Technology news and Jobs 
Our Blogs Open Sauce Ubuntu loses its virginity, turns commercial
Our Blogs Open Sauce Ubuntu loses its virginity, turns commercial | Ubuntu loses its virginity, turns commercial |
|
| by Sam Varghese | |
| Tuesday, 23 September 2008 | |
|
Page 3 of 3 The pressure on Shuttleworth to provide some means of obtaining the multimedia codecs has been primarily because Ubuntu has attracted a certain kind of user who tends to reflect the reputation that this distribution has tried hard to shake off - one that takes more than it gives. Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
This kind of user comes from the Windows world, where, as Dominic Humphries puts it , users are in a customer-supplier relationship. Linux users are generally inclined to be more community oriented. Humphries adds: "A Windows user will not endear himself by bringing his habitual attitudes over to Linux, to put it mildly." Ubuntu, with its promises of making Linux installation and use easy and "user-friendly", has attracted a large number of people with precisely this attitude. One only has to spend some time reading the Ubuntu forums to see that this is no wild claim. When one discusses the problems that Linux users generally face with codecs, people always say that the problem will go away once enough big hardware sellers start selling PCs with the operating system installed - the same as happens with Windows. But what people fail to understand is that there is a sizeable proportion of prospective Linux users who don't want to receive a readymade meal - they would much rather do it themselves. Though some may see it as masochism, that exercise in getting things to work, at times over days, is part of the fun of using Linux. There's a fundamental mistake being made in the Ubuntu camp - people there tend to see all users as the same, one operating system as equivalent to any another, and a PC user simply as a PC user. Shuttleworth could instead have opted to make it possible for anyone who installs Ubuntu - be it from a boxed set or a download - to visit a website and receive codecs which have been paid for. He has already spent millions, a few more will really not make a difference. That is if he is serious about Ubuntu being a long-term project to provide an alternative to Windows. Red Hat tried many, many ways of making a go of things and after a number of blind avenues, came up with a business model that works. And remember Red Hat is now nearly 15 years old. I think Shuttleworth has jumped the gun. Ubuntu is just turning four and it is premature to expect mass desktop take-up so soon. He will have to be prepared to fight for the better part of 10 years before he can start making the figures balance. |
Tags
| < Next story in category | Previous story in the category > |
|---|
