Ubuntu teams up with Yahoo

OPEN SOURCE OUTFIT Canonical has posted an announcement on its mailing list that its Ubuntu Linux default search engine will shift to Yahoo as part of a revenue sharing deal.
Rick Spencer, leader of Canonical's desktop team, announced the Yahooo deal yesterday. The deal is scheduled to take effect in April and means that the FireFox web browser will default to using Yahoo's search engine under Ubuntu.
"I am pursuing this change because Canonical has negotiated a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo and this revenue will help Canonical to provide developers and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and the Ubuntu Platform. This change will help provide these resources as well as continuing to respect our user's default search across Firefox," he wrote.
Spencer continued, "This won't in any way effect the ability of a user to choose and use the search provider of their choice. It's literally two easily discoverable clicks to change this setting, a simple matter of switching to that search provider in the chrome by clicking on the icon and choosing the desired provider."
While the agreement was reached with Yahoo to help Canonical increase revenue it might not be welcomed by the majority of Ubuntu users, many of whom might end up switching to alternate search engines, negating the benefits of the deal.