Thursday, February 19, 2009

Ubuntu's Shuttleworth Opens Up

I received a link to this online PDF from Intel earlier today. It is an interesting read from one of the bigger players in the Linux world, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical Ltd and a general Open Source enthusiast, Entrepreneur and socially and ethically responsible "nice guy". He's also spent a shade under 10 days in space aboard Soyuz TM-34 and the ISS. OK, *now* I'm jealous!!! :)

Mark was one of the developers of the Debian Linux distribution and came back in 2003 (or was it 2004) with the Ubunto distro based on Debian Linux. Ubuntu is *probably* regarded as the most common Linux distro used on Netbooks, notebooks, desktops and servers, maybe just behind Redhat/Fedora. I know we've been using it at a few client sites for a while and it has been stable and reliable, rarely needing a reboot and able to handle its workload with a swift efficiency some other operating systems can only dream of (and some probably even see as being totally unattainable).

Canonical sees Intel's new Atom processor as a serious opportunity to gain market share whilst delivering a product that its end users are asking for - a usable, quick, secure, mobile operating system for use on Atom-based devices. I wonder how Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 will compete in this market space that they are far from winning, especially when a visionary like Mark is also playing in there. Microsoft really misses their visionary.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

No comments: