An interesting interview with Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu can be found at linuxworld australia.
Interview with mark Shuttleworth
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I never knew he was an astronaut. Is there anything this guy hasn’t done?
Something I didn’t find in the interview: How are they going to make money with Ubuntu?
Exactly what I thought when I read the interview. There’s going to come a time that he has to have a plan to turn a buck on this thing.
Basiclly what Mark wants to do with Ubuntu is two things. For money wise, Canonical does offer support, and I do think that they have one or two support contracts (Busnesses). Mark also wants Ubuntu to become self-suffecent, he basiclly only wants to pay only server space and bandwidth costs. But for right now, Ubuntu is just a money pit, a small money pit.
~Alan
The money is where it always is with software: people using the software to run businesses.
I’m still amazed at the number of people who are fixated on the naive idea that software only has value if it is developed solely for sale to third parties. Sales represent a small portion of the funding for all software development. A much greater portion is funded directly by end users.
The Ubuntu website states the following on the home page:
“Canonical’s business model is to provide technical support and professional services related to Ubuntu. Please see Paid support for further information.”
Canonical.
That said, he’s got a ton of money to burn, and if it doesn’t become self-sufficient it might not even matter.
Mark has said he doesn’t care if Ubuntu never turns a profit. It would be nice if it became self-sustaining, but if it doesn’t, he won’t be too troubled.
Basically, he wants to leave his mark on the work and he has chosen Free Software as the means to do it. Nothing wrong with that.
It has crossed my mind that Shuttleworth and Canonical might in the future create a commercial distribution directed at the business and server market. With Ubuntu they have created a great software base upon which they can build practically anything they want. The popularity of Ubuntu would give them a big boost in the right direction.
I do however not believe that Ubuntu will ever become a commercial distribution.
From his Slashdot interview:
“I’d very much like to make the distro project sustainable, because I’ve never had the privilege to work with such talented guys who work as hard as this team, and they deserve to be rewarded and to know that people appreciate the value they add every day. If it doesn’t work utthat way, though, I’m honoured to consider it a gift back to the open source world, which played such a critical role in helping me build Thawte. So I hope it’s commerce, though it may turn out to be philanthropy. Either way, it’s still cheaper than going back to space, or hooking up with fast planes/boats/women, which I supposed would be Plan B.”
Good Interview.
Lets face it, he’s just a decent person who has done well for himself and is giving part of it back! Way to go!
Just curious if he’s self made or is a family inheritance
I think a reason why companys use Windows on the Desktop is that most of their employees know that OS since they have it at home. Canonical might just try a similar way…
And if one want to come up with a new business one usually has to invest lots of money and take a high risk that maybe one never gets the money back. That’s what risk investors do every day. Just look at Google: Investing millions of bucks into a search engine which doesn’t have to sell anything might have looked stupid, but still it paid out. Of course there are also other cases when you never saw your invested money again.
Not sure what you mean by self made. He had a good education and I am sure his parents weren’t poor, but he made his fortune when he sold his security company Thawte. I believe he sold it for a couple hundred million dollars to Verisign.
Thawte could not afford proprietary software from my understanding and used open source tools to develop their technology. They basically worked from his house in Cape Town, South Africa. When he received the money from the sale he gave every employee 1 million rand regardless of their position including the cleaner.
He is very well known in South Africa as a result and his story has served as a national inspiration. He is funding the development of software for administering schools and also helps entrepeneurs if they have a good plan, etc. Basically it seems that he is trying to give back as much as possible. Definitely a role model.
He founded Thawte and sold it to Verisign in 1999. Looks like in the deal he received 4.4 million shares of Verisign. At today’s stock price that’s equal to $118,668,000. If he sold it during the .com boom (which peaked to $300), that would be $1,320,000,000.
I’d say if he played his cards right he can keep giving away those CD’s. He’s definitely a good man with a vision. (And the checkbook don’t hurt).
…but about the actions of this man. He is a good man, and he will be rewarded greatly for his good deeds. If every one of us, rich or poor, gave back to the community like this person did, we’d be lightyears ahead. This is a good time to reflect on the things we have done and how to make it even better.
This seems to be one honest, good man, and a great rolemodel for anyone looking to come up in this industry, or even kids now a days, this a man I can truly respect.
This seems to be one honest, good man, and a great rolemodel for anyone looking to come up in this industry, or even kids now a days, this a man I can truly respect.
I can only say that I 100% agree with you. There should be more people like him!
I like how it Ubuntu looks… and feel that Mark Shuttleworth has gotten a good bunch of good programers and followers…
BUT… how the hell can I connect to the net using dial up connection… how do I even see if the modem works… GNOME feels good an all but can get to fingure how to check the modem… it is a bit of a let down… in KDE is easy but I dont want to use Ubuntu not Kubuntu at the but it migth be me…
How can I check the modem… how do I query the thing?
i like ubuntu
give it a try its something new.
“A”
Not ubuntu specific, but good info on modems anyhow:
http://www.phlak.org/modules/xoopsfaq/index.php?cat_id=2#q12
This isn’t a Ubuntu thing. It’s a Linux thing because of these little evil things called winmodems.
I’m not sure I understand your question…for dial up on Linux an external serial port modem is commonly known as the way to go.
My problem with Ubuntu (and Progeny, for that matter) was getting the connection set up once my modem was recognized. The utility in Gnome is a disaster. I searched on the Ubuntu user forums and found a link to a step by step set of instructions on how to run pppconfig in a terminal and it worked fine. Wish I still had that link to share.
I heard from other astronauts that,
once you’ve seen Earth from space,
your vision of peace and sharing
changes you for your whole life.
Once you’ve seen how small mother
Earth is, you have to do something
to help change it for the better.