Hands up if you have used Linux in one of its various incarnations for the desktop. Well if you are reading this blog, chances are you have done that. Like many other geeks and aspiring geeks I have dabbled with using Linux specifically Ubuntu and I must say after the initial novelty of using something other than Windows, or Mac OS for that matter, I have been rather casual about it.
Zimbabwe has also seen a fair amount of excitement about the adoption of Linux resulting in the formation of a local Ubuntu community, made up of volunteer IT professionals that met every first Tuesday of the month. Various local companies such as YoAfrica have also tried to inspire the local market to adopt Linux.
A prominent Linux evangelist has been Mark Shuttleworth who, like other FOSS supporters contends that the ‘free’ cost of this software is of great value to African countries. After selling his digital certificate business Thawte to VeriSign for US $600 million, Shuttleworth took a break and became the first African cosmonaut by taking a $20 million jaunt in space. I’m not sure he has recovered from that head above the clouds sensation as indicated by his quixotic adventure in promoting Linux through his company Canonical.
Although Linux has been grabbing market share in the enterprise space because companies like IBM., Hewlett-Packard and Dell place Linux on more than servers they sell. This success is demonstrated by the fact that about 70 percent of the servers running on public cloud computing systems such as Amazon’s EC2 rely on Linux.
To succeed on the desktop, Linux needs to penetrate the office. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a single Linux to go up against Windows 7. Instead there is a highly fragmented field of hundreds of different Linuxes, each with its own learning curve, skill set and maintenance needs. Even the top five distributions (Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuSE and Debian) cannot offer a big enough user base to attract adequate support.
While Linux Mint is fast growing the most popular flavour of Linux today is Ubuntu which is eveloped by Shuttleworth’s company Canonical. Based in London the company has more than 200 full-time employees, but its total work force stretches well beyond that, through an army of volunteers. An additional 1,000 volunteers work on the Debian project and make their software available to Canonical, while over 5,000 spread information about Ubuntu on the Internet. And 38,000 have signed up to translate the software into different languages.
To compound the confusion in the Linux camp the latest release, Ubuntu users are given either the minimalist Gnome 3 version of the user-interface, or a proprietary iPad-like interface called Unity. The unintuitive nature of the latest releases of Ubuntu have driven many a long-time Ubuntu user ballistic. Even Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, has called Gnome 3, in particular, “an unholy mess” and is known to have unceremoniously dumped it.
Despite this dire verdict by the father of Linux, its enthusiasts see a bright future for the free operating system. Next year about 18 million PCs, or 5 percent of the total market, should ship with Ubuntu preloaded, according to Shuttleworth (next to 92% for Windows)
Given that Ubuntu has a low, low price tag of $0, how does Canonical pay its bills and keep the lights on? The company receives revenue from companies like Dell that ship computers with Ubuntu and work with it on software engineering projects like adding Linux-based features to laptops. Canonical’s annual revenue is creeping toward $30 million.
That figure is puny next to Microsoft’s billions which is on the verge of releasing Windows 8 and its OS business generates over $20 billion per year. Windows 8 will be available in nine separate editions up from three flavors for Windows 7. The Microsoft Store lists Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate from $199, $299, and $319, respectively (upgrade prices are a bit less).
Indeed in the corporate world those license fees add up but the sheer number of different Linux versions and their different learning curves and support requirements mean that system administrators are not willing to take the plunge. In business, the biggest single computing cost is not software licenses, but the salaries of the support staff. And as far as licensing fees are concerned, the biggest single cost by far is not for operating systems but for enterprise applications. So companies will get Windows, pay and forget about support hassles.
The dim prospects of a Linux dominated desktop are further illustrated by the manner in which Microsoft squashed the nascent Linux challenge in China, potentially the world’s largest PC market. At the turn of the century prompted by military and security considerations the Chinese Academy of Sciences promoted a Linux version called Red Flag Linux. Beijing’s city government started installing free open-source Linux operating systems on workers’ PCs. This was the prelude to a planned rollout of the software across Chinese government installations.
In response to the perceived security threat (since Windows was made by a US company) in 2003 the Microsoft offeredChina and other countries the right to look at the fundamental source code for its Windows operating system and to substitute certain portions with their own software. Today, when China uses Windows whether in the President’s office or in its missile systems it can install its own cryptography.
Ironically Microsoft’s biggest friend in the Peoples Republic is piracy. By 2001, Microsoft executives were coming to the conclusion that China’s weak IP-enforcement laws meant its usual pricing strategies were doomed to fail. Gates argued at the time that while it was terrible that people in China pirated so much software, if they were going to pirate anybody’s software he’d certainly prefer it be Microsoft’s.
Today Microsoft openly concedes that tolerating piracy in China has turned out to be Microsoft’s best long-term strategy. That’s why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China’s 120 million PCs. According to Bill Gates “It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.”
With such formidable odds against it Linux (in all its desktop incarnations) seems doomed to the fringes of computing, forever the preserve of geeks and hobbyists. Given that consumers love choice that would be a real shame.
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40 comments
Thawte not Thwarte
Thanks, noted and corrected
It is not a competition.
It is choice
It is freedom.
It is a mistake to compare a for-profit philosophy and non-profit philosophy
Microsoft is competing with the linux community to get us to choose windows. That is undeniably competition, even if it is one-sided in the way I’ve framed it. The analysis could be expanded to say that the linux community is trying to make linux work better for people than Windows does. There is an element of competition there too.
Not in the context of pricing and comparing profits
Due to past anti-competitive behavior, Microsoft does not have to compete evenly to win the lion’s share of the profits. We all know this. Being in a privileged position in the competition doesn’t mean there is no competition, though. The marketplace is just distorted.
Now, are you going to continue bending over backwards, or are you going to cut to the chase and admit you have your own personal definition of what “competition” means?
tinma@n wrote: Not in the context of pricing and comparing profits
The context of competition I REFERRED TO is in “profits”. The opensource philosophy’s primary goal is not profits. In that context.
Case in point:
”
Canonical’s annual revenue is creeping toward $30 million.
That figure is puny next to Microsoft’s billions which is on the
verge of releasing Windows 8 and its OS business generates over $20
billion per year.
“
The context of competition I REFERRED TO is in “profits”. The opensource philosophy’s primary goal is not profits.
In that context.
Case in point:
”
Canonical’s annual revenue is creeping toward $30 million.
That figure is puny next to Microsoft’s billions which is on the
verge of releasing Windows 8 and its OS business generates over $20
billion per year.
“
love your work. classic… FUD
There is a reason FUD works!!
Kudos++ Nice article!
I feel software should be judged on its merit, if there’s a proprietary
software that fixes a problem better than FOSS, then it `justly`, wins the
battle.
I’d rather love for people to fork Linux whichever way they want. In my opinion, the beauty of software (open source or other), should be at fixing problems (which are all different, so fragmentation is not all bad) not necessarily widest adoption.
I’m not entirely sure about your meaning of “canning” Ubuntu? Limiting the distribution packages? Either way, I will be happy with different versions for different purposes against some bloated platform.
Thanks, Brian.
Thank you for reading. “Can” is to fire i.e fire an employee (for whatever reason e.g non-performance). My question is whether it’s worthwhile for Canonical and co to continue working on Ubuntu given the meagre returns in terms of market share and revenue derived from the product. As evidenced by the posts on this page I’m not the last word on what the guys at Canonical should do!
its not trying to make money. you have it all wrong.
I have never been a fan of Linux. It is just too cumbersome.
While a good article overall, this statement however is a joke “So companies will get Windows, pay and forget about support hassles”. Companies get windows because that is what they are used to. And as for support, Windows wouldn’t be windows if it weren’t for the support it demands; windows = support for life. I won’t bother narrating the litany of support gremlins on windows here, except to say anyone interested just go ahead and google.
Linux’s market share on the desktop is definitely small but on smartphones it is king. Android is LINUX. The potential for Android’s success on smartphones to translate into success on the desktop is definitely there. It’s just a question of time and the techical vision to do so.
Ubuntu has let down many of its faithfulls with its unity interface but since this is linux territory choices abound. Linuxmint’s mate and cinnamon interfaces have seen that distro accelerate past ubunty in no time (go to distowatch). But to say that linux is doomed to the fringes of computing I would say keep those impulses in check buddy. We’ll never get there.
Unity is not proprietary software. Never was, never will be. Its open source, like the rest of Ubuntu.
Noted
I don’t think there is a competition between Ubuntu and Windows. It really is a choice. There are some things Windows does better and somethings Ubuntu does better.
“Should Canonical Can Ubuntu?” Why, when the user base is growing and the product is getting better with each release.
By the way Unity is not proprietary.
Good point Norman Nhliziyo…if the user base is growing then there is a case to keep the product development going! Thanks!
i don’t see why you think they should can it, It is a self sustaining business edging towards profitability. It relies mainly on offering technical services. there are a number of services which generate them revenue such as Ubuntu One, physical goods sales through http://shop.canonical.com/, as you mentioned contracting with businesses such as Dell, Ubuntu one Music Store, Launchpad.net, paid software section of Ubuntu, Landscape… to name a few. Its big business. I am amazed that you think it is doomed. You would be surprised at how many governments have large-scale Linux projects; USA DOD, France, Spain, Russia, US courts, Us Postal services, Most Universities in the world use it also. As for the transition from PC to mobile the major mobile operating system (android) runs on a Linux Kernel. A few months ago Red Hat became the first billion dollar Linux company. So you tell me are those the fringes of computing? oh and having tested the new Windows 8 don’t count your chickens before they hatch, its one hell of a bet, and it might not win.
IMHO Metro sucks!…Unity had a struggle getting people on board too. It’s come of age
Time will tell
It’s a valid point you make regarding sustainability. Indeed the point about Red Hat hitting the billion dollar threshold is interesting. My point though is about Linux on the desktop which is where I’m saying there is very little traction. Well like you say don’t count your chickens…the world of tech is full of many Goliath’s that have been slain by plucky little Davids….the jury is still out
yeah you are right, on desktop its used mainly by governments who want to lower expenses, average users rely mainly on windows. we could all be surprised when Windows * becomes successful. and i read a report recently that said WP7 is gaining traction, albeit by a small %. lets wait and see.
“If we’re successful, we would fundamentally change the operating system market. Microsoft would need to adapt, and I don’t think that would be unhealthy.”- Mark Shuttleworth. From a software producer perspective it is a competition. Indeed Linux offers the consumer choice but I think one also accepts that it is competing for the hearts and minds of consumers as well
What amazes me is that articles written like this use statistics and information that somehow have been plucked from a Microsoft marketing brochure from 1995. Much has changed since then. Amazingly, Bill Gates himself called Linux a “cancer” and Steve Ballmer called it “our major competitor”, so I fail to see the point of the article.
According to the real numbers – meaning global, not just the US and EU – Linux desktop comprises over 13-15% of all desktops globally – most of them in enterprise – according to Microsoft’s own internal projections. Mac OS X comprises the next 8-9% and finally we have Windows at around 72-74%.
Globally the vast majority of Windows installations are pirated so that brings actual numbers to 30% legitimate global usage. As Linux’s such as Ubuntu progress the world is increasingly switching to Linux to avoid piracy issues and Linux is projected to move to the 20-25% mark in the next 2-3 years.
Red Flag Linux is still the default standard for Chinese government and they are still focused on phasing out Microsoft products as part of policy to not rely on foreign vendors, you should actually read this on their website. Microsoft is a temporary solution as they migrate to avoid the rampant piracy that used to occur in departments.
Red Flag Linux is mandated in important departments such as the Defense ministry and mission critical operations where full source code access is needed. China is very suspicious that Microsoft is using Windows to help the USA spy on them.
The state run media in China encourages the use of Red Flag Linux over Microsoft products. The usage numbers for desktop Linux in China have to be very high and are estimated to be 30-45% of the total market and this number is increasing. Canonical is selling loads of retail Ubuntu systems in China as a result of Windows piracy reactions and it is known that Android and Ubuntu are very popular and often purchased together.
This is now beginning to be the case in the United States as well. The Pentagon, CIA and NSA and NASA now use Linux – from Red Hat – on it’s desktops and servers. They have switched from Windows because it did not meet their security requirements. Many other institutions are making the switch, the entire government and school system of Tamil Naidu in India. This switch is happening in Europe as well in many places such as France.
The world is changing, Linux is gaining ground and Ubuntu is slated to be the most popular desktop Linux OS, get over it…
@twitter-21261665:disqus 100% agreed… the author of this article clearly has alot to learn about linux as a desktop. a bit more research and he would’ve found that alot of government offices in europe such as munich and iceland..have chosen to adopted ubuntu linux as an alternative to windows in their offices. its not that linux is “better”..rather it saved these organisations alot of money in license fees!
canonical provide services such as priority support and other management software for large distributions (such as landscape) to generate income. they have expanded into cloud computing using openstack as well. so its definitely not just a dead fish in the water as this article seems to imply.
for those of you who are unaware, the parliament of zimbabwe too moved some of their desktop users to ubuntu in 2009. you can read about it here:
http://www.ubuntu.org.zw/node/22
Indeed i have a lot to learn about Linux. I think like a number of people here you are rather misinterpreting my central thesis. You mention that Linux has saved a lot of organisations a lot of money in license fees. I think this one of those ‘red herrings’ (pun intended that the Linux fraternity likes to peddle. Yes there is no license fee but that’s not the same as a product being free. If i give you a printer (as some printer promotions go) but you come to me every month to buy ink cartridges then the product is not really free. If Linux was free then Red Hat would not be making a dime
ok, so you do realise that the example you just gave applies to all OS’s right? including microsoft windows? with windows, you still have to pay for the license, as well as for support (when you need it), and dont forget your office application suite license fee as well? unless you choose to go with libreoffice… isnt it?
and you do realise that you can use red hat enterprise linux freely? and that you are ‘free’ to use it (i.e without paying anything to anyone?). you can pay a subscription fee which gives you security updates and support. but thats why centos exists.. at the core level, it is red hat enterprise linux, but with community driven updates and support.
sorry but your argument here is as flawed as your article. good luck to you
Linux Mint is actually a Ubuntu-based distro, without Ubuntu there would be no Linux Mint as we know it. Canonical is doing a pretty good Job at Ubuntu, and as an open source company being profitable is a big win in my book.
I do not foresee Canonical giving up on a profit making venture, neither do i see Linux staying in the fringe. To be fair, most users of Linux have tended to be specialist organisations like Google, Facebook, Craigslist but more and more corporates are running linux servers and desktops in their offices, the distro with the largest number of adherents in Zimbabwe being Ubuntu.
As for the Gnome vs Unity vs KDE argument, it all comes down to taste and functionality required, and cannot be used as an argument against any particular Linux Distribution.
What amazes me is that articles written like this use statistics and information that somehow have been plucked from a Microsoft marketing brochure from 1995. Much has changed since then. Amazingly, Bill Gates himself called Linux a “cancer” and Steve Ballmer called it “our major competitor”, so I fail to see the point of the article. More and more corporate clients are switchin over to Linux and Ubuntu, SUSE and Red Hat seem to be the primary vendors here.
According to the real numbers (Global, US and EU) Linux desktop comprises over 13-15% of all desktops globally – most of them in enterprise – according to Microsoft’s own internal projections. Mac OS X comprises the next 8-9% and finally we have Windows at around 72-74%. Globally the vast majority of Windows installations are pirated so that brings actual numbers to 30% legitimate global usage. As people discover Linux they make the switch from the Windows pirated copies.
The state run media in China encourages the use of Red Flag Linux over Microsoft products. You are unaware of the recent “Tomato Garden” Windows piracy scandal where China imprisoned some students for running a Windows piracy ring. The State Run Media encouraged people to stop pirating Windows and to use the government made Red Flag Linux, so much of the user base will make the switch to Linux because Windows has a bad reputation now. The Chinese government is using Windows as a temporary solution. They still have the mandate that the Government agencies switch entirely to Red Flag Linux within the next few years to avoid using foreign products and many agencies especially defense and intelligence have made the switch. The usage numbers for desktop Linux in China have to be very high and are probably closer to 40%.
This is now beginning to be the case in the United States as well. The Pentagon, CIA and NSA and NASA now use Linux – from Red Hat – on it’s desktops and servers. They have switched from Windows because it did not meet their security requirements. Many other institutions are making the switch, the entire government and school system of Tamil Naidu in India. This switch is happening in Europe as well in many places such as France.
Your article is biased and not based in fact…
Hi paulgrins,
Thank you for your info. Just a few quick points. Indeed this article represents ome of my thoughts about Linux so sure not everything there is common cause. It’s a bit disingenuous though to say that this article is based on a Microsoft marketing brochure from 1995! come now there are a few links in the article and none of them are from Microsoft’s marketing dept. It’s interesting to see your stats or as you call them “real numbers”. If that is the case then my perception that Linux is a fringe OS is clearly wrong. I’m sure you can provide the links indicating the source. I find your China point very interesting. China is the real game changer when it comes to the adoption of a lot of technology products, not just computing products for example electric cars. if as you say they are aggressively adopting Linux then surely it’s a matter of time before the Linux ecosystem will become more pervasive. We’ll see how that develops. Thanks for your input!
see http://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/px09445.pdf
This is M$’s estimate of GNU/Linux usage in 2003.
l quote:
“Even the top five distributions (Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuSE and Debian) cannot offer a big enough user base to attract adequate support.”
If you want to run a data centre which must be up 24/7, you dont use Microsoft. Red Hat used to be the of data centres but Ubuntu have just overtook them, read this:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/shuttleworth-highlights-server-growth-as-ubuntu-overtakes-rhel-on-top-websites/
and if you want to see who rules in cloud computing see this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/11/ubuntu_emulates_amazon/
And who is the king now in mobile phone OS, again its a linux variant, Nokia is learning the hard way by associating itself with Microsoft!
Here is a list on national governments that have adopted Linux, have a look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters
Well, theres hope – Google.
Something like 90% of their desktops are on their own flavor – Goobuntu.
I also heard that even the mighty Intel does a lot of internal linux.
Hmmm . . .
linux should ditch canonical.
It’s kind of odd to claim that corporations would be unable to choose one Linux product out of hundreds in the marketplace, and thus are too afraid to use Linux. Do they have the same problem with pens? Shippers? Telephone service? No, they *pick a vendor* for each product they need. Same with Linux. Choice and competition are *features*, not bugs!
Nor is it true that Ubuntu makes the user choose between Gnome 3 and Unity. Ubuntu uses Unity, period, unless a technically knowledgeable person explicitly chooses something different. And Unity is hardly “proprietary” – go to http://askubuntu.com/questions/28470/how-do-i-build-unity-from-source. Help yourself, it’s GPL-licensed free source code.
Much of the rest of the article is similarly misguided (a polite way to say “dead wrong”). There’s a reason Linux now dominates most computing categories. I suspect the author realizes the desktop will be one of the last bastions to fall, and for some reason is afraid of the inevitable. I just don’t know why.
Hi ricegf
I don’t think there is any contradiction in stating that the fragmentation in the flavours of Linux is a problem. Software is not quite like the other products you mention. A big difference is that is a digital product that relies heavily on network effects. i’m sure you are aware of the classic Betamax vs VHS format war and how VHS won and became the default standard despite technologically being an inferior product. Software is pretty much similar in it’s adoption in that the wider & deeper the ecosystem the more likely it is to be adopted by more users. So if there are more users of Windows in encourages developers and so on to products applications for that platform which in turn drives adoption. This same phenomenon is not applicable to the products you cite i.e pens, shippers etc.
With regards to Gnome 3 and Unity I’ll educate myself further by following your link.
with regards to much of the article being misguided. Well I’m not sure. My central contention is that Linux is a fringe product that is likely to remain that way for a very long time and unlikely to ever gain significant or material market share on the desktop. To be honest I’m not aware of a compelling reason why most consumers home or corporate would switch from Windows to Linux. If you are aware of such a reason please share with us…in the spirit of open source!
Briefly, here are several advantages Linux holds over Windows specifically in the desktop market. I don’t have room for the full list.
* Linux had an app store more than a decade before the iPhone; the Ubuntu Software Center is one of the best. Browse tens of thousands of products, check ratings, read reviews, and install with a single click of the mouse – couldn’t be simpler. Microsoft is copying the concept with the upcoming Windows 8 Store; it remains to be seen how well it will work.
* Ubuntu’s Unity works well on both desktop and mobile platforms. Microsoft is attempting to copy this concept with Windows 8 Metro, but the analyst and enthusiast consensus is that Metro works great on mobile but is virtually unusable on the desktop.
* Linux offers choice. In desktop shells, for example, you can use Unity, or Gnome 3, or KDE, or Cinnamon, or numerous other desktops, either by switching products with your preference pre-installed (Ubuntu, Fedora/Red Hat, OpenSUSE/SUSE, or Mint, respectively), or by merely clicking on a different desktop shell in the repository. With Windows, you get Explorer. And while Microsoft copied Linux’ desktop widgets for Windows 7, they are rare, less flexible, more buggy, and deprecated in Windows 8, for which you get rectangular tiles, period.
* Virtually every Linux product comes with all mainstream capability built-in – instant messaging, browser, office apps, email app, PDF reader / writer, media store, cloud storage / sync, etc. Windows ships with… a browser. That can’t be removed.
* Ubuntu (and other Linux products) are much easier to install than Windows. See my detailed analysis at http://ricegf.posterous.com/installing-your-own-os-whos-easy. Try-before-you-install, fewer screens of data all collected prior to install, no reboots, built-in drivers for virtually every peripheral ever made, and no 40-character strings of random characters to “authenticate” – Linux is the clear winner here.
* Most Linux products have no cost or End User License Agreement, thus they can be freely installed on any machine without legal restraints. I currently run Ubuntu on my primary workstation, and in a VM I run OpenSUSE, Mint, Haiku (not a Linux product), and the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Only one of these required that I agree to a EULA, and only one will disable itself and demand money – care to guess which?
* Linux can do many things that Windows simply can’t. At work, for example, we’re moving several hundred software developers from Windows to Linux specifically because desktop Linux can do “hard real-time”, and thus can almost perfectly emulate the development target. Windows simply can’t. While not a mainstream use case, it’s worth enough to a Fortune 50 company to result in a corporate-level initiative to investigate additional Linux use going forward.
There are other benefits, but my fingers are tired. I’ll mention in passing, though, that calling Linux a “fringe” product is also misleading – it dominates almost every computing category, from supercomputers to servers to smartphones. On the desktop, Ubuntu has more that 20,000,000 users (actually measured by unique IP address connects to the Canonical update server), and Microsoft estimates Linux desktop use as 5% and a greater threat to their cash cow than Mac. Windows makes a LOT more money on the desktop, of course – but that’s not really a benefit to the consumer, hmmm?
Finally, I’d like to clearly address your contention that Linux is fragmented and thus difficult for software developers to support. In fact, most software products designed for Linux work on any mainstream distribution. Of course, virtually all software is available in the repository for that Linux product, even commercial products, so Linux users rarely have to download software from random websites.
But look for example at http://www.openoffice.org/download/other.html – you’ll see a Windows (32-bit) package, a Mac OS/X (64-bit) package, and 2 packages for Linux (in both 32-bit and 64-bit configurations). This covers every single Win, Mac and Linux desktop. Not exactly difficult.
Or try https://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?platform=linux&hl=en. Google provides a (32-bit) download for Windows, a (64-bit) download for Mac, and two downloads for Linux (in 32-bit or 64-bit configurations).
Or try http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html. Mozilla provides a download for Windows, one for Mac, and… one for Linux.
(To be fair, Microsoft has announced that only Internet Explorer will be permitted on Windows 8. But that’s not exactly a benefit to consumers, hmm?)
Again, I could go on. But these are a few of the many reasons why Linux has steadily risen in all computing market sectors, even on the desktop – though more slowly there due to Microsoft’s documented predatory behavior. Whether Linux will reach a double-digit share on the desktop remains to be seen – but given its advantages, and it’s remarkable success everywhere else, I wouldn’t bet against it. 😉
This article is making some really strange assumptions and contains lots of inaccuracies like the fact that Unity is proprietary, bad journalism and a bit of good FUD for Microsoft.
i am using ubuntu 12.10, the latest release… and i must say there have been some adjustments to the previous release, ubuntu 12.04, which i had been using
I recommend the 32-bit version of either 12.04 or the latest 12.10, and enjoy (well, that is if you have internet access for codecs download etc).
How does somebody join the ubuntu community here in Zimbabwe?