The Man and the Myth Behind Ubuntu

The New York Times ran a story today about Ubuntu and its prospects for beating Microsoft.  Focusing on Mark Shuttleworth, the South African billionaire who founded the Ubuntu project and leads Canonical, the Times reporter concludes that the idea of Linux on every desktop remains a bit “quixotic,” and suggests that Ubuntu has only come so far thanks to Shuttleworth’s wealth.  I don’t think that’s true.

Certainly, the patronship of a billionaire is a unique advantage enjoyed by Ubuntu alone.  Fedora, Mandriva, SUSE and the like could only dream of having a single supporter with that kind of cash to back them up, and the more militant proponents of these distributions might like to think of Ubuntu as the undeserving rich kid of the Linux community, only here thanks to the wealth of its father.

On the other hand, Ubuntu isn’t a charity, and the fact that Shuttleworth has millions of dollars doesn’t mean he gives them to Ubuntu.  He’s a leader and he helped the project get off the ground, but at the end of the day, Ubuntu and Canonical have to be self-sustaining.

Besides, if money were the chief ingredient in free software’s success, the GNU project would have never made it out of the womb twenty-five years ago.  There may be some big-name contributors, like Intel and IBM, supporting Linux, but the vast majority of its $10.9 billion value is derived from the work of volunteers.

I would contend, moreover, that the key to Ubuntu’s success so far has been its focus on the desktop.  While Red Hat and Novell chased the server market, Canonical established itself as the preeminent Linux distribution for desktop users, which it has used as a base to pursue servers.

And catering to the desktop market doesn’t just mean a focus on being user-friendly.  Ubuntu’s aggressive pursuit of desktops in schools (via the Edubuntu spin-off) and its partnership with IBM to power workstations in large businesses, for example, reflect a commitment to the desktop that surpasses simple usability, and which no other distribution has tried to match.

As for the charge that Ubuntu remains a quixotic dream: as the article points out, Ubuntu already counts 10 million users, and Canonical collects $30 million in annual revenue.  That may be a drop in the bucket compared to Microsoft’s budget or Shuttleworth’s personal fortune, but it’s a figure that means Ubuntu is already successful and self-sustaining–the battle is no longer uphill.

The fact that a desktop-centric Linux distribution has managed to become solvent enough to independently ensure its continued existence, regardless of the size of its budget, is proof enough that Ubuntu amounts to more than a rich hippie’s dream.

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