Canonical Halts Ubuntu CD Free-for-all

Barence writes to tell us that Canonical plans on limiting the number of "free Ubuntu CDs" that people can mooch from the company. The growing popularity of Ubuntu has seen a dramatic increase in the number of CDs being shipped via the free "ShipIt" scheme. The only people able to take advantage of this program now will be the usual community teams, contributors, and first-time Ubuntu users. "'While these CDs are often referred to as 'free CDs,' they are of course not free of cost to Canonical. We want to continue this programme, but Ubuntu’s growth means that some changes are necessary. Therefore we are adjusting how we handle CD requests to try to find the right balance between availability of CDs and the continued viability of the ShipIt program,' [Canonical's chief operating officer Jane Silber] adds. Extra CD copies of Ubuntu will still be available for purchase through the Canonical store, although they need to be bought in bulk. Five copies of the open-source operating system will cost £5 exc VAT and shipping."

Comments

Well just download the ISO.

[LWATCDR]

I never got any of the free CDs because I never wanted to wait. I guess it was handy for people that couldn't burn ISOs like most windows users untill they installed an ISO burning program.

Re:Well just download the ISO.

[sopssa]

I never knew they actually shipped those for free and many more probably didn't know either. They're gonna love this slashdot story!

Re:Well just download the ISO.

[gninnor]

I am still on dial-up, CD and DVD are pretty much the only way I could do this distro. Same with XP service packs. Spent the past two months to try to get DSL but the apartment's wiring is too old.

Re:Well just download the ISO.

[Jafafa Hots]

Then again...most of these people might not like Linux since its not totally moron proof.

unlike windows?

Re:Well just download the ISO.

[Locutus]

if your apartment manager is on-site, you might make a deal and have the DSL modem and a wireless router installed close to the distribution box if the signal is good enough there. The deal might include sharing some bandwidth with them.

LoB

Re:Well just download the ISO.

[dAzED1]

or, alternatively, people who lived in rural areas and who didn't have nearby high-speed internet access. It doesn't have to indicate some sort of insufficiently-technical person. Just how...difficult...do you think Ubuntu is to use as a desktop anyway?

At this point, it's far more useful to people who do events where they teach Ubuntu usage and hand out the free CDs. I've been in a couple groups in the past that would get boxes of the ubuntu cds, and then hand them out at such events.

Re:Well just download the ISO.

[ThurstonMoore]

not saavy enough to burn their own CDs

What a pompous asshole. Some of us don't have a high speed internet connection to download the iso.

Re:Well just download the ISO.

[wisty]

By morons, do you mean "Windows experts with no Linux experience", or "Complete beginners who just want to surf the net"?

Once the internet works, Ubuntu is fine for complete technophobes. It only gets to be high maintenance why you try to do interesting things.

Slow news day?

[Captain Splendid]

This FA might better have been held onto for a while, then bundled together with a few others in a "Ubuntu is really popular!" story.

People would still bitch about it being a non-story, but at least some work would have gone into it. This, however: "Company X makes minor overhead adjustment." Yawn.

Re:Oh no.

[txwikinger-slashdot]

Well.. You can come by one of those many Linux Fests, Linux conventions etc. Chances are good that some Ubuntu members will be handing out CDs there, and you will meet a lot of other like minded people and lots of awesome presentations.

Re:Make available via outloets like Netflicks?

[Itninja]

That would be fine until someone accidentally booted from the Netflicks [sic] DVD and hosed their system because they did not know what they were doing. I doubt they would ever open themselves up to that kind of liability.

Re:Probably people abusing the system

[jgardia]

You can still pay for the cd...

This once again proves the old adage...

[Tetsujin]

"Freedom isn't free"...

(It costs $1.05...)

Re:Ubuntu or Debian?

[Hatta]

No OS is one size fits all, so a little tweaking is inevitable. Debian is intended for everyone, so it's fairly easy to get set up the way you want it, and then forget about forever. Ubuntu is targeted towards the lowest common denominator, so if your needs are different from most you might have a little more hassle getting it the way you want it.

Re:Get it in the stores

[Edmund Blackadder]

Unfortunately, it is impossible to get something in stores without charging for it. Because the stores will surely charge you for the privilege of having anything in there.

Re:Ubuntu or Debian?

[timeOday]

What's more it costs money, so it must be better since "you get what you pay for."

The even have a new Small Business Edition with support for up to "1 USERS" and "1 GB" of RAM. Imagine, a billion bytes of memory, all in a single PC!