5 ms·

"We're very comfortable with where we are. Our revenue is growing at a healthy pace." I have to ask myself if that's true, or if they're just saying that.

ohwp 14y ago
As Ubuntu gets more popular I'm sure they are selling more support to schools, governments and others. In 2009 they had a revenue of $30m which was enough to keep things running. So why not?
meaty 14y ago
Well they pissed off half the users with amazon so I'm not that sure it's true.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  I am more pissed of by the regressions in compatibility in 12.10 than the Amazon thingy that could be turned off in 3 seconds.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    Come to Xubuntu, 12.10 works perfectly.
    - ekianjo 14y ago
      Yeah, that is what I heard. Which makes me wonder what went wrong in the main distribution.
      - zem 14y ago
        possibly trying to move in too many directions at once. xubuntu used a relatively stabler and better-shaken-out desktop, which meant one fewer moving piece to introduce incompatibilities.
      - w1ntermute 14y ago
        They decided to copy Apple and have an "innovative GUI". Surprise, surprise, it turned out shitty, just like OS X.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    If you want to avoid regressions, don't upgrade until they've had a few cycles of fixes. Especially for .10 releases. Ubuntu ships early and breaks fast, and then slowly fixes the breakage - if you don't like that you'l want to let others be the guinea pigs first.
- adrianhoward 14y ago
  Well they pissed off half the users with amazon so I'm not that sure it's true. Is that really true? Sure - it annoyed a heck of a lot of folk in the Hn community - and similar tech-focused arenas. Non techie folk I've seen using 12.10 either a) Don't notice, b) don't care or c) like it.
  - shrikant 14y ago
    Or a significant portion of the annoyed techie folk did a sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping and moved on with their lives...
    - drivebyacct2 14y ago
      Wait, you mean it's easier to remove a package than knee-jerk leave distros? Sometimes I wonder if the /r/linux-types realize that they're no better than the kids in the Halo forums screaming that they and their friends are going to quit if someone doesn't fix their issue.
      - aaronbrethorst 14y ago
        13 year old Halo players eventually grow up to be 21 year old Ubuntu users. ;) As for me, I'm a 30 year old Ubuntu user (on the server) who finished the Halo 4 campaign yesterday.
        meaty 14y ago
        And indeed in my case grow up to be 40 year old Debian users when they get fed up with Canonical's dubious decision making.
      - jiggy2011 14y ago
        The Amazon thing set a bad precedent. One of the reasons people like Linux is because it doesn't come bundled with that sort of crap in the same way Windows PCs and Android phones often do.
- vidarh 14y ago
  I'd expect the number of pissed off users to be more in the 0.1% range if we're going to throw around unsubstantiated numbers.
- breakyerself 14y ago
  It doesn't bother me at all. People do actual work to make the os. They need to pay those people. Since I'm not paying them and they're a for profit company I'm not the least bit surprised or bothered.
ekianjo 14y ago
Hard to know, but at least they are not firing people are still expanding in the scope of their projects, so either they have good financials or strong investors believing in them (on top of Shuttleworth). We know Google is using a custom-made distribution of Ubuntu in their offices, and they are probably a big commercial partner for them, among others.
- laumars 14y ago
  "at least they are not firing people are still expanding in the scope of their projects" You mean aside their Qt / KDE developer when they dropped Kubuntu as an official 'remix'? Personally I've never liked Ubuntu, not even in the early days. I think it's one of the worst distributions for consistency. They bring in largely untested components prematurely (Pulse Audio), change the GUI every 6 to 12 months and even propose breaking established standards within the Linux world (eg 'Windicators' : http://www.osnews.com/story/23243/Shuttleworth_Unveils_Windicators_ http://www.osnews.com/story/23243/Shuttleworth_Unveils_Windi... ). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a dumbed down distro for new users, but I really don't think Ubuntu is the best out there. In fact I think it's probably one of the most over hyped. However what Ubuntu has brought us is a common base (be that via vanilla Ubuntu, one of it's many 'remixes' or even the spin offs / forks like Mint) and better exposure to the Linux platform. Had it not been for Canonical -or more specifically, Mark Shuttleworth- then I'm not convinced that we'd be seeing Steam on Linux. The beauty of Linux is Ubuntu can co-exist with Gentoo, Slackware, Arch and all the other extremes of the Linux ecosystem. So I can run my 'hands on' distro of choice, and my wife can run her 'hands free' *buntu fork.
thejosh 14y ago
Don't they also earn money from landscape etc?
bkor 14y ago
He only talked about revenue. Nothing if they're making money (profits).
cfn 14y ago
This is only part of the picture but they sure are growing: http://companycheck.co.uk/company/05055134 http://companycheck.co.uk/company/05055134

ohwp 14y ago

As Ubuntu gets more popular I'm sure they are selling more support to schools, governments and others. In 2009 they had a revenue of $30m which was enough to keep things running. So why not?

meaty 14y ago

Well they pissed off half the users with amazon so I'm not that sure it's true.

ekianjo 14y ago
I am more pissed of by the regressions in compatibility in 12.10 than the Amazon thingy that could be turned off in 3 seconds.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  Come to Xubuntu, 12.10 works perfectly.
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    Yeah, that is what I heard. Which makes me wonder what went wrong in the main distribution.
    - zem 14y ago
      possibly trying to move in too many directions at once. xubuntu used a relatively stabler and better-shaken-out desktop, which meant one fewer moving piece to introduce incompatibilities.
    - w1ntermute 14y ago
      They decided to copy Apple and have an "innovative GUI". Surprise, surprise, it turned out shitty, just like OS X.
- vidarh 14y ago
  If you want to avoid regressions, don't upgrade until they've had a few cycles of fixes. Especially for .10 releases. Ubuntu ships early and breaks fast, and then slowly fixes the breakage - if you don't like that you'l want to let others be the guinea pigs first.
adrianhoward 14y ago
Well they pissed off half the users with amazon so I'm not that sure it's true. Is that really true? Sure - it annoyed a heck of a lot of folk in the Hn community - and similar tech-focused arenas. Non techie folk I've seen using 12.10 either a) Don't notice, b) don't care or c) like it.
- shrikant 14y ago
  Or a significant portion of the annoyed techie folk did a sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping and moved on with their lives...
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    Wait, you mean it's easier to remove a package than knee-jerk leave distros? Sometimes I wonder if the /r/linux-types realize that they're no better than the kids in the Halo forums screaming that they and their friends are going to quit if someone doesn't fix their issue.
    - aaronbrethorst 14y ago
      13 year old Halo players eventually grow up to be 21 year old Ubuntu users. ;) As for me, I'm a 30 year old Ubuntu user (on the server) who finished the Halo 4 campaign yesterday.
      - meaty 14y ago
        And indeed in my case grow up to be 40 year old Debian users when they get fed up with Canonical's dubious decision making.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      The Amazon thing set a bad precedent. One of the reasons people like Linux is because it doesn't come bundled with that sort of crap in the same way Windows PCs and Android phones often do.
vidarh 14y ago
I'd expect the number of pissed off users to be more in the 0.1% range if we're going to throw around unsubstantiated numbers.
breakyerself 14y ago
It doesn't bother me at all. People do actual work to make the os. They need to pay those people. Since I'm not paying them and they're a for profit company I'm not the least bit surprised or bothered.

ekianjo 14y ago

Hard to know, but at least they are not firing people are still expanding in the scope of their projects, so either they have good financials or strong investors believing in them (on top of Shuttleworth). We know Google is using a custom-made distribution of Ubuntu in their offices, and they are probably a big commercial partner for them, among others.

laumars 14y ago
"at least they are not firing people are still expanding in the scope of their projects" You mean aside their Qt / KDE developer when they dropped Kubuntu as an official 'remix'? Personally I've never liked Ubuntu, not even in the early days. I think it's one of the worst distributions for consistency. They bring in largely untested components prematurely (Pulse Audio), change the GUI every 6 to 12 months and even propose breaking established standards within the Linux world (eg 'Windicators' : http://www.osnews.com/story/23243/Shuttleworth_Unveils_Windicators_ http://www.osnews.com/story/23243/Shuttleworth_Unveils_Windi... ). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a dumbed down distro for new users, but I really don't think Ubuntu is the best out there. In fact I think it's probably one of the most over hyped. However what Ubuntu has brought us is a common base (be that via vanilla Ubuntu, one of it's many 'remixes' or even the spin offs / forks like Mint) and better exposure to the Linux platform. Had it not been for Canonical -or more specifically, Mark Shuttleworth- then I'm not convinced that we'd be seeing Steam on Linux. The beauty of Linux is Ubuntu can co-exist with Gentoo, Slackware, Arch and all the other extremes of the Linux ecosystem. So I can run my 'hands on' distro of choice, and my wife can run her 'hands free' *buntu fork.

thejosh 14y ago

Don't they also earn money from landscape etc?

bkor 14y ago

He only talked about revenue. Nothing if they're making money (profits).

cfn 14y ago

This is only part of the picture but they sure are growing: http://companycheck.co.uk/company/05055134 http://companycheck.co.uk/company/05055134