Mark Shuttleworth Answers Ubuntu Questions Part 1/2

Robbie Ferguson: So we are joined tonight by Mark Shuttleworth and Mark is the founder basically of the Ubuntu-Linux Operating System. Mark, it’s great to have you here on Category5 TV. Mark Shuttleworth: Hey Robbie, how are you? Robbie Ferguson: I’m great Mark, how are you so? Mark Shuttleworth: I’m loving this technology. Robbie Ferguson: Isn’t this great, right? No, we’re using Ubuntu, my friend. So Mark is joining us live from California at the Ubuntu Development Summit and I just want to ask you a couple of brief questions, Mark just to kind to get to know you and get to know a little bit about Linux and you should understand that the purpose of our show is to kind of introduce people to new technologies including Ubuntu-Linux and we have looked at some other distributions in the past as well. But a lot of our viewers are either on the fence or maybe don’t know a whole a lot about Linux so as we’re asking these questions, we’re looking at them kind of from a new user standpoint and those are kind of the way that we like it answered. So, you’re having a good time at the Development Summit down there? Mark Shuttleworth: Yeah, we are being very well taken care of by Google. I’ve got the Google kind of forest right here behind me. Robbie Ferguson: Great. Mark Shuttleworth: We have about 250 people here which is just fantastic. The area is such a bustle always to kind of get together and just a thousand of things to talk about for our next release which would be in the end of fall. Robbie Ferguson: Wonderful. And now, just you personally you’ve been putting your focus on providing this free Linux operating system, right? Why did you go from—I'm just curious here and tell me if I can ask this but why did you go from being a successful entrepreneur to an astronaut of all things and then to offering a free software product? Mark Shuttleworth: Well, I guess for me, my philosophy is that you should always take on the biggest challenge you can find you know. And back in the early 90s, for me the idea of building an electronic come as framework for the internet from Capetown was just totally awesome. As a student, I really want to do that. When that worked our really well, I looked around and said, what’s the most powerful thing I could do and the Russians kind of massively changing this based program. So I said, “why didn’t I did load to Moscow and see if I can convince it to teach me how to be a cosmonaut” Then that worked out and then after that, I looked around and I saw this sort of this coming together of free software, of the internet, of services unions and I thought it just might be possible to build something that’s kind of as powerful and slick and sexy as the Mac. And with economics behind it which allows to get it away. So, maybe just maybe we’ll close it off. Robbie Ferguson: Wonderful. One of the questions that I’ve received a lot of Mark is people wonder if it’s free, who pays for Ubuntu and why did they go about doing it? Mark Shuttleworth: I guess the best answer to that is everybody pays into certain extended on benefits. So, a good example of that is in Intel. Intel found a tremendous amount of work on Linux because they shoot new hardware every couple of months and they want to make sure that they can ship an operating system that of the same day reflects what the hardware can do. And so Linux is perfect for that if they invested Linux then when they ship the hardware, they can put Linux on it and people have software. They can take advantage of that hardware immediately. So in this sense, Intel is making Ubuntu better. They do it for Red Flag. They do it for Red Hat. They do it for everybody but in the sense they’re helping to pay for it. I contribute some. There are a lot of different organization that contributes some in the next effect is something that everybody benefits from. Robbie Ferguson: Wonderful. Mark Shuttleworth: And the business found around it is really services tripping. Robbie Ferguson: I see. So, with the parent company canonical which you found at speaking of services, so you provide corporate level support for the Ubuntu Desktop Linux? Mark Shuttleworth: Sure. If you download Ubuntu and it works for you then that cost me nothing and it’s delightful to have a sort of the passion of user who might help still the preference to make it better. But a larger organization, they well on the support contract. They don’t have to license the product and they still want to support contract and so our business model is we have to operate in that sort of narrow gap where we can fund the continuous development to the platform, offer services to people who want to use it commercially or in an environment where they want support or professional services and then still make it available to everybody for more treat to kind of Bangladesh. Robbie Ferguson: Cool. Now, I’m not really looking for a dictionary definition per se Mark but what is the word Ubuntu mean to you and why did you choose to go with the word Ubuntu as the name of your desktop Linux operating system? Mark Shuttleworth: It has a very special meaning. It means the essence of being a person in particularly the idea that relationship between people and what is really important. And for South Africans, I’m a South African. For South Africans, it kind of represents the triumph of bringing people together, to bring their best talent together for everybody’s benefit and so it just seems like a wonderful word to use for the name of the project. Robbie Ferguson: Very cool. Carrie, are there any questions coming in the chat room at all? People who are wanting to ask anything specific to Mark? Carrie Webb: No, but if you do have a question, definitely type it in the chat room. There is one user who said that they wrote a college paper on you Mark so that’s kind of exciting. Mark Shuttleworth: I hope they got a good grade. Carrie Webb: Yeah. I have a question. I know you mentioned that it’s a free software and people get passionate about it. How can the users become a part of the Ubuntu community? I know that you have a team of developers, that’s right. You’re at the Developers Conference. How can users get involved in that? Mark Shuttleworth: Well, so we have people from all over the world that helped produce Ubuntu that they participated in almost every level. So we have guys who show up and they want to make it sort of run faster on their hardware and says guys who show up and want to make sure that there are basic introductory documents that explained how to use it in sort of Tamil-Hindi so that people from their community can learn it and understand it. And if you go to Ubuntu.com, there are a bunch of links around the community and around participation in the community. Those are a great place to start. Depending on what people’s interests are we can always accommodate and embrace new talent and new ideas. We have guys who work on advocacy on marketing, people who help produce the software itself. |There’s just a huge range of ways to participate. I think if you put your arms around the whole community, you’d have tens of thousands of people when you’re embraced. Yeah, it’s huge it’s really quite incredible. Robbie Ferguson: Now, it’s just backing up just a little bit Mark, just thinking of those users who don’t necessarily know what Ubuntu is or even what Linux is, how does Ubuntu kind of stand apart or stand and what makes it different from other Linux distributions or other operating systems? Mark Shuttleworth: Well, I guess the first thing to say is that the fact that there are multiple in this operating systems is one of the wonderful things right of free software and each of those differences and testing to recommend it. So if one timed, it’s worth checking on a couple of them rather than just one. And the things we strive for in Ubuntu are easy to use and making it really easy for any user to get it installed, to have access to the low hanging fruit you know and easy on RAM too, where easy access to web browsers, email, basic office applications and so on. So, we also strive to make it robust and secure and reliable for power users. But fundamentally, the focus is the next for human beings. right? Robbie Ferguson: Right. And speaking of like just kind of the focus of how you program the software like you’ve got the server operating system, you’ve got the desktop operating system and you also put a lot of work in with Intrepid with making it work on portable laptops and things like that. Very small laptops like the EPC. Are you keeping on with that direction with having kind of free bases for Ubuntu? Mark Shuttleworth: Yeah. At least that maybe and what I’ve also like to have is a sort of small handheld device version as well because it seems to me that we’re moving to a world where you’re dated. Your experience of technology is increasingly out there in the cloud and you want to be able to access that from a device in your pocket or from a laptop or from your desktop at home and have access to the same data used in the same way. So, if we’re able to provide people with that common platform, then in the future that will be a wonderful thing. Robbie Ferguson: Yeah.