Idea #9396: Ubuntu in beautiful packaging

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Written by Madsrh the 2 Jun 08 at 19:12. Category: Marketing.
Related to: Nothing/Others. Status: New

Description

If Ubuntu was available in a beautiful package, would you/anyone pay a token amount for it? The box would also include a small printed manual.
I would like to hear your opinion and please vote on the forum post.

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Ubuntuforums.org thread #815000

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Comments

tbrminsanity wrote on the 2 Jun 08 at 19:49

There is an official Ubuntu book that comes out with each edition of Ubuntu. If that was the manual in the package I would totally buy it (I would pay up to $100-$150 CDN for it).

Auzy wrote on the 3 Jun 08 at 03:25

I wouldn't. The reason is, if I pay money for mandriva or other commercial distributions, I also get some commercial programs included.

And seeing that Ubuntu is backed up by a commercial company that disagrees with the ubuntu philosophy (ie. Every computer user ... without paying licensing fees), it seems that I'm not sure I can back Ubuntu with money.

I feel a lot safer backing debian with money (the base), because they are totally not for profit.

Madsrh wrote on the 3 Jun 08 at 07:07

Ubuntu will always be 100% free. You will be paying for the CDs, the package, the printed manual and so on.

The point is to make a package like this AVAILABLE for thous who want to buy it - it will have no effect on you or your use of Ubuntu if you don't want it. Read some of the comments in the forum.

Auzy wrote on the 3 Jun 08 at 09:30

Whether its free, and will always be free or not is irrelevant.

We must ask ourselves the following questions:

1) Who would resell or maintain stock of it? As a store manager, would it make sense for me to stock it, when users can order the CDs free online? It would be risky to stock. I used to work stock manager in an Apple reseller, and I wouldn't stock it even if I was a PC reseller, because it would be unlikely to sell compared to competition such as mandriva.

2) Why stock it if there are no additional applications included? If a customer buys mandriva, they also get many commercial applications.

3) Bookstores already sell professional Ubuntu learning books made by many publishers, which include a copy of ubuntu free (exactly the same version). So this is already being done. And these are by established suppliers. Just because its Canonical branded doesn't mean companies would be more likely to stock it.

4) So what you are saying, is that you are also offering a nice box in addition to their deals? WOW.. M4D DEALZ!!! Big bonus there :)

5) If Ubuntu will always be free, they would have to offer the same manual free too. Or its kind of against their own policies. Many people will be inclined to simply make do with an ebook.

I just don't feel this would be a competitive enough offering, against current 3rd party offerings.

Furthermore, Ubuntu is Canonical's distribution, and there are many that feel that some of Canonical's offerings (such as Landscape), actually doesn't make Ubuntu as free as we all would like. It makes little sense after all for them to approve patches and programs that compete against Landscape. Debian doesn't suffer from this same "conflict of interest". With that in mind, I'm not entirely sure we can say ubuntu is truly free.

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