What if Ubuntu Hosted a Repository and Nobody Came?
Submitted by srlinuxx on Tue, 02/12/2008 - 21:26.
Last week, Canonical, the commercial face of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution, announced that it would be using its Partners repository to sell proprietary applications like Parallels Workstation. You can see the reasoning: Ubuntu's Debian technology already has the infrastructure for on-demand downloads and software installation, so why not monetize it?
But, if past incarnations of the idea are any indication, then the results are likely to be disappointing at best. For one thing, neither the free software community nor the software vendors care for the idea, so there's little market for it. For another, with the recent maturity of many pieces of free software, how many Ubuntu users will be so insistent on a brand name that they'll pay for functionality that they can get for free?
So far as I know, the idea of a commercial repository was first raised by Ximian back in the dot-com bubble with Red Carpet. At the time, the idea made sense if you squinted a little. Many free productivity apps were light on features, and hopeful startups like Chilliware were rushing to fill the gap with proprietary applications. However, Ximian was acquired by Novell before it could experiment with the idea very much, and the sudden collapse of the bubble took most of the potential vendors for Red Carpet with it.
The next major incarnation was Linspire's Click-N-Run (CNR).
Datamation failed to recognize any open killer applications ?
If Linux lovers are cheap, so that CnR had to offer freebies to advertize its open killer applications; then so be it. But, unfoprtunately, CnR open sourced applications are not killers. So, CnR had no one rushed in to pay for anything CnR will have.
You have to have something that open sourced community does not have, to have corporate America pay for it. Michael Robertson, my friend, had to perhaps mix and match all the small aplications of opensource to make some killer applications which includes expert system wizards to make some money. It is not easy, to sell wizards, because you need experts. Experts don't come cheap.
Is it catch 22? I don't know. But something has to be done; or you may have to sell your OS with a big hardware computer? Then support it with an ever improving repository to keep the computers upto date.
You have to beat Microsoft to be the next virtual administrator for your customers?