Mark Shuttleworth, Founder, Canonical and Ubuntu Linux on why he thinks Ubuntu will succeed on the desktop, where other equally famed competitors have failed
Having earned the distinction of becoming the first African to take a flight into space, Mark Shuttleworth undertook a voyage into another unchartered territory. He started the Ubuntu Linux project, with a goal to creating a high-quality desktop and server OS. ‘Ubuntu’—named after an African word which means ‘humanity to others’—has since then become the most popular GNU/Linux distribution. Ubuntu Linux has been positioned as a platform for the masses rather than being confined to the specialists.
Mark Shuttleworth, Founder, Canonical and Ubuntu Linux shared his thoughts with Srikanth RP of InformationWeek India on the increasing significance of open source, the roadmap for the cloud and why he thinks Ubuntu will succeed on the desktop, where other equally famed competitors have failed.
From an era when open source faced a lot of antagonism, now even competitors are opening up their code. How do you see this shift in terms of the future of IT?I have no doubt in my mind that open source represents the future of the software industry. This can be clearly seen from the number of customer engagements involving Linux, and from the backing of huge companies such as IBM and Oracle. Even Microsoft today has backed away from its earlier rigid stance. The driver is clearly the success of open source. Today, end-user companies are skeptical of those companies that suggest that open source does not encourage innovation.
Read the Full Interview at:
http://informationweek.in/Open_Source/10-05-10/%E2%80%98We_positioned_Ubuntu_as_a_version_of_Linux_that_was_personal_and_non-technical%E2%80%99.aspx
