Yesterday I came across a very interesting article on fossforce qualified Would It Be a Disaster If Ubuntu Ceased to Exist? That left me wondering ... what was Ubuntu's contribution to the "Linux world"? What would Linux be without Ubuntu?
Ubuntu: the good, the bad and the ugly
Lately, there are many failures and bad decisions by Canonical: Unity, Mir, its union with Amazon, Ubuntu for TVs, Ubuntu Edge, etc. These bad decisions, in addition, have caused a large part of Ubuntu users to abandon this distro and dare to try other flavors of Linux. In that sense, the failure of Ubuntu has been good for the rest of the Linux distributions, which have seen their user base grow. Perhaps the most "damaging" aspect of these bad decisions is that it has divided a large part of the users: Unity vs. Gnome, Mir vs Wayland, etc. What's more, both Unity and Mir are largely "lonely" Canonical developments with little to no community involvement.
However, Ubuntu still has very positive aspects. It has managed to make a name for itself outside the Linux world, which is no small thing. It has possibly the best installer, a huge number of packages available, a great community, good forums, a huge user base, it is conquering a growing percentage of the server market and has managed to become the benchmark when it comes to Linux gaming. (Steam, for example). Canonical is undoubtedly an innovative and forward-thinking company, even if some of its ideas have failed. But what if this string of failures leads Mark Shuttleworth to no longer fund Ubuntu development?
I'm your father
Ubuntu is also the base of a lot of distributions. A cursory analysis of the 50 most popular distributions yields the following Ubuntu derivatives: Mint, OS4, Zorin, Lubuntu, Bodhi, Elementary, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Pear, Linux Lite, Ubuntu GNOME, Snowlinux, Peppermint, PinguyOS, BackBox and Ubuntu Studio . Which leads us to wonder: what if Canonical stops putting money into Ubuntu? The answer they give us at Fossforce is the following:
Linux has existed long before Ubuntu and will continue to exist long after Ubuntu. In the worst case, each of the Ubuntu-based distributions could be downgraded to Debian without major problems.
Ironically, I would add that maybe this is better for Ubuntu. This would pass into the hands of the community, as has happened with other free software projects, and would possibly experience a "greening" very much in the LibreOffice style. If not, there is no doubt that another distro will fill the gap left by Ubuntu very quickly.
Why the question?
Honestly, I think Canonical is unlikely to decide to ditch Ubuntu, at least not yet. Through different agreements, Canonical has managed to turn Ubuntu into a profitable product. Let's just think about the agreement with the Chinese government or the agreements with some computer manufacturers to distribute their devices with Ubuntu pre-installed. It may not be profitable enough for Mark Shuttleworth to become the next Steve Jobs - perhaps his hidden dream? - but it is profitable enough for the company not to lose.
So why wonder what would Linux be without Ubuntu? In short, because it seems to me that it is a healthy question. The importance of Ubuntu in Linux has often been exaggerated. There are a ton of other desktop distros available that are either as good as Ubuntu or MUCH better in various ways. So Linux could not only survive the eventual loss of Ubuntu, it would continue to prosper. Ubuntu has certainly helped promote the desktop use of Linux, but it has grown far beyond any reliance on a distribution to survive.
You. what do you think?