuntu in that time when everything else in Linux community was correct, Ubuntu would not be so success.

    So if Ubuntu would come up 2001 or 2002, it would be "forgotten" distribution like Xandros, but it came right time, with "correct" people trying it, it did success.

    Now if you place Mandriva, Ubuntu and openSUSE to front of novice computer user, Ubuntu is last choise when it comes to system management and basic/advance usage. Only thing what is keeping now Ubuntu up is community size and it's "fame" what is actually like a soap bubble, what can collaps anytime...