Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSSH, Firefox, Apache, etc.
In addition, some projects that are not well-funded as a project are "funded" in the sense that companies pay people to work on them, for example Microsoft paying Simon Peyton Jones to work on GHC.
In addition, some projects that are not well-funded as a project are "funded" in the sense that companies pay people to work on them, for example Microsoft paying Simon Peyton Jones to work on GHC.
All of the Debian developers are volunteers, am I wrong? Slackware can barely support one employee, the founder. OpenSSH falls under OpenBSD, which also supports just the founder, everyone else volunteers, and they DO volunteer some serious time and do important things. They also had problems raising funds, there were discussions on HN about that here, and I'm sure there will be more in a year or two.
From: http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2014.html : * If $10 were given for every installation of OpenBSD in the last year from the master site (ignoring the mirrors) we would be at our goal. * If $2 were given for every download of the OpenSSH source code in the last year from the master site (ignoring the mirrors) we would be at our goal. * If a penny was donated for every pf or OpenSSH installed with a mainstream operating system or phone in the last year we would be at our goal.
This is kinda depressing.
Is there someone from the Debian project here? I'm wondering if they could afford to run their own mirrors around the world if they had to. Could they cover hardware, colo and bandwidth costs, if they had to? I'm just curious.
That's the point -- the ones that can should support the ones that can't, which are often foundational components of the reason the ones that can, can get money in the first place.
Ubuntu is funded by Canonical. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth in other words. So one big donor.
Debian... seems to mostly get by on volunteer labor and be ok with it, or it did when I was involved with them. Has that changed? I suspect that in some ways Debian is underfunded given the amount of work they do. Perhaps money would make some things happen faster there.
The Apache Software Foundation does a decent job at fundraising, and even employs a few people to do stuff like administration. Most of the projects get by with companies that pay people to work on them, which seems to work out pretty well.
Firefox/Mozilla make most of their money with deals: Google and Yahoo, last I remember.
I don't know about OpenSSH.
It's possible, but mostly donations don't seem to work unless it's big chunks of money from companies.
> The Apache Software Foundation does a decent job at
> fundraising, and even employs a few people to do stuff
> like administration. Most of the projects get by with
> companies that pay people to work on them, which seems
> to work out pretty well.
https://www.apache.org/foundation/records/minutes/2014/board...
As a 501c(3) non-profit, it is constrained as to what it can do with donations.
Unfortunately, that is very far from true.
Ubuntu was negative $21 million USD in 2013[1]. Canonical would literally make money by just not doing Ubuntu anymore.[2]
(Every time Canonical is on the verge of bankruptcy, Shuttleworth re-seeds back into the company from his personal checkbook)
[1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/199373896/Canonical-Group-Limited-...
(the numbers are represented in thousands, so 21,343 is 21,343,000)
[2] http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/13/mark-shuttlew...
The significant losses due to Ubuntu development and related expenses are why Canonical as-of-late has been turning focus away from Ubuntu towards other markets such as Mobile and especially Enterprise (a la Red Hat's turf).
Canonical's cloud business might be profitable (even though Canonical as a whole is very-mush-so-not), however their cloud business is not coupled to Ubuntu, ie. they could use any Linux Distro, or any OS for the matter.
Ubuntu is a total loss center for Canonical. It's surprising to a lot of people given it's popularity... but popularity doesn't equal profitability... especially when most users don't pay anything for the software (not even support fees).
Typical beancounter mentality.
Probably comes with a suggestion of closing this division and going with something else
OF COURSE this department loses money. But it is a net gain for the company, and in fact without it the rest wouldn't exist.
Not sure what "of course" means here... it's very possible to be profitable off your OS Development division... look at Red Hat, SUSE, etc. They pay for the development from support payments... they collect support payments because enterprise wants their OS... it's a positive feedback loop. The better the OS, the more enterprise pays, the more funding RH can put into the OS dev team, the better the OS gets, the more support fees they collect, etc etc etc...
Canonical has not been able to successfully charge for support like RH and SUSE have figured out.
> But it is a net gain for the company, and in fact without it the rest wouldn't exist.
It's not a net gain unless the company can be profitable as a whole and subsidize (and justify the enormous expense) off-put by tertiary services, etc.
... right now Ubuntu project is responsible for Canonical being perpetually in the red... every quarter, since their foundation. Canonical could very well just run enterprise support contracts, or push their cloud services. They don't have to use Ubuntu... any OS would suffice. They aren't somehow coupled to Ubuntu to the point if Ubuntu didn't exist, Canonical wouldn't either.
Circa 2008, before the Unity and Pulseaudio switches, it was considered by pretty much everyone the premiere Linux distro. I don't see why they could not get support contracts with Dell, HP, etc to sell Ubuntu computers and provide the tech support in exchange for positive cash flows.
Even today Dell is still doing Sputnik and in European countries you can buy HP hardware with Linux. Why is Canonical not taking advantage of the fact that they could be making money off support for their desktop OS through all the hardware vendors?
Ubuntu has never been profitable for Canonical. Shuttleworth's game-plan was always long-term minded regarding Ubuntu -- but as we've seen as-of-late, Canonical is shifting focus to other markets they view as potentially profitable. Shuttleworth has committed to keeping Ubuntu alive, but it's no longer Canonical's sole hope for income.
> I don't see why they could not get support contracts with Dell, HP, etc to sell Ubuntu computers and provide the tech support in exchange for positive cash flows.
This isn't just a problem for Ubuntu, but for most end-user linux distros. People always joke with Linus when the "year of the Linux desktop" will finally arrive... The people who use Linux as their daily driver generally don't need the support, and for the ones who do, well it's a lot less marketshare than Windows.
> Even today Dell is still doing Sputnik
Besides Sputnik, and some Linux-only end-user manufacturers like System76, there really isn't a lot of choice for pre-installed Linux end-user computers.
It's weird too, because Sputnik is $50 more expensive than the windows version of the same hardware. (probably some Microsoft deal going on here).
Linux comes pre-installed on majority of server hardware (server hardware than comes with any OS at all that is), and Linux dominates this field. But the "year of the linux desktop" hasn't quite arrived yet. I do hope it comes soon.
I've used System76 and Zareason. System76 are Ubuntu-only (and the hardware may have issue with other distros); Zareason will support any Linux.
I run full-time linux on my laptop and my goto hardware has typically been a Thinkpad T series.
Is it about profits, or - I'm going to be kind of cynical here - chasing taillights? The way they seem to bounce around from one thing to another (mobile phones! embedded!) makes it feel like the latter.
I tend to agree... modern Canonical feels like a company that lacks focus (probably because they aren't quite sure what the focus ought to be after realizing Ubuntu might not ever turn a profit for them).