| Can Ubuntu jump from community to commercial? |
May 19, 2006
Opinion: Anyone who follows Linux closely knows that Ubuntu is the most popular community distribution. But, is that enough for Ubuntu to make a go of it as a commercial business distribution? It looks like we're going to get to find out.
Canonical Ltd., Mark Shuttleworth's UK-based company, has never made a secret of the fact that it has intended to support Ubuntu both as a free of cost Linux and as a commercial venture.
That last part, though, has often been overlooked. During the last year-and-a-half, however, it has become clear that Canonical is moving toward making a real business of providing commercial support and customized distributions for business Ubuntu users.
Specially, Shuttleworth has said, in his Ubuntu wiki, that Canonical "will never introduce a 'commercial' version of Ubuntu. There will never be a difference between the 'commercial' product and the 'free' product, as there is with Red Hat (RHEL and Fedora). Ubuntu releases will always be free." However, "There are proprietary apps that are certified for Ubuntu. Some Ubuntu-derivatives, like Impi (a South-African customized business Linux distribution) are targeted toward vertical markets that demand specific software, currently proprietary, which they bundle."
Indeed, Shuttleworth started off the Ubuntu Foundation with a $10-million donation "to distinguish the philanthropic and non-commercial work that is at the heart of the Ubuntu project from the commercial support and certification program that is the focus of Canonical Ltd."
Since then, Canonical has been putting the bricks in place for a major commercial Ubuntu launch.
In November 2005, Canonical worked with IBM to get Ubuntu the "Ready for IBM DB2 Software for Linux" service mark.
"Being Ready for DB2 UDB is a real step up for Ubuntu, and the whole project is moving into new and exciting areas. Our release last month included a server edition, which provides the perfect foundation for major database environments," Shuttleworth said at the time.
This April, Canonical and the LPI (Linux Professional Institute), the backers of the popular LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 Linux certifications, jointly announced the development of a certification for the Ubuntu distribution -- the Ubuntu Certified Professional.
Jane Silber, a spokesperson for Canonical said in a statement that the certification was in response to extensive demand from both individuals and enterprises. "Ubuntu use in the enterprise is increasing, leading to an increasing demand from engineers and managers for a certification which proves an individual's Ubuntu skills."
In addition, there have been rumors linking Ubuntu with Dell, HP, and other computer vendors. In mid-May, one of those proved true.
At JavaWorld in San Francisco, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz and Shuttleworth, announced that Canonical would soon release a Ubuntu server for Sun's UltraSPARC T1 chip, aka Niagara.
It's a long way from a community Linux distribution to an enterprise level distribution that supports a high-end, multicore 64-bit processor, but that's where Ubuntu is headed. It's one thing to support just x86, but another thing entirely to port it to a new SPARC-base architecture -- even with Linux, I wouldn't want to try it!
Shuttleworth is also looking to hire more Canonical employees, but he's no longer just looking for Linux coders. He wrote in his blog on May 11 that "As we've grown and as we start to shape Ubuntu into something that works well for the community and for commercial deployment, we need a whole new set of talent that speaks both the traditional language of management and marketing, as well as the new language of participation and community."
With all this going on the question now is, "Can Canonical make a commercial go of Ubuntu?"
According to two analysts, the answer is a firm "maybe."
Gordon Haff, senior analyst for research house Illuminata Inc., said, "Business distro? Sure. Lots of community distributions are widely used in a variety of businesses."
"But," Haff continued, "that's different from an 'enterprise distro' that comes with a list of hundreds of certified apps from major ISVs. It's hard to see the incentive for Oracle, IBM, BEA, and the rest to widely certify against yet another distro -- whatever its incremental advantages over the competition.
Laura DiDio, a senior analyst at Yankee Group, agrees that "in order for these 'community' type distributions to gain more widespread deployment and acceptance in commercial environments, their models will have to adapt to the realities and demands of commercial businesses."
Part of that "almost certainly means that a distribution such as Ubuntu will need the backing and support of a company such as Sun or Oracle -- with whose name it has been linked recently," added DiDio.
"Corporate customers will want assurances on available documentation; rapid response in releasing patches and fixes for technical glitches or security issues; Ubuntu's integration and interoperability with disparate environments and after-market technical service and support. In other words, corporate customer must have accountability, particularly in light of increased regulatory compliance requirements," DiDio continued.
She concluded, "If Shuttleworth, Ubuntu and other open source, Linux community distributions can fulfill these criteria, then they have a shot. But the aforementioned issues are only half the battle. The other big challenge to overcome is marketing and public perception and ultimately that's a much tougher sell."
Shuttleworth, however, who became a multi-millionaire with his first high-tech venture, Thawte, now a division of VeriSign, seems to have the community, business, and technical savvy to challenge Red Hat, Novell, and the other business Linux powers.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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