Parity may have a price

Currently Ubuntu is free to all that want it, and if an organisation wishes to have professional support from Canonical they can pay for it. The most recent version of Ubuntu, 12.10, has received criticisms about the introduction of a commercial aspect to the desktop environment. Drawing such attention that Mark Shuttleworth decided to clarify what it is that Ubuntu is trying to achieve.(http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1182) Mark postulates that the users of Ubuntu have made a conscious decision to trust Canonical by installing their software. By doing so the user implies that he trusts that Canonical will not abuse this trust.

Perhaps a more focused approach would bear fruit, such as showing results related to the scopes search query. For instance only showing music results within the music scope. Most Ubuntu users understand that the creation and maintenance of an operating system is a costly affair. Attempts to offset these costs by a business are understandable.

A more radical approach would be to offer Ubuntu for a price that communicates its quality in a store that reaches a wider audience, such as the Amazon store. Apple sells its current operating system Lion for $19.99. Microsoft will charge, approximately, $90 for Windows 8. Ubuntu could offer those who are willing to support directly their growth and expenditure the option to buy a system disk/usb drive at a price that communicates its sophistication, perhaps similar to Apples $19.  Some users may believe that free equates to poorly executed rather than see that Ubuntu has parity with the competition. Putting these commercial offerings within the Amazon store may elect a more positive reaction than putting Amazon within the operating system.