Canonical speaks to the 'commercial' debate

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 11 March 2010 11:15

Opinion and Analysis

As the time draws near for the release of Ubuntu 10.04, the release known as Lucid Lynx, there has been a marked increase in the number of people pointing fingers at Canonical, the company behind the distribution, and screaming "commercial, commercial."

The analogy that comes to mind is a Biblical one, where people have been described as pointing to lepers and shouting "unclean, unclean."

Some of these cries come from those who are clearly unhinged, who make claims and then deny them vehemently by using "clarifications" once they see the firestorm their comments have provoked. And they have their acolytes who try their damnedest to justify such unhinged reactions.

Other accusations in the same vein come from more mature people. But the line of thought is still the same: free is good, commercial is bad. Such individuals are clearly unaware of the fact that free software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation, can be sold for monetary gain.

But then this is the Linux community. One has to be ready for poorly thought-out (corrected), illogical assertions aplenty. The problem is that such uneducated, shrill voices are often taken as the majority - in the same way that a mob follows the voice of him/her who shouts loudest - and does a lot of damage to a company which is trying to provide things free and also keep the red ink out of its books.

I asked Canonical to address some of the issues that have been raised. Gerry Carr, the head of platform marketing, responded and I have given his response in full.

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