Weekly Wire meets Mark Shuttleworth at OSBC (video)
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| Last week Weekly Wire sent Roblimo to San Francisco for the Open Source
| Business Conference (OSBC). While there, he had a chance to talk briefly with
| Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth even though Mark was getting full "rock
| star" treatment from an adoring crowd and was totally mobbed by press and
| fans whenever he showed his face.
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http://www.linux.com/feature/131345
Related:
A conversation with Mark Shuttleworth over fine food and fine football
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| Microsoft's patent game is designed to force open source to compete
| on its terms. Mark made a hugely salient point on this: Microsoft has
| been a disruptive force in the software industry by building complex
| software and essentially giving it away for peanuts.
|
| In turn, it is being challenged by open source, which is free.
| The difference, as Mark said, between $0.00 and $0.01 is huge. And
| that difference is not flattering to Microsoft, even despite its lower
| price points than its fellow proprietary competitors.
|
| But if Microsoft can place a patent tax on all open source software
| or, at least, the open source software most threatening to its
| business, then it provides an effective way to inhibit open source
| disruption. (See above: this applies most forcefully when an open
| source vendor goes 100% open source and, hence, 100% disruptive.
| "Free" is the best tool to pound Microsoft with, not "mostly free.")
| Take "free" away from open source, and you remove some of its allure,
| and much of the distribution benefits it has.
|
| In other words, Microsoft's patent tax is not designed to protect
| its intellectual property, but rather to protect its preferred,
| comfortable way of doing business. Novell was its dupe in this
| charade. Hopefully, others won't follow suit, and Novell will
| pull out of the agreement. There is no way that this patent
| agreement is good for anyone; it is only good for protecting
| 20th Century software business models.
`----
http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/04/a_conversation.html
Ubuntu Founder Mark Shuttleworth on Productivity and Linux
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| Lifehacker: Please describe your personal productivity system. What version
| of Ubuntu are you using and what applications are part of your daily routine?
|
| Mark Shuttleworth: I am running Gutsy, which is the current development
| version that will be released in October, and I use Thunderbird heavily. For
| me it's a better email system then Evolution. Since I travel so often, I use
| it in online/offline mode so I always have access to critical email. I do
| quite a bit of work offline, on trains and planes and when I don't have
| Internet access. I'm really looking forward to WiMAX so I can be connected
| more of the time when I'm on the road.
`----
http://lifehacker.com/software/exclusive-lifehacker-interview/ubuntu-founder-mark-shuttleworth-on-productivity-and-linux-294941.php
http://tinyurl.com/288xp3
Ubuntu Backer Is One Lucky Guy
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| VeriSign bought Shuttleworth's Thawte, and he went on to found a venture
| capital firm and the Shuttleworth Foundation, which aims to give schools
| low-cost Linux-based computer labs. That prompted him to put $10 million into
| Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, one of the few Linux distributions
| focused on ease of use. "Linux doesn't need to be something that's arcane and
| difficult to use," he says.
`----
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204803059
Shuttleworth: Microsoft Fracturing the Open-Source Community
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| "That's extortion and we should call it what it is," he said. "To say, as
| [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer did, that there is undisclosed balance sheet
| liability, that's just extortion and we should refuse to get drawn into that
| game. On the other side, if Microsoft is concerned about its intellectual
| property, there is no one in the free software community that wants to
| violate anyone's IP. Disclose the patents and we'll fix the code.
| Alternatively, move on."
|
| Microsoft has said it does disclose which patents are being violated, but
| only in one-on-one conversations with vendors. To Shuttleworth, that is not
| disclosure, because patents are public documents.
`----
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2167193,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000616
[Mark Shuttleworth Interview]
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| Microsoft is asking people to pay them for patents, but they won't
| say which ones. If a guy walks into a shop and says: "It's an
| unsafe neighbourhood, why don't you pay me 20 bucks and I'll make
| sure you're okay," that's illegal. It's racketeering. What Microsoft
| is doing with intellectual property is exactly the same. It's a great
| company and I have great admiration for it, but this was not a
| well considered position.
|
| So you wouldn't do a deal?
|
| No, absolutely not. But the time will come when the folks at
| Microsoft who have a clear vision for the company as a participant
| in this community, rather than as a hostile antagonist, will win.
`----
http://mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=6672
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