Why Ubuntu Needs to Charge for (some) Software
Now before you fire up your trusty keyboard to shoot me down in flames for suggesting this. I want you to think about the continuing challenges that Ubuntu (and Linux in general) face as they compete against Microsoft for a share of the desktop OS market.
A good place to start is here, at a Slashdot article entitled ‘Why Linux Doesn’t Spread - the Curse of Being Free’.
You see people just don’t trust things that are free. They have been conditioned to believe that ‘you get what you pay for’ and hence find it hard to see the value of free software. As the article rightly points out, as far as Joe Newbie is concerned both Windows and Linux are free to him, so he will have the one worth $300 thank you very much…
If you read through the comments of the article you come to another observation. Lets assume that Joe Newbie has got Ubuntu installed on his laptop. He opens up his favourite .mp3 album on the PC and gets a prompt for a codec. Now although Joe is a newbie, he knows that .mp3’s work fine out of the box on Windows so why not on Ubuntu? Uh-oh! His mistrust of Ubuntu increases.
OK, so what can we do about it?
Well, if you’re observant, you will have noticed that we now have an all free software version of Ubuntu. Every single piece and parcel of it is comprised of free software. Great eh?
Why not also create an Ubuntu variant which includes (out of the box) support for things like .mp3, dvd, wmv et al and charge for it? Canonical could license the technologies needed to legally create such a piece of software and sell it to the customer.
As long as the price was kept reasonable, Canonical could sell a ready to rock, fully spec’d up operating system to OEMs. It could also sell a boxed retail version to the public (although of course these sales wouldn’t be as large) through distribution channels such as PC World or Amazon. Chuck in six months technical support helpline access for a few quid and you provide a support channel for the punters too!
I think that if Canonical could do this, Ubuntu would become more credible in the eyes of the ignorant computer user and we just may be able to entice him across…
This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 10:19 am and is filed under Tags: ubuntu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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February 18th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
I agree with you. Some people (like myself) leave windows due to frustration not because they want something free. Not having mp3 support out of the box is frustrating for a user new to Linux.
Just so you know, it isn’t going to be long before a bunch of net nerds are going to be screaming Linux Mint on this blog. I personally don’t believe another ubuntu based distro is the way to go. In fact, all the Linux distros out there competing against each other is the main reason why Linux doesn’t get taken seriously. But thats a different discussion.
I would prefer a “pay or do it yourself” model for ubuntu. For instance, when you open an mp3 (or anything else restricted) for the first time a message can explain to you that you can pay to have this automatically configured (like $4). If you choose not to pay, you can go about configuring support the way it is now. That way experienced uses can configure things the way they want and new users, if they choose to, can simply pay to move on (instead of being forced to digg thru forums for answers).
February 18th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
>In fact, all the Linux distros out there competing
>against each other is the main reason why Linux
>doesn’t get taken seriously.
Yes, better to stick with what is known to, ahem, ‘work’. Just like cars! Those silly Japanese and their good design and quality — why would I get a different car for less money when I “know” how great a Ford is!? No problems ever there! This way, I can stick to what I know and not ever be challenged to think about a different way to accomplish something. Who wants to relearn the location of a radio?? Those Japanese cars and their competition, how can I take that seriously? Ford forever!
February 18th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
I don’t know if a bit of healthy competition is necessarily a bad thing to be honest. It can spur people on towards better things and when the changes are open-sourced - they benefit Linux distributions across the board.
One of the problems - I think - with Linux though is the confusion between free (as in money) and free (as in freedom) which taints the idea of financial transactions for Linux distros. Until people overcome that and accept that the large majority of users don’t care about free as in freedom and just want a working OS we will always struggle.
Charging an OEM for a distro with restricted software installed would be helpful to promote it to end users.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
This is really bullshit, imho. There are millions of people, who can’t afford anything else but old hardware and free (in the beer sense) software. Gnu/Linux is providing a way to use one of humanity’s most powerfull tools for people who would otherways have no chance to do so (including myself). 4$ might seem nothing to an average citizen of a western country, but these are a little minority, just to remind you.
Keeping Gnu/Linux free (in both senses) is an absolute must, if you want that computers are a resource for a significant part of the world society.
Last but not least Gnu/Linux is a spotlight on how a global economy could work beyond the logics of capitalism.
Regards,
ron
February 18th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Hi ron,
Whilst I respect your opinion I don’t necessarily agree with it. If you went to visit a poor country where the residents have enough cash to get hold of an old computer, you’ll still find many have Windows on them. It’ll be a pirate copy but Windows all the same…
I expected someone to make the statement that Linux must be kept free. Re-read my argument for charging for -some- incarnations of a distribution and you may see what I’m getting at. It does not bar anyone for getting the full version anyway. It just makes it simple for people who cannot be bothered to ‘roll their own’ desktop install…
Chris
February 19th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
>One of the problems - I think - with Linux though is >the confusion between free (as in money) and free (as >in freedom) which taints the idea of financial >transactions for Linux distros. Until people overcome >that and accept that the large majority of users don’t >care about free as in freedom and just want a working >OS we will always struggle.
Very well said. I can’t think of a better way of stating the money issue with Linux.
Also, I think my comments about the number of distros was misunderstood. Should there be only one Linux distro? Absolutely not. Should there be over 100 distros? God no. There is a fine line between healthy competition and sea of confusion.
February 20th, 2008 at 3:58 am
The reason there will not be a “Pro” version (which is what this would be) is that Canonical vowed that there would only ever be one version of Ubuntu. The version of Ubuntu that is loaded when a Fortune 500 buys a support contract is the same as the one I hand you on a burned CD at a linux show.
There will never be a paid version of Ubuntu. I advocate Ubuntu because I know that it’s Free. I can tell people honestly that I’m not giving them trial software, a demo, or a lite version. You want proprietary stuff you can purchase? Fine, that’s what the commercial repository is for.
As for this average Joe, the average Joe has no idea Ubuntu doesn’t come with mp3 support out of the box. The reason for this is that as soon as he tries playing one, a) the application manager opens, checks off the package he needs, and directs him to click apply, b) the application manager downloads and installs the packages, c) the song starts playing. I’m tired of hearing of this mythical average user who can’t get mp3s and dvds to play, because that’s so pre-Feisty. A complaint alongs these lines indicates to me that someone never actually tried it.
If Joe Newbie won’t use Linux because Windows is $300 and “better”, then you haven’t adequately explained Free Software. I’d suggest giving this a try before trying to turn Ubuntu into SLED
February 20th, 2008 at 5:05 am
Or one could fight to allow reverse-engineered codecs. They are supposed to be “standards” right? Like ooxml?
February 20th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Hi Joe, thanks for commenting.
Let me see if I can explain my opinion in another way. The problem with Joe Newbie is that he couldn’t care less about politics, FOSS or even computers to any great extent. To Joe Newbie, his PC is a necessary evil and he will show it as much interest as you would show your lawnmower…
Just imagine if you will that you need to replace your lawnmower. Do you immediately get the cheapest one you see? Probably not.
You’ll evaluate it on its features as well as its price. That’s what Joe Newbie is going to do with his computer.
That’s why I think we need to incorporate licensed/non-free software into a distribution. Joe needs it. Software without it is going to piss him off and he’ll just end up playing a few quid more for Windows.
You could always buy a cheap lawnmover and add a grassbox, adjust the blades yourself, patch on some handlegrips and paint it orange, but you are not going to bother unless you’re a lawnmower enthusiast?
You’ll just go spend a few quid more on a lawnmower that’s already set up for you.
What a lot of FOSS advocates forget is that Joe Newbie is nothing like them
February 20th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Personally I don’t care whether more casual users will use GNU/Linux or not: GNU/Linux does what I want better than any other alternative and I’m happy with the attention it already gets. Of course contributions are always needed, but the “average Joe” would be quite unlikely to make any -if anything he would cause the S/N ratio on related information sources to decrease, making good information harder to isolate.
World might be a slightly less annoying place interoperability-wise if GNU/Linux or other free OSs were used instead of Windows by “average Joes”, but if they kept relying on patent-encumbered software then there wouldn’t be much of a change. Real change can only occur when the average consumer decides to pay attention to the subject, educating himself and using good judgment -but that doesn’t appear to come any time soon.
Of course, marketing-wise, the specific suggestion might be a smart move for Canonical -but I don’t feel that really concerns me as a not-so-casual user.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
In the perfect world getting casual/non-nerd users on board wouldn’t be an issue. We could sit in our community and leave the outside world at the door.
But we cant anymore.
Businesses like Canonical who want to sell support for desktop Linux need cash, and cash doesn’t come from technical users. Cash comes from corporations and home users.
Perhaps Canonical doesn’t target Joe Newbie, but I think that someone should.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
I want to say off the top that I run a completely linux house. I have several computers in my home and even more at work and they all run linux. I’ve tried to get friends and family to taste the goodness as well. These are some of there real concerns.
The cost of linux vs. windows has never come up. Windows is free to them, it “comes” with your computer (don’t even get me started on piracy). They don’t care that you have to click on two things so you can play an mp3 (you have to install codecs on “glorious” windows media player as well(not mp3’s but most other stuff)…only it rarely works). DVD’s are a little harder but all you need is it set it up once(I’m more than willing and able to do it).
The problem is compatibility with software and hardware. The value of Windows isn’t that it’s cost $300. The value comes from knowing that you can walk into bestbuy and pick up whatever crappy/expensive software/hardware you want and it will work on your system. “Oh you mean I can’t run CrapTax 2007 on linux”; Deal breaker. The only thing that windows has that beats linux is compatibility. The OS with the greatest compatibility comes “free” with the computer when you buy it. Why would I want to install some OS that doesn’t do one thing I want to do even if it does everything else better? What advantage is there in that? These are the question people ask. They don’t say, “Well it doesn’t cost $300, so I think I won’t want it.”
Windows wins because most people don’t want choice, if it means that they have to put in effort to educate themselves on what works and what doesn’t. It’s been a long time since the system requirements of a software program or hardware prevented people from using it. I have 7 year old computers that can run any software out there today(except new games and vista stuff…which is why most people upgrade). People don’t like Vista, because it’s not compatible with everything. Some things just don’t work with it and that’s a deal breaker.
Ubuntu needs a better page for supported hardware and software. They need to pay someone to compile a website with all the compatible hardware on it, so I can go to the store and buy parts that I know will work on Ubuntu. They have something like that but it’s not good enough. If people are going to have to look up what works on linux it better be easy, because that’s something you don’t have to do with linux. People will be really impressed with their new wireless usb dongle if all they had to do was plug it in and it works…”wow I didn’t have to put in a driver cd and restart my computer. I just pluged it in and it works. Go Linux…I love it” That’s how it works if can buy/find software that is compatible with Linux. I just has to be easier to get that info because you won’t find it at the store in the near future.
February 21st, 2008 at 12:51 pm
i kinda agree with quisae. the main reason that i disappointed with linux is the lack of hardware support. i don’t agree if canonical put charge on any kind of ubuntu release because imho that will just take out all the fun from it. linux is not only just an Operating System, but it also educating in free kind of way . free as a freedom, that kind of spirit will be vanish if they start charging on something..
February 21st, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Well… why should we pick our software based on our hardware and not our hardware based on our software? Especially since it’s hardware’s fault that it doesn’t allow to be supported.
If I like an operating system then I only expect to use it on hardware that supports it properly (and “proper” here is different than in Windows: for a device to be properly supported it’s driver must be open and maintained within the kernel project -consequently, Nvidia’s and ATI’s graphic adapters are still not properly supported).
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Hi, Chris. For Joe Newbie, who doesn’t care about politics, FOSS or even computers in general, maybe he should just keep using Windows or a Mac. We’ll still be here if and when he realizes the value of software freedom.
I don’t want to compromise free software principles simply to attract new users. I’d like to gain GNU/Linux users, but not at the expense of the values of the free software movement. And I think one of our core values should include rejecting software patents and related encumbrances.
(And it’s really not that hard today to add mp3 support to a standard Ubuntu installation. If Joe Newbie isn’t willing to figure out that much, then he doesn’t have my sympathies.)