A friend of mine clued me in to this item for sale on the Best Buy website today. It is a packaged version of Ubuntu Linux, which is freely available via download over the net. The company putting this out is ValuSoft (a division of respectable game maker, THQ), famous for cheezy ripoffs of real games, and productivity software (I looked through their site, and their ‘Office Suite 2008′ appears to be simply a repackaged OpenOffice install).

Now, before you get on me about people using slower net connections, and having bandwidth caps, or lacking a CD burner, which all are needed to download and burn the freely available CDs, let me clue everyone else into one thing (which is reasonably prominently displayed on the Ubuntu website): Ubuntu will send you, via postal mail, free, a copy of the latest version of Ubuntu Linux via their Ship-It service. That’s right, you heard what I said. They will take the time and money to package up a stamped CD (in a rather attractive cardstock sleeve), a couple of Ubuntu stickers, and send it directly to your home. Free. Gratis. No charge. Absolutely without financial obligation. And also, if you’re a more advanced user with different desktop requirements, you can request CDs of the popular Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Edubuntu CDs through their respective sites.

So, to distill: (K,X,Ed)Ubuntu Linux, free to download, or have CDs shipped direct to your home, being sold by a shady division of a respectable company famous for putting out ripoff and repackaged software, available for the low low price of $19.99 at Best Buy stores everywhere.

If the whole situation weren’t so funny to me, I’d probably be really upset about this. But, as is the case with all things, there are people that will throw their money away, regardless of where they throw it. I can’t really fault ValuSoft that much for wanting to be in one of the places the money may land.