Sunsetting Ubuntu Friendly

[Ara Pulido]

Hello all,

On October 2011 we launched the beta of Ubuntu Friendly [1], with a
clear goal: being the reference of systems that work well with Ubuntu,
using the community to test their own laptops and desktops and submit
results, using Checkbox [2], a tool that is currently available in
Ubuntu Desktop by default.

The success of the tool has been minimal, looking at usage statistics it
is clear that people still relies a lot more on the certification list
[3] when looking for systems that work well with Ubuntu.

The cost of maintenance of Ubuntu Friendly’s infrastructure is high, and
cannot be justified looking at the current usage of Friendly. We have
decided, therefore, to shut down the service. The service will be down
on the 15th of September, and we have already add a warning message to
the page that will be up until that date.

The raw data Ubuntu Friendly is based on (Launchpad HW DB [4]) will
still be up and running and your data will still be there after shutting
down Ubuntu Friendly.

We have added information with the process to the main UbuntuFriendly
wiki page:

     https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFriendly

Thanks,
Ara.

[1] https://friendly.ubuntu.com/
[2] http://launchpad.net/checkbox
[3] http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/
[4] https://launchpad.net/~<your_lp_id>/+hwdb-submissions