Canonical have announced that they will be discontinuing the free CD shipping service Shipit.
Writing on the Canonical blog Ubuntu‘s Gerry Carr said that the company would instead focus on their CD distributor programme and shipping CDs directly to LoCos – Local Ubuntu community teams – instead.
A brief history of Shipit
Shipit distributed Ubuntu CDs free of cost to those who requested them.
Primarily aimed at enabling users with low or non-broadband download speeds, the server shipped millions of CDs worldwide to people who weren’t able to download it themselves and made millions of people, like me, discover Ubuntu.
So, what happens now?
Starting with 11.04, users will no longer be able to order free CDs, but CDs will continue to be provided to approved LoCos through a Shipit-like programme.
CDs will remain available for users to buy from the Canonical store, or, as has always been the case, the option of burning your own for duplication and distribution exists.
Gerry also hinted that Canonical would be launching cloud based free online trial service. This would likely be similar to that already offered by the Edubuntu project.
R.I.P. Shipit, you will be missed dearly.
via Canonical Blog