Ubuntu has been getting a lot of hype - but what is the long term
viability of the distrobution?

I am aware that Mark Shuttleworth as donated $10 million to found the
Ubuntu Foundation, a foundation that seeks to extend its support for
three years for desktops, five years for servers.

Then what? Is it going away? What are some predictions?

It's not quit simple to answer it without knowing :

-wich problem solve Unbeto
-why use it

cheers
--
Alexandre Jaquet

It has a long way to gain the distro recognition that Red Hat, SUSE or
Mandriva has. I think it will be used primarly at home with a very
minimal use for servers. It doesn't seem to have the strict security
mindset that FreeBSD does.

Since its launch in October 2004 Ubuntu has demonstrated its ability
to bring Linux on the Desktop by focusing on user experience and ease
of use.

Ubuntu is now first choice Linux for many newcomers and distrowatch
(www.distrowatch.com) ranks it first ahead Mandriva or Suse or Fedora.

Ubuntu is known primarily as a Linux Desktop but new release in
October 2005 has seen the coming out of Ubuntu Server.

What will make Ubuntu last is the vision of its creators, Mark
Shuttleworth and some people from the Debian project. Basically,
Ubuntu use the same open source softwares than the other Linux
distributions but it integrates them with coherency and good marketing
approach. Also the community built around gives a strong identity to
this project.