Ubuntu ventures into enterprise Linux

According to Wikipedia, the African word “Ubuntu,” from which the Ubuntu Linux distribution takes its name, has many possible translations. Among them: “humanity towards others,” “I am because we are,” or “A person is a person because of other persons.”

So far, those good vibes from the Ubuntu user and developer community have pushed it to the forefront of the Linux distributions since its launch in 2004. But that could all change as Ubuntu’s corporate backer, Canonical, tries to nudge it into datacenters as an alternative to Linux distributions by Red Hat and Novell.

On Monday, Canonical announced Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Long Term Support), a new version of the operating system in desktop and server editions that are targeted at large organizations.

The new version of Ubuntu supports Sun’s UltraSPARC T1 processor, as well as Intel and AMD’s x86 and IBM’s Power-PC processors. The server edition is designed to be easier to deploy in large numbers, and has a feature that allows organizations to set up a standardized LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) server. Other certified software stacks are planned, Canonical founder and CEO Mark Shuttleworth said in a conference call on Wednesday.

Canonical is also trying to hammer out deals with leading server hardware manufacturers to release Ubuntu 6.06 on their platforms. So far, only Sun Microsystems has announced plans to sell “Niagara” T1000 and T2000 servers using Ubuntu’s operating system.

A bigger challenge may be balancing the demands of the open source Ubuntu community and enterprise IT buyers accustomed to commercial products and closed source vendors.

Shuttleworth said he is concerned about losing touch with the open source community as it chases the enterprise market, but doesn’t plan to go the way of Novell and Red Hat.

“We have slightly different ambitions than other companies. We want to create a sustainable platform and partner with the community to do that,” he said.

But Ubuntu isn’t afraid to say “No” to deals that might jeopardize its standing with open source advocates, like shipping the closed source Adobe Acrobat Reader with Ubuntu.

But walking the line between enterprise and open source is tough, said Dan Kusnetzky, executive vice president for Open-Xchange, an open source solution provider.

“The question is ‘How do you work with the open source software community and still produce a product that is as acceptable as a commercial alternative?'” he said. “We’ve learned that you need to articulate carefully anything you plan to do so that people understand what you’re doing and your reason for doing it. Even a simple misunderstanding (with the open source community) can have a negative impact,” Kusnetzky said.