Chris Kenyon

Director - Business Development, Canonical

Ubuntu's Fierce Freedoms Lead to Striking Opportunities
23 minutes, 10.9mb, recorded 2007-07-23
Topics: Open Source
Chris Kenyon

Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distributions, with over 6 million users. It also has over 13,000 local community members that promote it, over 17,000 translation helpers, and over 200,000 users in its forums. This enthusiasm has created a huge momentum for the spreading of Ubuntu's fierce freedoms, the things that make it what it is.

Unlike commercial software and even other open source software, Ubuntu is designed around freedom for the user. There is no separation between the community and enterprise versions, free security updates are available for a predictable and long period of time, and community processes are transparent and open. Commercial support is provided by the company Canonical, and that award-winning support brings in enough revenue to fund the freedoms given to all users. The goal is to not charge for anything that can be reproduced for free, like bug fixes or upgrades, while still charging for non-reproducible tasks like technical support or customization. This allows those who choose to pay for special services to fund development of features for everyone else.


Chris Kenyon is the Director of Business Development for Canonical. Chris leads the team that ensures that Ubuntu satisfies users' complete computing needs by securing broad support for Ubuntu by leading software, hardware and training vendors. Prior to working with Canonical, Chris set up a successful 'Software as a Service' company servicing the European automotive sector. He has also worked on marketing and branding projects for the Omnicom group for the likes of Infineon Technologies, Acorn Computers, Proctor & Gamble and UBS.

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