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The difference is that Ubuntu is already the de-facto dominant player here. As far as AWS goes, the Canonical Ubuntu AMI is the most popular one, except maybe t

The difference is that Ubuntu is already the de-facto dominant player here. As far as AWS goes, the Canonical Ubuntu AMI is the most popular one, except maybe the default Amazon one.

SEJeff 10y ago
but dominant != revenue generating. Sure they make decent money with juju if you're needing help setting up openstack. Juju is actually underrated for what it does, and the engineers have done impressive work. But of "90%" of the startups using the Ubuntu AMIs on AWS, how many of them are actively paying Canonical anything at all? Meanwhile, old boring Redhat just made 2 billion dollars in revenue and is still just slowly improving.
- apetresc 10y ago
  I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure I read that AWS pays Canonical for a support contract on the official Ubuntu AMIs, to make sure they stay stable and up-to-date with the new Xen versions AWS uses, etc. Anyway, even if they aren't making (significant) money on it now, having market dominance certainly puts them in a better position to profit eventually, than in mobile where they first have to unseat the three largest software companies in the world, on those companies' most lucrative markets.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - dustinkirkland 10y ago
    Canonical has a commercial relationship with dozens of public clouds, ensuring that the Ubuntu in each of those clouds is securely produced, actively maintained, and at the standards and quality Ubuntu users expect. See the list of excellent commercial cloud partners at: https://partners.ubuntu.com/programmes/public-cloud https://partners.ubuntu.com/programmes/public-cloud
    - SEJeff 10y ago
      Thanks Dustin. I know you're a canonical employee so this is about as official of an answer as I'll get. Much appreciated.
- bryanlarsen 10y ago
  "How many of them are actively paying Canonical anything at all?" All of them. Ubuntu gets a cut for every instance of Ubuntu on AWS. The Ubuntu AMI's are not stock Ubuntu, they've been modified. So Amazon has to pay Canonical to use the Ubuntu name or it has to call them something else. That's why Canonical is suing OVH; OVH is using a heavily (and poorly) modified Ubuntu without renaming or paying.
  - SEJeff 10y ago
    Oh interesting, that was news to me most certainly. Do you have a source?
    - bryanlarsen 10y ago
      https://twitter.com/olesovhcom/status/744609239075799044 https://twitter.com/olesovhcom/status/744609239075799044
      - SEJeff 10y ago
        For Amazon, not for OVH. For Amazon they could ask them not to pay due to the name. OVH doesn't have the brand that Amazon does.
  - dustinkirkland 10y ago
    Ubuntu is NOT suing OVH. Quite the opposite, in fact: https://www.ovh.com/us/news/cp2445.ovh_joins_ubuntu_certified_public_cloud_programme https://www.ovh.com/us/news/cp2445.ovh_joins_ubuntu_certifie...
    - bryanlarsen 10y ago
      Oh, that's awesome. I wasn't precise, they were just threatening to sue, glad to see it got resolved. Does that mean that if I choose an Ubuntu image when installing an OVH server I won't get the OVH crap any more?
    - simion314 10y ago

The difference is that Ubuntu is already the de-facto dominant player here. As far as AWS goes, the Canonical Ubuntu AMI is the most popular one, except maybe the default Amazon one.

SEJeff 10y ago

but dominant != revenue generating. Sure they make decent money with juju if you're needing help setting up openstack. Juju is actually underrated for what it does, and the engineers have done impressive work. But of "90%" of the startups using the Ubuntu AMIs on AWS, how many of them are actively paying Canonical anything at all? Meanwhile, old boring Redhat just made 2 billion dollars in revenue and is still just slowly improving.

apetresc 10y ago
I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure I read that AWS pays Canonical for a support contract on the official Ubuntu AMIs, to make sure they stay stable and up-to-date with the new Xen versions AWS uses, etc. Anyway, even if they aren't making (significant) money on it now, having market dominance certainly puts them in a better position to profit eventually, than in mobile where they first have to unseat the three largest software companies in the world, on those companies' most lucrative markets.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dustinkirkland 10y ago
  Canonical has a commercial relationship with dozens of public clouds, ensuring that the Ubuntu in each of those clouds is securely produced, actively maintained, and at the standards and quality Ubuntu users expect. See the list of excellent commercial cloud partners at: https://partners.ubuntu.com/programmes/public-cloud https://partners.ubuntu.com/programmes/public-cloud
  - SEJeff 10y ago
    Thanks Dustin. I know you're a canonical employee so this is about as official of an answer as I'll get. Much appreciated.
bryanlarsen 10y ago
"How many of them are actively paying Canonical anything at all?" All of them. Ubuntu gets a cut for every instance of Ubuntu on AWS. The Ubuntu AMI's are not stock Ubuntu, they've been modified. So Amazon has to pay Canonical to use the Ubuntu name or it has to call them something else. That's why Canonical is suing OVH; OVH is using a heavily (and poorly) modified Ubuntu without renaming or paying.
- SEJeff 10y ago
  Oh interesting, that was news to me most certainly. Do you have a source?
  - bryanlarsen 10y ago
    https://twitter.com/olesovhcom/status/744609239075799044 https://twitter.com/olesovhcom/status/744609239075799044
    - SEJeff 10y ago
      For Amazon, not for OVH. For Amazon they could ask them not to pay due to the name. OVH doesn't have the brand that Amazon does.
- dustinkirkland 10y ago
  Ubuntu is NOT suing OVH. Quite the opposite, in fact: https://www.ovh.com/us/news/cp2445.ovh_joins_ubuntu_certified_public_cloud_programme https://www.ovh.com/us/news/cp2445.ovh_joins_ubuntu_certifie...
  - bryanlarsen 10y ago
    Oh, that's awesome. I wasn't precise, they were just threatening to sue, glad to see it got resolved. Does that mean that if I choose an Ubuntu image when installing an OVH server I won't get the OVH crap any more?
  - simion314 10y ago