Introduction

What is Ubuntu?

A bunch of people from the Debian, GNOME, and GNU Arch projects were gathered by Mark Shuttleworth in April 2004. He asked them if developing a better operating system was possible. They answered, “Yes.” Then, in the way of a brainstorm, he asked them what it would look like and a description of the community that would build that OS.

The group worked with Shuttleworth to answer these questions, and then they decided to try to make the vision into a reality. They named themselves the Warthogs and gave themselves a six-month deadline to build a proof-of-concept OS. They named that first release the Warty Warthog, assuming that their first product would have its warts. Then they got down to business.

The vision became Ubuntu

Far from being warty, the Warty Warthog exceeded the group’s expectations and most optimistic predictions. Within six months, Ubuntu was in the number one spot on several popular rankings of GNU/Linux distributions. Ubuntu has demonstrated the most explosive growth of any GNU/Linux distribution in recent memory and an impressive continued growth of any free or open-source software project in history.

Today, millions of people are using Ubuntu, and many of these users give back to the Ubuntu community by developing documentation, translations, and code. By doing this, these users make Ubuntu improvements every day, and a huge community—both online and in local communities—makes Ubuntu growth unchecked.

What does Ubuntu mean?

The name Ubuntu was taken from a concept and term found in several South African languages, and refers to an ideology or ethic that could be translated as “humanity toward others.”

Mark Shuttleworth liked Ubuntu as a name for the project for several reasons. For one, he’s from South Africa. Secondly, the project emphasizes relationships with others, simultaneously providing a framework for a profound type of community and sharing. This term represented the side of free software that the team wanted to share with the world.

Ubuntu promises and goals

The Ubuntu project is based on a series of philosophical goals that are summarized in the following sentences (the complete text is available at Ubuntu’s website):

• Philosophy: Our work is driven by a software freedom concept that aims to spread and bring the benefits of software to all parts of the world. At the core of Ubuntu philosophy are these ideas: Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change, and improve their software for any purpose, without paying license fees. Every computer user should be able to user their software in the language of their choice. Every computer user should be given every opportunity to use software, even if they have a disability.
• Free software: The “free” in free software is used primarily in reference to freedom and not in price, although they’re committed to not charging for Ubuntu. The most important thing about Ubuntu is that it confers rights of software freedom to the people who install and use it.
• Open source: Open source is a term created in 1998 to remove the ambiguity in the word “free.” The open source definition describes open software as a software project that allows access to source code, free redistribution, and modifications to create derived works that can be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

Sustaining and going beyond the vision

The group that plays a significant role in driving the Ubuntu project is Canonical Ltd. Canonical is a company founded by Mark Shuttleworth with the primary goal of developing and supporting the Ubuntu distribution. Many of the core developers on Ubuntu work full time or part time for Canonical Ltd. This funding by the company allows Ubuntu to make the type of support commitment that it does, because this subset of developers has paid jobs. In this way, Canonical ensures that Ubuntu’s bottom-line commitments are kept.

Canonical does not fund all Ubuntu work, and maybe it couldn’t. Canonical can release a distribution every six months, but the distribution is made much better by the contributions from the community of users. Many of the features, translations, documentation, and much more are created outside Canonical. In that way, Canonical focuses on essential work and ensures that the deadlines are met. Besides, Canonical’s staff is sprinkled across the globe, so no proper office is necessary, and that cuts down on the costs of infrastructure and daily expenses.

So, if downloading Ubuntu is free of charge, how does Canonical make money? At this time, Canonical hasn’t been making money. The main funding comes from Mark Shuttleworth and some people’s donations. However, Canonical is looking toward making Ubuntu profitable, and their key revenue comes from the following services:

• Support services, mostly for businesses.
• Contracting services for businesses, such as OEMs like Dell, to integrate Ubuntu in their hardware solutions.
• Ubuntu Software Center’s paid section (Canonical takes a cut of purchases).
• The Canonical Store, which sells physical Ubuntu branded items.
• Amazon referrals. When a search is made in the Ubuntu Dash, the user may see Amazon products (unless they are turned off). Ubuntu takes a cut of these.

Chapter summary

This introduction looked into the vision of a better Linux distribution and OS. Also, it provided a brief history about Ubuntu, the project which came from that vision. It also showed how Ubuntu is sustained with the main role played by Canonical and the huge collaboration of the community of users.