Joint-Venture for Distro Pre-install

Development Discussion
1

The industry needs a concerted effort to help focus manufacturer/distributor attention.

Anyone at Canonical willing to give the initiative a proper feasibility study?

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Hi, @ericmarceau :slight_smile:

If you want feedback from someone at Canonical, regarding some kind of partnership with Hardware Manufactures and Distributors, I may suggest that you post a topic in the "Ubuntu Discourse" / "Ubuntu Community Hub" instead - https://discourse.ubuntu.com/

I'm not sure what would be the best "Ubuntu Discourse" category to post a topic like that, but I'm guessing it would be the "Certification" ("Ubuntu Hardware Certification") category - https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/project/certification/165 - that has the following description:

https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/about-the-certification-category/39335
Questions and discussion about Ubuntu Hardware Certification.
We work with a wide range of devices, including desktop, laptop, server and IoT devices, to ensure that our OEM customers and end-users can get optimal performance and out-of-the-box Ubuntu experiences on certified hardware.

EDIT: Also, the Ubuntu web site has a page specifically about "Certified Hardware" - https://ubuntu.com/certified - with the tagline "Find Ubuntu Certified devices | Ubuntu hardware you can trust". That page has information about certified brands and models, and also a link to a page about the advantages of certification - https://ubuntu.com/certified/why-certify - for ODM (Original Design Manufacturers) and another link to the "Hardware Certification documentation" web site - https://certification.canonical.com/docs/programmes/

3 Likes
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I do appreciate the effort you put into what you offered, Ricardo.

However, my intent was not to focus on "Compatibility Certification" efforts, which the vast majority of the Community would see as a single-distro initiative.

I was trying to persuade those who have the degree of access, and level of responsibility, to focus their search for new horizons to include the mind-set of "Joint-Ventures", as a means to

  • boost visibility of industry cooperation (hopefully increasing public mind-space awareness/interest),

  • gain multiplier-effect of more than a single-Distro initiative (reducing cost per seat conversion from Windows to Linux for any given Distro),

  • make available to manufacturers and distributors a "workable and sustainable" industry-wide partner (the Joint-Venture organization) for the "orphaned" and "untapped" Linux-specific market segment, and

  • offer those same manufacturers and distributors with a concrete, definable, and attractive financial benefit to motivate them to work on making those "proprietary" elements more immediately, and fully, supportable for the Linux industry.

From my perspective, "Certification" is much too narrow a scope within the greater context that I was trying to outline. :frowning:

The most critical advantage offered by a Joint-Venture is that it allows the participants to pursue strategic development initiatives which might be too costly, or risky, for a single organization to pursue on its own, but which become more acceptable, if not attractive, if the shared-risk model of Joint-Ventures is adopted. :slight_smile: