Personally, I think Canonical treads the line between avoiding locking users into proprietary services and actually generating revenue streams very carefully. They don’t always get it right, but usually listen when people let them know that they haven’t!

So far, the defaults have worked pretty well for me, though. For example, I like the inclusion of the GoogleTalk plugin in Empathy/Telepathy, and I would probably grumble if I had to do a “sudo apt-get install telepathy-googletalk-plugin” to get it. Different strokes for different folks.

Have you ever thought of modifying the default Ubuntu install, that is, modifying the ubuntu-desktop package, and publishing your modification? It should be pretty easy to just edit the control file in the deb to add/remove recommends.

As long as Ubuntu remains open, and the funding sources are legitimate, I don’t really care what Canonical does to fund the project, or includes as “value added features” in Ubuntu.

“Can this pickle get more fans than MP3″.

First I want to address the UOMS issue. I don’t find this offensive compared with the Ubuntu One File sharing which I will come back to. I think it is a sore point for many users that Ubuntu doesn’t yet have a music store but Windows and OSX do in the form of iTunes. I know that my sisters will find it very useful and I commend Canonical for taking the initiative on this one. I don’t have a problem with the format of the music being MP3 because I understand that there will be more Canonical can do once they are bringing in revenue for 7digital. I also acknowledge that this is a problem that cannot be tackled by Canonical (yet). I have Free Software that can play MP3 so no big deal for me as I don’t live in a patent encumbered country. I do wonder how Ubuntu is going to deal with not shipping with MP3 codecs by default however. Any ideas here Aq or Jono?

I would like to start my argument by say that I have nothing again companies making money from Free Software. The more a company makes money off of Free Software the better the software will become and eventually we will be able to overcome our proprietary rivals.

I find it funny how we talk of balance between community and company when really the company should be helping the community achieve it’s goals. That is what a company does, help the customer. If a company gets to a point where they are wrestling with the customer for the customer’s money then they are a bad company and are attempting to hold the customer down. This is not capitalism, capitalism is about choice and free market. If the community is crying out for something, maybe this is a hint to the company

What this boils down to is: “Make the customer stay because they like your service/product not because of lock-in”. If Canonical were to open up the source code to the Ubuntu One servers, not only would this be more in keeping with the Ubuntu brand, but also it would encourage competition, which is good for the customer. Now, Canonical may not like the idea of competition, no company does, but that is what capitalism is built on. If Canonical maintain their active development on Ubuntu One and keep the service good I can assure you people will use that service. There you go, Canonical is being paid for doing good work.

On top of this, Canonical has the upper hand with it’s control of the Ubuntu trademark. By affiliating an open Ubuntu One with the excellent Ubuntu product they are bringing more customers to the service. People will pay for this service, I am sure, as very few people want to maintain their own Ubuntu One instance, take a look at status.net.

Aq mentioned that he thought it was very hard for companies to follow this path and make money from services on top of Free Software. He mentioned some companies already but I don’t think they are the exception, this is subjective however, as I don’t have any hard facts to back this up (but then neither did Aq) only experience . One thing I can say for certain is that nobody has become one of the companies to make money from Free Software by saying “Oh, that looks hard, maybe I will just stick with my hybrid business model.” If you don’t try it you may never know!

I would like to point OpenNMS out as a project that seems to get this “balance” right. I’m not involved with the project but judging from the kind of things Tarus Balog, the lead developer, said about it in his interview with TLLTS, I would say it is an excellent example. I strongly suggest checking out http://www.opennms.com and the TLLTS interview at: episode 343 tllts.org

Excellent discussion folks, a few people need to steer clear of the flame-throwers though. (oh it did turn out long, sorry)

• I agree with flimm (comment #3). One very big boot in the spuds for Canonical’s use of Ubuntu branding to sell a non-free service. How about a rename?

• I think community vs company was an ill-chosen overly broad title. Isn’t the issue really free software vs corporate interests (namely, but not exclusively, profit)?

• Some of the so-called community is just there for the free beer. They will always complain about anything non-free. Nobody likes a price increase, especially when the reference point is free.

• re “Do communities give companies too much of a raw deal?” This goes way beyond free software. This is a free speech issue. People are going to say whatever they feel like saying irrespective of the soundness of their argument.

• re “Are companies fundamentally evil”. No. The purpose of for-profit companies is to allocate scarce resources for the gain of their owners. With respect to free software, there’s a tension between using those resources in a way that harnesses the community (under which free software benefits) or using resources to develop proprietary IP. Companies who don’t appropriately delineate their community and proprietary products risk losing the goodwill of their community.

1. Is it ok to use the cop out of closed source and proprietary patent law to artificially force the market in your direction? No its not.

I also dont believe that everyone thinks that just because something is produced by a company using patent law that it is inferior software. The problem is that it is using a broken system to force profits rather than letting innovation be the defining factor.

A great example to use is the restaurant. A restaurant gains “market share” by producing a superior product and thus gains reputation.The cycle is self perpetuating. They are using the same ingredients that are available to everyone. But not everyone is able to create the same end result. The best results will be produced by those with the best staff, with the most talent. If that restaurant starts trying to hide everything, and tries to use the law to prevent anyone else from making dishes that are similar, they will lose the respect of other restaurant, and in the end, the people.

Canonical should be profitable. But I dont think it has to fall back onto the problem to do so. In fact, I think Canonicals main market lies in doing just the opposite.

If I wasn’t a student and had more money I would definitely get myself an Ubuntu One account. It’s a good service that I would be willing to pay for because it is something tangible that costs the company time and money as I use it. However, there would be one condition, that it be open source. I think Canonical cuts itself out of the market of people like me. Some of us want that access to the code, we want the freedom. I don’t see how it could harm Canonicals business model by opening it up. After all, they are selling a service not the software.

Do you want to see what Ubuntu would be like unfunded? As I really, really don’t…

I have no problem with the naming of anything as long as they make clear to people that this service will cost money. That should be enough…

Look at it this way. If company A owned Ubuntu and then company B started a service called Ubuntu One. Would company A sue for trademark infringement? Yes. This is because it would confuse the user.

I wish Canonical didn’t do this and I think they could be profitable even without closed source services(I have nothing against them make money mind you). However, if they choose to go down this route I don’t see point in confusing the Ubuntu brand.

If I want that functionality, I’ll choose it. In the mean time, I don’t want it taking up my mind share or screen estate.

I think apps which tie into commercial services are very useful and should definitely be available, but having certain ones installed by default feels like the distribution making arbitrary suggestions about relationships I should have with third party commercial entities.

For example, I use a Firefox plugin which allows me to bookmark web pages on delicious.com so that I can share them with friends, but if that plugin was there by default it would raise some questions. Is Delicious affiliated with Ubunutu somehow? Does Ubuntu recommend Delicous? Are they benefiting from marketing Delicious? If I trust Ubuntu should I also trust Delicious? Why should I use Delicious rather than any other bookmarking service?

If the delicious plugin is installed by default then should there also be bookmark plugins for AIM Share, Bebo, Blogger, Blogmarks, Buzz, eKudos, Evernote, Facebook, Favoritus, Folkd, FriendFeed, Digg, Gabbr, GMail, Identi.ca, Kudos, Link Ninja, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, MySpace, Plaxo, Plurk, Reddit, Slashdot, Technorati, Tumblr, Twitter, TypePad, WordPress, and Y! Bookmarks too?

If not, then who decides which one is turned on by default?

As for Ubuntu One File storage, I don’t see how anyone can seriously complain about that either. Believing in “Free Software” doesn’t include believing that you need to give people a free computer (or server space) to go with it. After all, I didn’t get a free laptop when I downloaded Ubuntu either.

If I have a complaint about Canonical, it’s that they aren’t making enough money. I get a nagging concern about Ubuntu closing down if it can’t be self sustaining. I think the consumer services model is good one however, and I wish you luck with it. Your real challenge is going to be selling those services while avoiding annoying users with a hard sell approach to promoting those services. One of the really horrible things about MS Windows is how every company who gets their software on your computer wants to take over your whole computer as a marketing tool. So far Ubuntu One has stayed fairly low key and unobtrusive, which I think is the right approach.

If there is a “community vs. company” problem anywhere, I think it is that even though SOJ might be your personal blog, you can’t get away from the fact that you do work for Canonical. Whenever Greg Kroah-Hartmann complains about Canonical “not contributing enough to the kernel” it comes across as a Novell employee bashing a competitor in a very petty manner. On the other hand when the two of you tip toe around anything that Novell does, it comes across as you being easy on them because Novell is a competitor (and you want to appear as not being petty). Honestly though, I don’t see how you could stick the boot into de Icaza (for example) no matter how much he might happen to deserve it without being perceived by some as just bashing a competitor. It’s a limitation that you have to accept when working in the sort of position that you are.

Also watch http://truthhappens.redhat.com/2008/01/14/alan-cox-speaks/ it says a lot about how being pure open source makes a lot of business sense to us

Seriously, gripe away. But a suggestion of a better funding model is ten times more useful than pot shots at what we have to work with.

If Cannonical wants to start a music store to help fund their free software project, I’m all for it. I might even buy some MP3s.

When booking part of a tour for my old anarcho-punk band, I asked one promoter for a $100 guarantee. He said, “No.” when I pointed out $100 is only 20 people paying $5 at the door, he readily agreed. It’s funny how explaining the numbers involved suddenly cleared it up.

Second, @tola Magnatune releases all their music under CC license, which is the closest we have to the free software in music, I think. http://magnatune.com/info/whynotevil

I like JonTheNiceGuy’s idea. Show that people are willing to pay for a product, and it’s a no-brainier for companies to provide it. The reason that they don’t is probably due to myths like sweet william has expressed above.