The New York times recently covered the increasing popularity of Ubuntu’s flavor of GNU/Linux, attributing much of its success to Mark Shuttleworth’s leadership and wealth. There’s a lot of sensationalism in the article. Like this: But rather than preparing to code for the highest bidder, the developers were coordinating their largely volunteer effort to try [...]" />

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Christianity/Culture/Computing

Is Ubuntu Linux Mainstream?

Posted by Tommy on 1/12/09 • Categorized as Culture,Linux

The New York times recently covered the increasing popularity of Ubuntu’s flavor of GNU/Linux, attributing much of its success to Mark Shuttleworth’s leadership and wealth.

There’s a lot of sensationalism in the article. Like this:

But rather than preparing to code for the highest bidder, the developers were coordinating their largely volunteer effort to try to undermine Microsoft’s Windows operating system for PCs, which generated close to $17 billion in sales last year.

I don’t think Linux coders are all that subversive—we just want more control over our software. But still, it’s nice to see Linux getting some mainstream attention.

Christopher Tozzi at the excellent WorksWithU blog responds to some of points made by the NYT, offering a little balance and perspective. It’s worth a read.

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1 Comment

  1. Ted Carnahan
    January 12, 2009 • 8:03 am

    Ubuntu is becoming more mainstream – "normal" people are starting to hear about it. You're completely right, though. As a full-time freedom software user, I don't do what I do because I want to undermine Microsoft. I do what I do because my life is much less complicated and has much more control with freedom software. Microsoft isn't the enemy; rather, Microsoft is completely irrelevant.

    Reply

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