Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Re-thinking the Ubuntu/Yahoo deal

When I first heard of this deal my reaction was "so what?", Ubuntu either gets money from one private company or another.

I even read a comment that said ""this would seem to mean that Microsoft will be paying people for using Ubuntu.". This due to the fact that Yahoo is now a front for Bing.

That was the comment that made me think. At first blush it seems that that will be the case. Get money from Microsoft to support a competing product.

What I realized later was that it is the other way around! Microsoft will get money from hits coming from Ubuntu. Out of that, a small portion will go to Ubuntu.

This means that Ubuntu will be making money for Microsoft so in a very direct way, supporting the development of Windows and other proprietary software.

Google may not be the beacon of purity they want to portrait but at least they support Free software. They support the Summer of code, a Linux derivative, Free software Conferences and many other Free software initiatives.

Am I missing something here? How does this deal with Yahoo makes sense?