7 ms·

Ubuntu's Shuttleworth: "I don't think anyone can make money from the Linux desktop."

29 points by qhoxie 18y ago

jhancock 18y ago
Is there any big player still trying to make money off a Linux desktop? I thought this issue was resolved long ago. I agree with Shuttleworth, I just don't think this is new news.
Create 18y ago
"we have no plans to create a traditional desktop product for the consumer market in the foreseeable future." -- redhat, 2008/04/16 http://www.press.redhat.com/2008/04/16/whats-going-on-with-red-hat-desktop-systems-an-update/ http://www.press.redhat.com/2008/04/16/whats-going-on-with-r...
amix 18y ago
Mozilla is making millions on advertising from Firefox search and I think the same business model can be applied to Ubuntu. For example, by adding a search bar directly on the desktop.
- nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
  That's still not making any money on the free software itself or from the users; that's just another "added cost service", and the persons paying for it, instead of being the user, is the one wanting to advertise to the user. I could just as easily use any search provider in Firefox that I want (and I regularly use search plugins for Wikipedia, IMDB, Python/PHP references, Thottbot, etc) in place of Google, and then Mozilla no longer makes money from me. However, that's not to say that your idea isn't an excellent one. I'm just pointing out that even if that idea had been implemented, Mark is still right. ;)
- mdasen 18y ago
  Better yet, since they are free to make modifications to Firefox, they could always change the account to an Ubuntu one rather than leaving the Mozilla one in there for search. Wouldn't be so nice to Mozilla, but that is the nature of open-source. In fact, if you have a company with lots of employees who use Firefox, it might make sense for you to alter that. Of course, probably isn't worth the effort considering how little you'd make back.
  - maw 18y ago
    They're not free to make that sort of modification to Firefox. Patches for Firefox (and a number of other Mozilla products) need to be vetted by MoCo, and I doubt they'd be approved. They are, of course, allowed to rebrand and then make all the modifications they wish. This was the impetus for the creation of Iceweasel.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- Zev 18y ago
  Take Google away and how much money does Mozilla still make from the search bar?
  - aston 18y ago
    Deep question: Take away Microsoft and how much money is Google willing to give Mozilla for the search bar?
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      Take away Microsoft and Yahoo and the answer is $0.
    - netcan 18y ago
      Good question. But then, Google is about as dominant as we can expect anyone to be long term. For the foreseeable future search is worth a lot. So for the foreseeable future, helping search increase market share (even if it's only by 0.X%) is worth a good bit too. Actually, from a simplistic viewpoint, the ff search deal is worth more to MS then it is to Google. If FF didin't strike that deal, what engine would they put there? The cost of putting up MS/Yahoo in terms of user experience & pundit complaints would be something compared to Google. Also, Google would probably end up with a lot of that search traffic anyway. MS wouldn't have. Google is in a snese paying for traffic they may have gotten anyway. MS would be paying for nee traffic.
ohhmaagawd 18y ago
20XX is the year of the linux desktop!
- Anon84 18y ago
  if $current_year == $current_year + 1 then: now is the year of linux
cstejerean 18y ago
given the problems with Vista and the success of Macs with OS X I expect some of the other players (Dell, etc) to start looking at investing money in Linux development so they have a compelling OS to ship with their machines, which tells me there should be plenty of opportunities to make money from a Linux desktop.
thras 18y ago
He's talking about selling Linux OS in a shrinkwrap package. On the other hand, Shuttleworth says that services are where the money is at -- something that companies like Red Hat have known for a long time. Shuttleworth's most interesting comment was a suggestion that XP is being given away for free to certain OEMs. That would be a bold move by Microsoft. The whole ecosystem could change if Microsoft changed XP over to the Firefox model of making money from software.
- 13ren 18y ago
  Yes, MS already sell XP Home OEM for $40 for the eeePC... they have the capacity for brutality. From sales so far, it doesn't seem to need to be any cheaper (in fact, a higher price would probably be OK). The ecosystem built on XP's platform is still worth a lot. What could kill them is a crossover to the web as a platform... ie. as the desktop. Implementations of Flash, Javascript and Java are getting faster and adding features needed for the desktop (e.g. client-side persistence). It seems inevitable that the old settop box dream will be realized. It was such a cool idea! The OS might even be non-linux, if it has other features that are needed more. e.g. faster, more power efficient, maybe intrinsically multicore, so it can work on cheaper, lighter devices, requiring less power - like a phone. Linux has bloated, through evolving in the same rich hardware environment as Windows.
  - jbert 18y ago
    > Linux has bloated, through evolving in the same rich hardware environment as Windows. I'm not disputing your point directly, but I'd be interested in your data. For example, there are Linux distros which run well on what I consider low-power devices (I'm thinking of ARM-powered NSLU-2 or WRT54 devices) with, say, 32Mbyte RAM. I'm also not sure what you mean by 'intrinsically multicore' - are you implying that Linux doesn't make use of multiple cores? Or doesn't do it well?
    - astine 18y ago
      Linux can be made to be far more lightweight than Windows or OSX, but who uses those distros? Most people use Ubuntu or something similar and those distros are fairly heavy, not as heavy as Vista, but still much heavier than they could be. Things like Compiz and KDE/Gnome really weigh a system down.
known 18y ago
Ubuntu may try exclusive tie-ups with OEMs like Microsoft does.
startingup 18y ago
I am partial to BSD as a basis for hosting a browser, which is all I want my OS to do. My ideal would be BSD + Chrome mated to be one small, light kick-ass web top. I gave up on Linux a long while ago on the client side. It is chasing Windows, which I think is backward looking. Keep in mind that BSD underpins Mac OS X.
utnick 18y ago
I disagree As computers get better I think there could be a market for a really slick compviz style linux desktop with a ton a tools packaged and integrated with it, including virtualbox so you can run your windows xp partition in parallel. I think there surely is a market for mac osx, even seperated from mac hardware ( if apple would allow that to happen ), likewise there is a market for a linux desktop, we just haven't seen one good enough yet. But we are close.
olefoo 18y ago
The question is not who makes money _from_ linux on the desktop, the questions is, who makes money _because_of_ linux on the desktop. Canonical's profits are going to come from training, certification and consulting partnerships; but they aren't the only ones who will be making money from the existence of capable linux desktops. Any org that has a large number of client installations would probably save money (easiest way to make it) by implementing a linux desktop.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
mattmaroon 18y ago
If you remove the last word from that sentence, you get my opinion.

29 points by qhoxie 18y ago

Is there any big player still trying to make money off a Linux desktop? I thought this issue was resolved long ago. I agree with Shuttleworth, I just don't think this is new news.

Create 18y ago

"we have no plans to create a traditional desktop product for the consumer market in the foreseeable future." -- redhat, 2008/04/16 http://www.press.redhat.com/2008/04/16/whats-going-on-with-red-hat-desktop-systems-an-update/ http://www.press.redhat.com/2008/04/16/whats-going-on-with-r...

amix 18y ago

Mozilla is making millions on advertising from Firefox search and I think the same business model can be applied to Ubuntu. For example, by adding a search bar directly on the desktop.

nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
That's still not making any money on the free software itself or from the users; that's just another "added cost service", and the persons paying for it, instead of being the user, is the one wanting to advertise to the user. I could just as easily use any search provider in Firefox that I want (and I regularly use search plugins for Wikipedia, IMDB, Python/PHP references, Thottbot, etc) in place of Google, and then Mozilla no longer makes money from me. However, that's not to say that your idea isn't an excellent one. I'm just pointing out that even if that idea had been implemented, Mark is still right. ;)
mdasen 18y ago
Better yet, since they are free to make modifications to Firefox, they could always change the account to an Ubuntu one rather than leaving the Mozilla one in there for search. Wouldn't be so nice to Mozilla, but that is the nature of open-source. In fact, if you have a company with lots of employees who use Firefox, it might make sense for you to alter that. Of course, probably isn't worth the effort considering how little you'd make back.
- maw 18y ago
  They're not free to make that sort of modification to Firefox. Patches for Firefox (and a number of other Mozilla products) need to be vetted by MoCo, and I doubt they'd be approved. They are, of course, allowed to rebrand and then make all the modifications they wish. This was the impetus for the creation of Iceweasel.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
Zev 18y ago
Take Google away and how much money does Mozilla still make from the search bar?
- aston 18y ago
  Deep question: Take away Microsoft and how much money is Google willing to give Mozilla for the search bar?
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    Take away Microsoft and Yahoo and the answer is $0.
  - netcan 18y ago
    Good question. But then, Google is about as dominant as we can expect anyone to be long term. For the foreseeable future search is worth a lot. So for the foreseeable future, helping search increase market share (even if it's only by 0.X%) is worth a good bit too. Actually, from a simplistic viewpoint, the ff search deal is worth more to MS then it is to Google. If FF didin't strike that deal, what engine would they put there? The cost of putting up MS/Yahoo in terms of user experience & pundit complaints would be something compared to Google. Also, Google would probably end up with a lot of that search traffic anyway. MS wouldn't have. Google is in a snese paying for traffic they may have gotten anyway. MS would be paying for nee traffic.

ohhmaagawd 18y ago

20XX is the year of the linux desktop!

Anon84 18y ago
if $current_year == $current_year + 1 then: now is the year of linux

cstejerean 18y ago

given the problems with Vista and the success of Macs with OS X I expect some of the other players (Dell, etc) to start looking at investing money in Linux development so they have a compelling OS to ship with their machines, which tells me there should be plenty of opportunities to make money from a Linux desktop.

thras 18y ago

He's talking about selling Linux OS in a shrinkwrap package. On the other hand, Shuttleworth says that services are where the money is at -- something that companies like Red Hat have known for a long time. Shuttleworth's most interesting comment was a suggestion that XP is being given away for free to certain OEMs. That would be a bold move by Microsoft. The whole ecosystem could change if Microsoft changed XP over to the Firefox model of making money from software.

13ren 18y ago
Yes, MS already sell XP Home OEM for $40 for the eeePC... they have the capacity for brutality. From sales so far, it doesn't seem to need to be any cheaper (in fact, a higher price would probably be OK). The ecosystem built on XP's platform is still worth a lot. What could kill them is a crossover to the web as a platform... ie. as the desktop. Implementations of Flash, Javascript and Java are getting faster and adding features needed for the desktop (e.g. client-side persistence). It seems inevitable that the old settop box dream will be realized. It was such a cool idea! The OS might even be non-linux, if it has other features that are needed more. e.g. faster, more power efficient, maybe intrinsically multicore, so it can work on cheaper, lighter devices, requiring less power - like a phone. Linux has bloated, through evolving in the same rich hardware environment as Windows.
- jbert 18y ago
  > Linux has bloated, through evolving in the same rich hardware environment as Windows. I'm not disputing your point directly, but I'd be interested in your data. For example, there are Linux distros which run well on what I consider low-power devices (I'm thinking of ARM-powered NSLU-2 or WRT54 devices) with, say, 32Mbyte RAM. I'm also not sure what you mean by 'intrinsically multicore' - are you implying that Linux doesn't make use of multiple cores? Or doesn't do it well?
  - astine 18y ago
    Linux can be made to be far more lightweight than Windows or OSX, but who uses those distros? Most people use Ubuntu or something similar and those distros are fairly heavy, not as heavy as Vista, but still much heavier than they could be. Things like Compiz and KDE/Gnome really weigh a system down.

known 18y ago

Ubuntu may try exclusive tie-ups with OEMs like Microsoft does.

startingup 18y ago

I am partial to BSD as a basis for hosting a browser, which is all I want my OS to do. My ideal would be BSD + Chrome mated to be one small, light kick-ass web top. I gave up on Linux a long while ago on the client side. It is chasing Windows, which I think is backward looking. Keep in mind that BSD underpins Mac OS X.

utnick 18y ago

I disagree As computers get better I think there could be a market for a really slick compviz style linux desktop with a ton a tools packaged and integrated with it, including virtualbox so you can run your windows xp partition in parallel. I think there surely is a market for mac osx, even seperated from mac hardware ( if apple would allow that to happen ), likewise there is a market for a linux desktop, we just haven't seen one good enough yet. But we are close.

olefoo 18y ago

The question is not who makes money _from_ linux on the desktop, the questions is, who makes money _because_of_ linux on the desktop. Canonical's profits are going to come from training, certification and consulting partnerships; but they aren't the only ones who will be making money from the existence of capable linux desktops. Any org that has a large number of client installations would probably save money (easiest way to make it) by implementing a linux desktop.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

mattmaroon 18y ago

If you remove the last word from that sentence, you get my opinion.