Ubuntu - Not your standard commercial entity

Aaron Toponce had some questions about the commercial aspect of Ubuntu....
I guess in a nutshell, I am not too upset that Ubuntu offers commercial support. Commercial/paid support will attract businesses, and pour more money into the project. It just surprised me, because I thought Ubuntu was Debian, just with it’s own hacks and implementations. I guess it’s a lot more than that.
Aaron,

I am a huge fan of Debian, which is the rock upon which Ubuntu is built. Let me try to convince you that Ubuntu is not your standard commercial entity, and in fact it is worthy of your time and continued contributions.

When Mark Shuttleworth created Canonical (the company that does the lion’s share of work on Ubuntu, including the free shipit CDs), he did not go into it with the idea of making a profit. Ubuntu is one of Mark’s ways of giving back to the world. Canonical does offer commercial support, because this is what many business require before using a piece of software.

However, Canonical does not try to corner the support market, in fact they encourage other companies to offer support, particularily in the local areas. Canonical cannot provide on-site services to the entire planet, so they publish a page on the Ubuntu website which lists other businesses that provide commercial support for Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Marketplace

I have been very impressed by Mark Shuttleworth’s and Canonical’s spirit of giving, community, and lack of commercial interests. This behavior is totally unheard of in this day and age, which makes it all the more refreshing.

Go Ubuntu!

Tristan Rhodes

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