Canonical stops sending out free Ubuntu CDs

LINUX VENDOR Canonical will stop shipping Ubuntu CDs all over the world.

Canonical announced that it will end its Ship It program for Ubuntu that provided users free Ubuntu CDs shipped to their door. Canonical said that it will still give CDs to Ubuntu Local Communities groups for distribution but will not ship CDs itself.

When Canonical launched Ship It back in 2005, it said broadband "was still a marketing promise" and that the lack of high bandwidth connectivity represented a "significant stumbling block to the adoption of new technology like Ubuntu". Now Canonical believes that by focusing on its Local Communities groups, it can streamline the distribution of CDs and it urges anyone who downloads Ubuntu to consider distributing CDs to others.

Canonical had instigated limitations on the number of CDs people could claim in a bid to wean users off the service. However when asked whether Ship It was a unique selling point for Ubuntu and that its takeup would suffer without it, Gerry Carr, director of communications at Canonical told The INQUIRER that he didn't think so.

"I don't think ShipIt has been a significant source of advantage for a while now. We really want to focus our efforts on new adoption methods through the websites and through LoCos [Ubuntu Local Communities]. It is incumbent upon the project to reach new users and different types of users and for them a 10 week wait for a CD to arrive by post would be an unusual adoption method. We are very hopeful of the local communities, especially where broadband is less common, stepping in to provide access to Ubuntu via a piece of media like a CD and we'll do all we can to support that effort."

Canonical has said that the money it saves from not having to ship out CDs to "reach out to the mainstream markets across the world" can be put to better use. It also said that there will be a free online trial of Ubuntu through cloud services targeted at Windows users.

Although it will be sad to see Ubuntu's Ship It service bite the dust, it's clear that the vast majority of people who want to install Ubuntu won't want to wait 10 weeks for a CD to arrive in their mail box. For those that have no choice but to install the latest release of Ubuntu from a CD, their Ubuntu Local Community should be able to deliver speedier service. µ